About Me

J.J. Hamilton

Hey there. My name is Josh Hamilton – or as my students know me, Mr. Hamilton. I’m a teacher of History in Birmingham. I graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2018 with a 2:1 in English and History (BA), Hons., and left the same university in 2020 with a merit in the PGDipEd.

When I’m not in the classroom, I’m behind a keyboard, writing. I write about all sorts, from short stories to poetry and novels. Other times I’m in the gym or practicing Taekwondo. But it’s not all go in my life; I like to settle down with a good book or video game, or a Marvel movie every now and then.

On this blog, I specialise in Education, Productivity and personal development, so if you’re interested in any of those, you should absolutely consider giving my posts a read.

Josh Hamilton, owner of the Hardly Hamilton blog.

What I’m in to

  1. I’ve been practicing Taekwondo for most of my life (2008-present) and have a second-degree black belt in the martial art. I plan to open a class of my own one day.
  2. Standing in front of an audience and teaching keeps the lights on and it’s also a personal passion. I just love talking about History. In fact, I stayed up until gone 3AM with a friend I was living with in my Second Year of university after getting onto the topic of ‘why do nations exist?’ We blog about that over on our History blog, linked below.
  3. I’m usually victimised by cabin fever, which is why I stay as active as possible. To get out of the house, I’m a huge fan of lifting heavy things at the gym. Currently, I’m aiming for more muscle mass.

A writing deskWhere to find me

  1. Right here! Hardly Hamilton is active every week, with new posts usually on Fridays.
  2. Our Velvet Revolution is home to any Historical/Social/Political essay-style work that I and my friend, Niamh Coffey (PhD student!), update as regularly as we can. I aim to post there once a month, depending on when inspiration strikes.
  3. Up until the Covid-19 pandemic, I wrote as a freelancer for BorroClub, a website that allows you to lend and borrow your items instead of buying new. I also managed the social media channels.
  4. Until the company shut down, I wrote for Campus Society, a social media site for students, from mid-2017 to late-2019.
  5. I also had an internship with Gorilla Socks, where I interviewed primatologists. My short stint there was incredibly insightful into the process of conducting a solid interview.
  6. While at University, I did the typical wannabe-journo thing of writing for the student newspaper, Redbrick News, where I conducted investigations, worked as part of a team and under NDAs.

So, what I’m saying for items 1-6, is that if you need a freelance writer who knows his way around social media channels and a blog post, then I should really be your first choice.

  1. My LinkedIn, for any employers who have stumbled across my website.
  2. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, to stay tuned-in to my ramblings.

I’m in this for the long-haul, so I hope you stick around, too!