Harry Richards

I have been working for the University of Portsmouth since January 2017, although I am based at RAF College Cranwell. I am currently employed as a teaching fellow in the history of war and military aviation, where I specifically focus on the period 1914-1945. 

My research focuses on the history of intelligence during the First World War, with a particular interest in the cultural significance of espionage. My broad research interests include:

• Espionage
• The First World War
• Collective fears and phobias
• Xenophobia and anti-alienism 
• The social and cultural history of warfare

I am currently working to prepare my PhD thesis that examined spy fears during 1914-1915 for publication.

I previously taught at Keele University as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. I delivered introductory modules on modern history and historiographical debates, as well as more specific ones that looked at the First World War. Prior to my PhD research at Keele I studied for an MA in the History of Warfare at King's College. My MA dissertation was later published in 2017 in Intelligence and National Security.

I teach classes on the early use of Airpower in the First World War, the interwar period and the development of Airpower theories in the UK and US, and the Bomber Offensives carried out in the Second World War.

I have two projects that I am currently working on.

• Spy Fever during the First World War

This research aims to expand on my PhD research and prepare my thesis for publication. It looks at how popular fears of German espionage were generated, perpetuated, and experienced by British society at war.

• Herbert Seabury Hunt Ashmead-Bartlett diaries.

Ashmead-Bartlett worked as an intelligence officer on the home front during the First World War. He fought in France, witnessed the Easter Rising, and worked to defend Britain against the Zeppelin threat. His wartime diaries are therefore a very interesting and valuable source. I am currently working with a colleague to publish an edited version of these incredible sources.