Posted: Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Edward Bujak, associate professor of history at Harlaxton College will give two lectures on UE’s campus on Thursday, October 15. The lectures will be at 4:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m., in Room 100 (Vectren Lecture Hall) in Koch Center for Engineering and Science. The topic of the first lecture will be “Harlaxton’s First Global Citizens: The Officers and Gentlemen of the Royal Flying Corps,” and the second will be “Life in the Grand Manor: 150 Years of Study Abroad.” Both lectures are free and open to the public, and are sponsored by the Harlaxton Society and UE’s Department of History.

Bujak is the author of Reckless Fellows: The Gentlemen of the Royal Flying Corps, which explores the pilot-training program at RAF Harlaxton in World War I. Bujak will be signing this book at 2:30 p.m., October 15, in the University Bookstore.

The Royal Flying Corps played a vital role in reconnaissance during that war.  Bujak’s book combines the history of the air war with social and cultural history. The RFC was originally dominated by the landed elite. Harlaxton Manor, seat of landed gentry, became their major training base. Between 1916 and 1918, it was at the forefront of RFC training. Bujak’s book details how, within the circle of the RFC, Edwardian Britain’s class divide disappeared, due to common purpose, technical expertise and an influx of airmen from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The RFC expanded into an imperial air-service with pilots from across the Empire arriving in rural England for their training.

Bujak earned his BA, MA and PhD from the University of East Anglia. He joined Harlaxton College in 2001. Formerly chair of its British Studies program, he is currently chair of the Harlaxton College Faculty Council. He also teaches a British Studies course and courses on modern Britain, the British Empire, and the World Wars. In 2006, Bujak received UE’s Outstanding Teacher Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Arts, and the Higher Education Academy.

In addition to his book on the pilot-training program at RAF Harlaxton in World War I, Bujak is also the author of England’s Rural Realms: Landholding and the Agricultural Revolution. His next book, English Landed Society in the Great War, is due to be published in 2017.

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