About Historically Manx
This site originated as a digital reference companion for my first book, Coordinate Dominion: Bound and Blinded by Bureaucracy, an academic monograph on the constitutional history of the Isle of Man. But as my research continued the site grew, and by the time I had researched for my next two books — Ruling Mann: The Cost of a Kingdom and the People Who Paid It and The Price of Allegiance: Loyalty, Treason, and Two Executions in the Civil Wars — it had outgrown being simply a digital reference. It now offers the chance to explore and present a much broader range of Manx history than any single book could contain.
The deeper I went into the archives, the more I realised I wanted to build a platform that would make our Island’s history more accessible to everyone. It needed to maintain rigorous research standards, but it also needed to find a way to open up the amazing stories from our past to anyone, young or old.
The site now holds over 2,900 records — people, places, events, laws, folklore, traditions, language, emigration, military history — all cross-linked with thousands of connections between them. There is a bespoke Manx-English translation tool. There are educational resources for use in and out of school. The books feed the site, but the site has long since grown into a resource in its own right, and it will continue to grow.
The site is built on Omeka S, a scholarly platform developed by George Mason University for presenting historical material in a way that is both rigorous and accessible. It has been built from scratch, with the goal of turning archival material into something understandable and explorable. The academic rigour is there, but I’ve tried to make it more friendly than a cold encyclopedia, with a level of interconnectivity that lets you follow whatever interests you. I hope you enjoy it.
Steve
What this site is trying to do
The Isle of Man already has outstanding heritage resources. Culture Vannin works tirelessly to maintain and promote Manx culture — the language, the music, the traditions that make this island distinct. Manx National Heritage cares for everything from objects and archives to ancient monuments, buildings, landscapes, and collections, and provides searchable access to newspapers, photographs, and museum collections through iMuseum. Both are invaluable, and between them they serve researchers, learners, and Manx speakers in ways this site does not try to replicate.
What this site tries to do differently is bring the whole narrative together in one place. Every record — whether it is a person, a place, an event, or a tradition — tells its own story in full, and links seamlessly to everything around it so you can understand the context. Follow a person to the places they lived, the laws they shaped, the books that describe them, the primary sources that document them. The connections are already made. And where other resources can take you deeper — an archive, a language resource, a museum collection — the links are there too.
The ambition is to be the front door to Manx history: the place where someone who knows nothing about the Isle of Man can arrive, start exploring, and think, “I had no idea this happened — and there’s so much more here.” The more this resource can work alongside what Culture Vannin, Manx National Heritage, and the wider Manx heritage community are already doing, the better it will serve the island.
Where it is going
The site launched with the material gathered during several years of research for Ruling Mann — over two thousand primary sources and three thousand linked records. But it is only the beginning. A second book, The Price of Allegiance: Loyalty, Treason, and Two Executions in the Civil Wars, is now in progress, telling the parallel stories of James Stanley, seventh Earl of Derby, and William Christian — Illiam Dhone — whose lives both ended at Hango Hill in the seventeenth century. As that research develops, it will feed into the site alongside everything that came before it.
A project is underway to transcribe the Bridge House Papers — the letter books and business records held by Manx National Heritage — which will open up a rich seam of eighteenth-century Manx commercial and social history. Further transcription projects will follow as resources allow.
The Education and Activities section will grow to include teaching resources for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3, family activities, and materials for home educators — because this story should have been taught all along.
The long-term goal is to work in partnership with Culture Vannin, Manx National Heritage, and other Manx institutions to bring this history to life in a way that is approachable, well-sourced, and genuinely useful — to researchers, to teachers, to visitors, and to Manx people who want to understand the story of their own island.
About the author
My name is Steve Babb. I grew up in Laxey and live in Onchan with my wife and children. My family has been on the island for generations — my grandmother was Freda Newby, and the Newby family ran Newby’s newsagents on Ballaquayle Road in Douglas — my father sold the business on retirement but the Newby name stayed. We had been living in the UK, but we moved back for our children to be born and grow up here. Some things matter enough to come home for.
I have ADHD and anxiety disorders. I mention this because I am neurodivergent and I want to inspire anyone who thinks a project like this is beyond them. In building this site I have learned a great deal about my own neurocapacity — not how to work around it or accommodate it, but how to accept it and find patterns and techniques that fit with the way my brain actually works. If this project encourages one other person to do the same, that matters to me.
I was hired for a period as photographer for the Office of Tynwald on Tynwald Day, the world’s oldest continuously sitting parliament, which gave me first-hand familiarity with the constitutional system this project describes — not as historical text, but as a working institution. Before that, my career spanned twenty years in business consultancy across government, utilities, and financial services.
For the past decade I have worked in education, both in teaching and in designing and delivering resources in partnership with schools, colleges, and universities on the island and in the UK.
I also run my own media company and have worked with local newspapers, radio stations, BBC, and ITV. I am a former deputy chair of the Isle of Man branch of the Royal Television Society, a former local politician, and served as transition manager of Kensington Arts for the Isle of Man Arts Council. I maintain close ties with Manx LitFest, Manx National Heritage, Culture Vannin, and the Office of Tynwald.
Beyond this site and Ruling Mann, I have written an academic monograph — Coordinate Dominion — on British constitutional history in the long eighteenth century, which is currently under peer review at Liverpool University Press.