Thanks to the generous funding of the Wellcome Trust, through the Society for the Social History of Medicine, in 2025-26 the MWHN will run a three-part series of events. Two fo these will be in-person and one will be online via Zoom. Entitled the ‘The Military Communities’ Medical Welfare and Care History Conference Series‘, this series will comprise three accessible hybrid network events, which will take place in the UK over the course of the twenty-four months of the award. All of which will focus on the burgeoning field of military welfare history; defined as the welfare, care and medical provisions afforded to service personnel, their families and other dependents.
EVENT #3
The Spring 2026 Military Welfare History Network Symposium
With thanks to the UCD Centre for War Studies (Ireland), the third event will take place via Zoom in the Spring of 2026. Please see the call for papers below. Deadline for submissions Sunday 11 Janurary 2026. Full details below.
Event Programme
EVENT #2
The Autumn 2025 Military Welfare History Network Symposium
Despite the organisers best efforts to bring this conference series to other parts of the UK, the second of these events also took place at the wonderful University of Birmingham on 6-7 November 2025.
It took the subject of ‘trauma and moral injury’ as its core theme and invited scholars to provide insights into personal, collective, national and transnational approaches to war-related trauma and emotional and psychological wounding, relative to any conflict, country or period. The event was open to social, cultural, political, medical, memorial and emotional studies of these issues to enhance our understanding of this sensitive area.
Event Programme
EVENT #1
The first of these took place on 10-11 April 2025.
Taking the First World War era as a case study, this event looked at the welfare, care and medical provisions afforded to service personnel, their families and other dependents – military welfare – before, during and after the conflict. In doing so, it both built upon and brought together the plethora of research produced by scholars around the globe on topics such as army doctors and nurses; medical transportation, technologies and infrastructures; state benefits; charity; pensions; rehabilitation and care; trauma and memory; migration; and gendered dimensions to military welfare.
Event Programme
Military Welfare History Network 