This commentary article explores some of the problems encountered by independent scholars seeking to get their work published in peer-reviewed journals and in particular the difficulties they face in accessing online resources. Though often hidden, these issues are nevertheless very real for aspiring historians and those who have returned late to the historical fold. The article acknowledges the efforts of a number of journals to encourage different voices, but highlights how the limitations of current licensing and Open Access arrangements hinders this ambition.

The range of digital sources available to historians has expanded at an enormous rate over the last fifty years; this has enabled all kinds of innovative scholarship to flourish. However, this process has also shaped recent historical work in ways that have not been fully discussed or documented. This article considers how we might reconcile the digitisation of archival sources with their materiality, with a particular focus on the probate records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). The article first considers the variety of digital sources available to historians of the United Kingdom, highlighting the particular influence of genealogical companies in shaping what material is available, how it has been digitised and how those sources are accessed. Secondly, we examine the PCC wills’ digitisation, what was gained and what was lost in that process, notably important material aspects of the wills. This article does not seek to champion archival research in opposition to digitally based scholarship; instead, we remind historians of the many ways in which the creation of sources shape their potential use, and call on historians to push for improvements in the United Kingdom’s digital infrastructure to avoid these problems in future.

This article explores the potential for the greater infusion of well-being concerns into the teaching of history in UK HEIs. Drawing upon results from a survey of over 100 current undergraduates in one UK History department, alongside a scoping study of well-being provision provided by history departments or their equivalent in about ninety UK HEIs, this article considers ways in which well-being can be promoted through the teaching and learning strategies of historians. The article discusses the meaning of the term ‘well-being’ and asks why historians have sometimes been reluctant participants in the ‘eudaemonic turn’. The negativity bias of history as an endeavour, and the potential for understanding the past to enhance or diminish an individual's sense of well-being is discussed, as is the value of historicising the concept of well-being itself. The case for integrating well-being as a key element in the degree-level study of history is made, and the article concludes by urging all HEI history practitioners to consider the value of curricular infusion and mapping the design and delivery of their modules onto the New Economics Foundation's ‘five ways to well-being’.

Recent years have seen a vast expansion of scholarly interest in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Black British histories, and increasing calls to support the work of early-career scholars (ECRs) in this field. Yet ECRs continue to face several specific challenges in conducting this crucial research. This section consists of a brief introduction and two case studies based on the research and experiences of Ph.D. students Annabelle Gilmore and Montaz Marché. Gilmore aims to amplify the connections between the lives and labour of enslaved people on plantations in Jamaica and the wealth and art collection of William Thomas Beckford, now held at Charlecote Park, from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. Marché seeks to trace the presence of Black women in eighteenth-century London, drawing on archival documents that provide traces of who these women may have been, and confronting the limitations of the traditional archive. Together, these pieces offer a glimpse into how these ECRs are positioning themselves within the historiography as well as considering how they hope to contribute to the field.