Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past
Tower House: The home of Northern Command
Posted on 14 October 2021
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Joseph Keeley with MA Building Conservation students, Etta Kirkpatrick-Tice, and Tom Hart, in front of Tower House (credit: Duncan Marks)
Joseph Keeley, BA History
I joined a team of MA in Building Conservation students who were investigating the history of Tower House, the once Headquarters of Northern Command, now the Tower House Business Centre. A collection of 43 portraits of the Commanders-in-Chief of Northern Command were being transferred to the City of York to be displayed in Tower House for the project. My role on was to research the people displayed in each of the 43 portraits, with the intention of producing a selection of short writeups on a handful of the individuals to accompany the display.
Portraits of former army generals at Tower House (credit: The York Press 2021)
The Kohima Museum kindly provided me with a full list of all 43 commanders, including their ranks and service medal, as well as links to their Wikipedia biographies. After liaising with Prof Simon Ditchfield from the Department of History at York, I chose to use these sources as my starting point before moving on to more in-depth research. I spent a couple of days combing through the wiki pages, producing a short bio for each commander, and noting down any interesting facts or details. From this initial scoping exercise, I was able to produce write ups for around half the number of individuals in the portraits. I proceeded with more detailed research, and made good use of the resources available through the University Library including encyclopaedias of biographies and newspapers. From this further investigation, the final six figures were concluded upon: General Sir Harry Smith, Brigadier General Edward Browne, Lieutenant General Sir Herbert Plumer, General Sir John Maxwell, Lieutenant General Sir Ronald Adam, and General Sir Montagu Stopford.
Tower House, Fishergate, c.1900 (credit: from the collection of YCT member Prof. Gavin H)
I found the whole experience extremely rewarding. It was so exciting to be able to conduct research for a public project – especially because I knew that my work would help to inform others on this intriguing history of Northern Command. Being offered and completing this placement confirmed to me that working in public history and heritage is most certainly a career trajectory that I want to pursue following my degree. The practical research and editing skills that I developed over my placement will set me in good stead to further progress in the discipline.As part of the placement, I was invited to look around Tower House – and importantly to see the portraits for the first time –with the MA students, Duncan Marks from the Civic trust who had been coordinating the project, and Prof Ditchfield. This was a fantastic opportunity to explore an overlooked historic building in York and for the group to share their findings with one another. It was particularly interesting to hear about the building’s history, ranging from the ancient use of the site as a Roman burial ground up to stories of a secret military tunnel. It was very rewarding to share my findings to my fellow researchers, which quickly helped to solidify my confidence in the work I was producing. Following the visit, and with the help of Duncan Marks, I edited my research into short and manageable paragraphs on each of the chosen figures to be used alongside the MA students’ research on the building itself. Finally, I produced a short piece on my findings and their significance to be used in the press release on the project. The outcomes of the research project can be found on the York Civic Trust website.
I would like to thank Dr Victoria Hoyle for offering me this wonderful opportunity, and to Prof Simon Ditchfield and Duncan Marks for the help and guidance they offered throughout the placement.