Join us for the return of our popular local history course, run over ten sessions and with access to original documents, this is an ideal introduction for anyone wanting to develop their skills or knowledge.

Dates: Sessions run weekly on Tuesday evenings (6.30-8.30pm) at the Staffordshire History Centre. Session dates are Weeks 1 to 3 from Tuesday 6 May to Tuesday 20 May, and Weeks 4 to 10 from Tuesday 3 June to Tuesday 15 July.

Cost: £100 for ten sessions – payment can be made online or in person.

This course covers modern history – a full session list will be provided.

The course is run in partnership between Staffordshire Archives & Heritage and the Keele University Centre for Local History and Heritage.

To book a place or for more information please email [email protected]

Course Overview

We live in an age of information, in which the materials and resources needed to explore local histories have never been so accessible. Yet many people are unaware of the riches that lie close to their fingertips, in local archives and online, or lack the confidence to make use of them. This course is intended to promote an awareness of the available sources and teach the skills needed to study them.

The course covers over three hundred years of history, from the later seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries (a period that can be described as the long revolution of modernity). Across this span of time, different kinds of source material offer us opportunities to explore the lives of those who came before us in varied localities across England. Through these sources, we can try to understand their everyday worlds and the cultural conditions that shaped their lives. We will examine urban and industrial lives, the creation of new forms of community and infrastructure, and an increasing diversity of religious expression.

Each weekly session will comprise an introductory lecture followed by a primary source workshop. We will look at various examples of sources held in the Staffordshire Archives and discuss the ways they can be used to produce local histories. The course will inspire a new confidence in the use of historic material, the planning of local history projects and the creation of new perspectives on the past.

Couse Guide:

Knowing Where You Stand: An Introduction to Local History

The Long Revolution of Modernity: 18^th–20^th Centuries

Indicative Outline

Transformations in the Rural Landscape (C17-C19)

We begin with important transformations in the historic landscape, that would shape local society over subsequent centuries. The period witnessed significant amounts of enclosure in the countryside, now reinforced by parliamentary act. Historians claim that an ‘agricultural revolution’ occurred.

Urban Lives: Societies and Networks (C18)

Towns expanded in the 18^th century as population grew, and trade increased along with the communications routes to facilitate it. This session will look at the growth of new forms of urban community and the development of new urban spaces such as the leisure town.

Workhouses and the Poor Law (C18-C20)

Workhouses emerged under the Old Law Poor, but became central to the organisation of the New Poor Law from the 1830s onwards. This session will explore these developments, including the lives of those who inhabited the workhouses as both inmates and staff.

Modern Landscapes 1 (C19-20): Extraction, Industry and Movement

The modern period is associated with the Industrial Revolution in many people’s minds, but was this transformation, and how did it actually affect people’s lives? This session takes a look at two important centres of this revolution in Staffordshire – the Black Country and the Potteries – as well as the roads, canals and railways that were built to connect them to the rest of the country.

–HALF TERM BREAK–

Individual Lives: People and Institutions (C19-20)

The 19^th and 20^th centuries witnessed a significant increase in the intensity of national government at more local levels of society. The Reform Act of 1832 was followed by others over succeeding decades that gave increasing numbers of people a stake in national government, while centrally directed institutions became more involved in local government through, for example, Boards of Health and Rural and Urban District Councils. Meanwhile, the national population becomes visible for the first time in the census returns compiled every decade from 1841.

Religion/s ­(C18-20)

From the 18^th century new forms of dissenting religion (particularly Methodism) emerged alongside the early protestant groups of the 16^th and 17^th centuries to create a far more varied religious landscape. Meanwhile, restrictions around Catholicism were loosened in the 19^th century and groups practising non-Christian religions became more socially visible in the 20^th century. In 1851 an unparalleled religious census provided fine-grained view of religious life across the country.

Modern Landscapes 2 (C19-20): The Warfare State

Military installations had long formed important elements within the English landscape, but the 18^th and 19^th centuries witnessed an increasing variety and number, such as militia barracks, training grounds and armaments factories. The mass warfare of the first and second world wars expanded the proportion of the population involved with the country’s military infrastructure, as well as evolving new forms of communal memorial.

Education (C19-20)

Formal education had long been open to elite levels of society, but from the 19^th century provision was increasingly made for the poorer strata as well. This session looks at charitable foundations, ‘National’ schools and life in the various forms of organised formal education promoted by central government in the 20^th century, as revealed in sources such as school log books.

Atomization of the landscape (C20-21)

The historic landscape has experienced fundamental changes since the 1950s. A decline in industrial production has been mirrored by an increase in the ‘service’ economy, while formal religious observation has declined and older forms of community have given way to new. What does this mean for local history, itself a significant product of these decades of transformation?

Planning a Local History Project

What next? This final session considers the challenges of planning and undertaking a local history project, seeking to put the work of the previous weeks into practice!