About

After completing my BA in History with African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex (1985-1988), I qualified as a secondary teacher of history and R.E. My first 'proper job' was at the Development Education Centre (South Yorkshire), where I developed The Empire in South Yorkshire, a history resource for the Secondary curriculum (Key Stages 2 and 3). This resource explores the global and imperial dimensions of local history.

During this project, I became familiar with a collection of historical documents in Sheffield Archives and Local Studies Library that captured my imagination and led to a part-time MA in History at Sheffield Hallam University (1990-1993) and then a PhD at the University of York (1993-1997). My research focused on encounters between early nineteenth-century British reformers and missionaries and the people on the receiving end of their ‘civilising mission’, both in Britain and overseas in the South Pacific, West Africa and the Caribbean. I joined Sheffield Hallam University as a full-time member of staff in 1998, having previously held lecturing posts at the University of Humberside and the University of Nottingham.

I believe that academics should be engaged with the places in which our universities are rooted. I have presented on aspects of my research at Heritage Open Days, Off the Shelf Festival of Words, International Women's Day events etc. and have a particular commitment to uncovering some of Sheffield's more hidden histories. For example, I have co-written a school history resource inspired by anti-slavery activist Olaudah Equiano's visit to the town in 1790, developed the Edward Carpenter History Walk and supported community campaigns for the commemoration of Carpenter and abolitionist Mary-Anne Rawson. I also run modules in which students produce public history. From a pedagogical perspective, I am interested in the relationship between academic, public and creative histories and the role of the latter in
inspiring student engagement and understanding of the value of historical knowledge and historical thinking in relation to present-day concerns. I was awarded a prestigious HEA National Teaching Fellowship in 2015 for my work in the development of community-facing history teaching in HE.

C19th religious cultures, social reform and imperialism/transnationalism; the British missionary and anti-slavery movements; the intersection of local and global history; C19th and C20th gender history and the history of sexuality; Edward Carpenter's circle; community history and heritage; history teaching and learning; creative history and the applications of history and the humanities in the wider world.

Teaching

Department of Humanities

College of Social Sciences and Arts

History

BA Honours History
BA Honours English and History

Making History: Sex and Gender in the Archive (Level 4)

Applied History: Work and Community (Level 5)

History in Practice (Level 5)

Community History (Level 6)

Northern Soul: Representations of the North of England, 1800-2000 (Level 6)

Twentieth Century Women (Level 6)

Research

• Humanities Research Centre

My current academic research focuses on the following areas: sex and gender in WW2 letters and pocket diaries; Edward Carpenter's Sheffield; and ‘creative history’ and the applications of history and the humanities in the wider world.

Sex and gender in WW2 letters and pocket diaries: This project stems from the serendipitous gift of a suitcase of seventy-one pocket diaries from my great aunt, Norah Hodgkinson (1925-2009), who began writing a daily diary as a twelve-year-old scholarship girl in 1938. Norah's diaries raise questions about ways of reading the brief and disjoined entries in a pocket diary, and whether such diaries give us access to the inner lives of people usually absent from the historical record -- in this case, a young working-class woman. They also reveal an intriguing story of romance and deception during WW2.

’Creative history’: I knew from the outset on inheriting my aunt’s diaries that I wanted to write for a wider audience and I completed the MA Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University to this end. I have a special interest in the field of ‘creative histories’, i.e. histories that are made in imaginative ways and presented in formats other than the academic monograph.

Edward Carpenter's Sheffield: I have written about the process of developing the Edward Carpenter walk and issues concerning the categorisation of C19th sexualities in relation to LGBTQ public history. I am particularly interested in the ‘global’ Carpenter: his travels in India and Sri Lanka and the connections between his life of activism in late C19th/early C20th Sheffield and his friendships with writers such as Walt Whitman and Olive Schreiner.

The applications of history and the humanities in the wider world: I am currently working on an inter-disciplinary project with Professor Julia Hirst at SHU and Gertie Whitfield, creative historian and former PSHE Advisor, in the development of a suite of resources which use historical sources to teach the Relationships and Sex Education curriculum in schools. I am also engaged in a collaborative project with teachers and educators to further develop and make more widely available research on the theme of The Empire in South Yorkshire/decolonising local and regional history.

Publications

Postgraduate supervision

Rachael Richardson, 'Business enterprise, consumer culture and civic engagement, 1890s-1930s: Sheffield entrepreneur, John Graves'.

Gordon Haigh, 'Dissenting Missionaries and the Campaign against British Colonial Slavery, 1823-38'.

Anne Mallery, Crossing the Line: Women and the Railway Mission, 1881-1918 (2018).