Historical Geography Research Group NEWSLETTER - SUMMER 2018 -

This issue: Letter from the Chair

How I became a geographer: Dear HGRG members newsletter) and I would encourage anyone potentially interested in serving on the HGRG  Robin Butlin Welcome to the summer edition of the HGRG committee to get in touch with me directly newsletter. As always, the articles and From the archive: ([email protected]). announcements in the newsletter clearly signal  Garrett Dash Nelson the breadth, depth and vibrancy of the research Regardless of conference attendance, we’d love Shelfie: activities taking place within the sub-discipline. to hear about members’ plans for the summer, so  Helen Manning Alongside Prof Robin Butlin’s excellent do feel free to tweet us @HGRG_RGS using the contribution to our ongoing ‘How I became a hashtag #HGRGsummer. I joked on twitter last Conference Reports: historical geographer’ series, we have Garrett week that they’d be a HGRG mug as a prize for  AAG—David Beckingham Dash Nelson’s report from the archive and Helen the photo of the most interesting (though not  Women’s Negotiation of Space, Manning’s ‘shelfie’. Both the latter demonstrate necessarily furthest flung) fieldwork location. I 1500-1900—Lizzie Rogers, the potential for applying fresh approaches and stand by that (assuming we can locate one of the Alice Whiteoak, Stormm analytical techniques (big data analysis and now much coveted pieces of ceramics in the RGS Buxton-Hill, Helen Manning historical GIS, respectively) to questions about -IBG’s back offices), so please do send us and Sarah Shields the historical geographies of rural and urban pictures of all the exciting archives, field sites landscapes, a well-established theme for and conferences you attend. Seminar Series: historical geographical research also much Finally, a handful of announcements. Members  Maps and Society Lectures evident in Robin’s account of his earliest will have recently received the latest volume in encounters with the sub-discipline. Maps and the HGRG Research Monograph Series, Prof landscapes were a key theme too of Prof Craig Alan’s Baker’s A French Reading Revolution? Colten’s Distinguished Historical Geography The Development, Distribution and Cultural lecture at this year’s AAG in New Orleans, a Significance of Bibliothèques populaires, 1860 powerful and thought-provoking lecture which –1900. This was launched in the spring and all David Beckingham kindly reviews here (and for paying HGRG members should have received which the full text will appear later in the year in their free e-PDF of the book along with an Historical Geography). Last but not least, we opportunity to opt in to receive the hard copy have a conference report from the Women’s volume by post. Anyone who hasn’t yet received Negotiations of Space conference held at Hull in this information is welcome to get in touch with January 2018 which the HGRG co-sponsored. me directly, or contact [email protected] for a link As for other conferences this year, many to the online form. I’m also excited to announce members may shortly be on their way to the we’ll hopefully be publishing another volume of International Conference of Historical the series later in the year, so please do keep your Geographers in Warsaw, Poland, for what eyes peeled for that. Postgraduate members may promises to be a brilliant week of papers, also like to know that this autumn’s Practising fieldtrips and networking. We’ll have a HGRG Historical Geography workshop is due to take stand at the conference, so do please come along place in the Kensington Gore offices of the RGS- and say hello (as and when you find a spare IBG on Wednesday November 7th. The moment). This summer’s RGS-IBG conference programme will be announced shortly but takes place at Cardiff University. The Group are conference officer Cheryl McGeachan has—as Copy for the next issue: sponsoring ten sessions at the conference, and always—organised fabulous speakers to join us. October 21, 2018 will be hosting mentoring drinks for our I’d encourage our postgraduate and

postgraduate and early career members (for undergraduate members to sign up post haste by Please send to: more news on this, keep an eye on twitter and emailing [email protected]. [email protected] the mailing list). The Group’s Annual General

Meeting takes place on Thursday 30th August 13:10-14:25 and I’d encourage members at the Kind regards, conference to please join us if they can. There HGRG Website Dr Briony McDonagh, HGRG Chair will be a number of positions available on the HGRG Twitter HGRG committee this summer as serving members complete their terms (formal thanks HGRG Newsletter, Summer 2018 to whom will follow in the autumn edition of the HGRG Committee 2017-18 How I became a historical geographer

Chair Robin Butlin Dr Briony McDonagh Robin Butlin is Emeritus Professor and Visiting Research Fellow in Geography at the . He was previously Professor of Geography at Department of Geography, (1979-95), as well as earlier appointments in Geography at Queen Mary College London Environment and Earth Sciences (1971-79), University College, Dublin (1962-71), and at the University College of North University of Hull Staffordshire, now Keele, (1961-2). He was a founder of the HGRG, and variously Chair, Hon. Hull HU6 7RX Secretary and Hon. Treasurer, and was a founder of what became the International [email protected] Conference of Historical Geographers. His research interests have ranged widely in historical geography, including rural and urban development in England and Ireland, the theory and history of historical geography, and geographies of imperialism. Secretary Dr Innes M. Keighren he main influences on my long Undergraduate study at the Geography experiences of historical geography have Department of the Department of Geography T been places and people, linked to an provided stimulating insights into historical Royal Holloway, University of insatiable curiosity for sleuthing out facts and geography, particularly through Dick Lawton and London ideas about geographies of the past and the the newly appointed Brian Harley, the reading of Egham TW20 0EX making of imaginative connections in research, classics by George Adam Smith, Wilfred Smith, [email protected] teaching and institutional advancement. Harry Godwin, W.G. Hoskins, Maurice Beresford, and Clifford Darby, and field courses Liverpool was the city of my birth, my education to Yorkshire, Somerset, Burgundy and the Rhone Treasurer at all levels, the source of my cultural and Delta. The Somerset Levels caught my attention sporting affiliations, my spoken accent and my Dr Hannah Neate as an undergraduate, and I spent the summer of sense of humour. I was born just before the 1958 tramping the lanes and fields of the Brue beginning of the Second World War in North Division of Geography and Environ- Valley, and working on estate surveys, enclosure Liverpool. From there my geographical mental Management awards and land drainage histories in the newly experiences included trips across the Mersey by Manchester Metropolitan University built Somerset County Record Office at Taunton. ferryboat, to the sandy shores of South Manchester M15 6BH The result earned me a half share of the P.M. Lancashire by bus and train, a short wartime [email protected] Roxby memorial prize for the best undergraduate evacuation to Blackpool, occasional holidays in dissertation. The understanding of what Cheshire and North Wales, and youth club Research Series Editor appeared at first sight to be flat and uninteresting holidays and excursions to the Lake District. I landscapes stayed with me, and provided a Dr Briony McDonagh stayed also in some vacations with a great-aunt sound basis for later work on the Fens of East and -uncle who were tenant farmers in the Anglia. Department of Geography, historically well-documented village of Ashby St. Environment and Earth Sciences Ledgers in North Northamptonshire, home of Somerset experience led to two years of research University of Hull the Gunpowder Plot and of some fine Lutyens- for an MA, this time on agrarian landscape Hull HU6 7RX designed estate workers' houses. change in Northumberland c. 1500- 1900, with [email protected] Dick Lawton as supervisor. I worked intensively My secondary schooling was at the Liverpool on the rich estate archives of the Dukes of Institute High School for Boys, where there were Northumberland, at that time housed in Alnwick Membership Secretary very good teachers, conspicuously the Castle. The focus was on the dynamics of open geographer John Edwards, and talented musical Dr Iain Robertson field systems, linked to the ideas of the American contemporary students such as George Harrison, medievalist scholar H.L. Gray, M. W. Beresford's Paul McCartney, and John McCabe. The Centre for History ideas on pre-Parliamentary enclosure, and H. C. Burghfield House Cnoc-an-Lobht Dornoch IV25 3HN [email protected]

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HGRG Twitter Inter-University Geographical Conference, Bedford College, University of London, 1958. Front row Eila Campbell centre, Gordon East two to her right as HGRG Newsletter, Summer 2018 seated, Robin to her left. Image credit: Robin Butlin Conference Officer Darby's writings on the theory and practice of encouragement and support in research. During Dr Cheryl McGeachan historical geography. With funding by a this time, I became an initiator and promoter of Liverpool shipping company, I attended the what became the Historical Geography Research School of Geographical and Earth International symposium on the history of Group, a very important interactive part of my Sciences, East Quadrangle European rural landscapes held at Vadstena in experience in historical geography, of which I University of Glasgow Sweden in 1960. The exposure to European ideas was able to help write its history for its 40th Glasgow G12 8QQ and regional experiences, through the writings of anniversary in 2013. Müller-Wille, Krenzlin, Nitz, Uhlig, Helmfrid, [email protected] In 1969-70 I had sabbatical leave from UCD, Flatrès, Leister and others, and frequent field which I spent in the USA at the Geography excursions and conferences in Europe, opened a Department of the University of Nebraska at Newsletter Editor wider set of intellectual contexts. H. C. Darby Lincoln, and experienced a different kind of Dr Jake Hodder was the external examiner for my thesis. In 1973 regional historical geography under the influence much of the research was published in the book of Les Hewes, a former graduate student of Carl School of Geography Studies of Field Systems in the British Isles, co Sauer (who I met in Berkeley during the summer University of Nottingham -edited with Alan Baker, an historical geographer of 1970). Nottingham NG7 2RD at Cambridge who became a good friend. [email protected] In 1971 Arthur Smailes at Queen Mary College, A one-year appointment as Demonstrator in London (now QMUL) offered me a post Geography at what was then the University teaching political and historical geography, and I Dissertation Prize Coordinator College of North Staffordshire at Keele provided had eight years working with able and helpful Dr James Kneale time for some writing up of thesis research and colleagues in an interesting part of London, and new work on the English regional chorographers learned much from them about theory and the of the seventeenth century. Department of Geography analysis of historical documents. There were also University College London I then accepted a lecturer post in Geography at strong links with colleagues at UCL and 26 Bedford Way University College Dublin from 1962-71, where I Cambridge, and much productive joint editorial London WC1H OAP taught courses in human, historical and political work on books with Bob Dodgshon and Harold [email protected] geography. UCD was a small geography Fox, together with my own work on the theory department in a country and institution with a and practice of historical geography. Communications Officer very different culture from those with which I At this time, I was much involved as Vice- was familiar. Two fine scholars—Tom Jones Dr Fae Dussart President of the IBG with its merger with the RGS Hughes, head of Geography at UCD, and John and the foundation of what became The Andrews of Trinity College Dublin—advised me School of Global Studies International Conference of Historical to research Irish urban historical geography, and University of Sussex Geographers, most of whose meetings I have soon found myself among the rich historical map Sussex House attended hitherto. All have been memorable and holdings in Trinity College, including the Falmer BN1 9RH productive, but one that particularly stays in the Hardiman Atlas. Ireland was a profound and [email protected] mind was that in California, based at UCLA in lasting experience, and UCD a great joy, with 1979, with fine scholarly papers and field many students achieving academic distinction, Ordinary Member excursions. Dr Joanne Norcup and colleagues from other disciplines giving

Left: Closing dinner speech, 1979 ICHG in Los Angeles; Clifford Darby School of Geographical and Earth looks on. Right: Loughborough historical geography field course, Sciences, East Quadrangle Pont des Arts, Paris, 1991. University of Glasgow Image credit: Robin Butlin Glasgow G12 8QQ [email protected]

Postgraduate Representatives Laura Crawford

Department of Geography Loughborough University Loughborough LE11 3TT [email protected]

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HGRG Twitter HGRG Newsletter, Summer 2018 Peter Martin A move to Loughborough University of invitation of Alan Wilson, the Vice-Chancellor, Technology in 1979 as foundation professor of to become Professor of Historical Geography at School of Geography and the geography and head of the Geography the University of Leeds, where I am now Environment department presented new challenges of Emeritus Professor and Visiting Research Fellow. developing a small department to maturity and a University of Oxford, Leeds has enabled continuation of existing much stronger research portfolio. We were able Oxford OX1 3QY research and the opening of new lines on the to make outstanding appointments and [email protected] history of geography and departmental histories. promotions in the historical, cultural, and I have received welcome recognitions of my physical geography fields, design a curriculum work, including a higher doctorate (D.Litt.) from Benjamin Newman strong in these areas, and develop an active PhD Loughborough University in 1987 for published student programme—innovative publications research in historical geography, a festschrift Department of Geography included Geography and Empire, jointly edited edited by Alan Baker, a Leverhulme Emeritus Royal Holloway, with Morag Bell and Mike Heffernan. Research Fellowship (giving opportunity for Egham TW20 0EX Loughborough remains an outstanding archive work in South Africa and Australia), benjamin.newman.2010@ geography department. live.rhul.ac.uk appointment as OBE in 2004, for services to I spent the academic year 1987-8 on sabbatical as Geography, and the award of the Victoria Medal a Visiting Professorial Fellow at Wolfson College, of the RGS/IBG in 2009, for research in historical Cambridge, with funding from ESRC and geography. Major consequent publications have Leverhulme for research on the historical included histories of the Geography Department geography of the Fens and the history of at Leeds and of the HGRG., The Historical Atlas historical geography of Western Europe. of North Yorkshire, and Geographies of Colleagues in the Geography Department at Empire: European Empires and Colonies c Cambridge, where I had office space, were 1880-1960. enormously encouraging and stimulating, and it I have been singularly fortunate over the years was good to discuss research with so many with the incessant encouragement and support postgraduate students working in historical of family and academic colleagues, and am geography. deeply grateful for opportunities presented and I then had a short appointment as Principal and taken to advance the causes of historical Professor of Historical Geography at the geography, locally, nationally and University College of Ripon and St. John internationally.  from 1995 to 1998, and then moved in 1998 at the

HGRG Website Norma and Robin Butlin: O.B.E. investiture, HGRG Twitter Buckingham Palace, June 2004; book covers. HGRG Newsletter, Summer 2018 Image credit: Robin Butlin From the archive From the archive

larger geographic webs. Could we find evidence, using present-day techniques, that would test this assumption and shed more light on the process and extent of geographic consolidation? by Garrett Dash Nelson, In a very different project, my urban studies colleague Alasdair Rae and I used a relatively Dartmouth College new technique called “community detection” in order to regionalize the United States based on rchives are more than just stockhouses millions of interconnected webs of commuter of information—they are also invitations patterns. In this method, an algorithm slices up a to daydream. There is something about A set of points based on how strongly related they yellowed paper, the idiosyncrasies of are to one another. To do this, though, you need handwriting, and the typesetting of old a big set of data that shows how people are letterheads that coaxes you away from the connected together in space—like census question of what happened in the past and commuter counts. Unfortunately for historical towards the question of what was it like in the geographers, these kinds of computer-readable past. Like most researchers in the archive, I data sets just don’t exist for timeframes earlier spend a lot of time frantically photographing as than about the 1990s. much as possible, but I also spend a fair amount of time drifting in a kind of half-reverie. There is The problem therefore shifts from finding a data an immediacy in the archives which serves as a set to making a data set, and that’s where the reminder of both how near and how far the past archive comes in. I began to think about what lies from the present, and which forces the forms of record-keeping might act as a proxies researcher to dwell on both the continuous for cultural and economic interconnection thread and the unbridgeable difference that across space, and realized that marriage records stretches between ourselves and our research typically include information about both the subjects. bride and groom’s birth locations, home locations, and place of marriage. Marriage Recently, I’ve been thinking about how to retain records are also kept in fairly standardized this sense of archival enchantment when formats across decades and even centuries. If we working with very different kinds of sources, count hundreds of thousands of marriages ones which are useful less as individual artifacts across time, and subject them to algorithmic and more as pinpoints of evidence aggregated community detection, we can try to suss out into a collection. My work examines how ideas whether local units of geography really did break about geographic “units” have changed and been down across the nineteenth and early twentieth contested over time, focusing on the ways that centuries, and what forms of geographic planners have debated which sorts of integration began to replace them. geographies are the most appropriate to plan as a whole: neighborhoods, conurbations, ecological This kind of archival research is time intensive, regions, and so on. Up until now, I’ve mostly and requires standardizing all sorts of records approached that as a question in the realm of into a format that is legible to a computer intellectual and political history, to be explained program. Luckily, I was recently awarded a grant by scrutinizing where ideas about geographic to hire a student assistant, who will be helping unity came from and how they circulated in me to pore through record books and convert professional, institutional, and popular contexts. them into a database. While marriage records are a good first source, they’re only a first step, and I In many of these historical cases, new concepts hope to also add information gleaned from city of geographic unity were prompted by new directories, tax and business records, and other forms of statistical data. For example, one sources to compile a historical database of reformer who sought to consolidate spatial interconnection that accounts for many metropolitan Boston explained how the different forms of geographic patterning. establishment of the London County Council in 1889 was the natural consequence of postal and I believe that empirical studies can do useful census systems which already recognized the work for understanding historical geography— metropolitan area as a coherent unit. So I began for instance, William Cronon uses bankruptcy to wonder what I might find if I went back in records in Nature’s Metropolis to show how HGRG Website time and did some measurements of my own. Chicago’s financial hinterland stretched deep It’s taken for granted that the course of into the rural Midwest in the nineteenth century. HGRG Twitter modernity was characterized by expanded forms But I also feel strongly that these supposedly of spatial interconnection and interdependence “factual” depictions of the past must be strictly HGRG Newsletter, Summer 2018 as small communities were absorbed into ever- subordinated to narrative and descriptive framing, lest they misleadingly take on the geography itself, but rather made and unmade by From the archive authority of an objectively “correct” analysis. people who have a stake in deciding which Converting old record entries into a places belong together and which belong apart. standardized database runs the risk of tricking And that brings me back to the question of how ourselves into thinking we know more than we to maintain the presence of archival materials actually do; it is a process which masks when you are no longer opening a folder with a uncertainty and silences the biases of the source long-ago correspondent’s frustrations scrawled material. out on some journal pad. Paying attention to the Most of all, however, the evidence which this provisionality of the past is easier when these sort of data-driven approach makes possible is artifacts confront you; indeed, I would argue only useful so long as it is framed within a story that this is one of the major reasons for

about what historical-geographical puzzles are conducting archival research in the first place. worth puzzling over. It’s possible (I hope) that The professions of geography and history have this archival research will provide a kind of both at times steered into danger when they “proof” that, say, the municipal borders of have treated material from the past as “data.” Massachusetts cities and towns were becoming Even that word, data, sits in an uncomfortable functionally derelict by the end of the tension with what we are more accustomed to nineteenth century. But that would ultimately call “the documents” or “the source materials.”

only offer one clue into a world of fractious local Yet I also believe that, when undertaken politics and idealistic scientific reforms jostling carefully and with something of a creative spirit, against one another in a fight over planners’ this kind of archival method—a kind of jurisdictions. That, after all, is one of the key archiving at a distance—can also inform our emphases of my research: that unit geographies work in compellingly illustrative ways.  are never found or detected in the pattern of

Shelfie Shelfie

by Helen Manning

he five books featured in my ‘Shelfie’ have been pertinent to the development of my PhD project on women’s property T ownership during periods of parliamentary enclosure in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Enclosure was the process by which previously open or common fields were enclosed, consolidated into portions of land and divided amongst individual proprietors. Land awarded to individual proprietors at enclosure were usually enclosed by the erection of physical boundaries such as fences and hedges, which restricted the use of the land to its owner. The books included in my ‘Shelfie’ have helped to advance my understanding of the histories of landscape and enclosure, as well as the historiography of women’s property ownership in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England.

Landscape and Enclosure, Women and Property William Hoskins’ classic The Making of the English Landscape (1955) is a wonderful and timeless introduction to landscape history and HGRG Website is amongst the most prominent works in this field. The book encourages empirical HGRG Twitter approaches to cultural and historical geography through the observation, recording and HGRG Newsletter, Summer 2018 collection of material landscape features during fieldwork. Hoskins’ research focuses specifically periods of parliamentary enclosure. There are Shelfie on the historical landscape of England and several chapters which resonate with my initiated an entirely new sub-division of research, and the chapter entitled ‘Women, Land landscape history which influenced the and Property’ has been particularly useful. It development of localised landscape histories. includes data from a study which quantified

The chapter entitled ‘Parliamentary Enclosure women’s property ownership during periods of and the Landscape’ is most relevant to my field enclosure using a sample of studies from across of study and provides a stimulating overview of the country. One of the counties sampled in the these processes as they were conducted across study was the East Riding of Yorkshire for which England. The chapter also identifies the specific McDonagh found that 4.8 per cent of land was localities which experienced the greatest extent awarded to women in comparison to the of parliamentary enclosure and describes the national average of 10.3 per cent. My research

impact that these actions had on the regional project intends to provide a localised and landscape. Keith Allison’s The East Riding of intensified quantification of land awarded to Yorkshire Landscape (1976) contextualises women at enclosure, as well as to map this these processes within the East Riding of property ownership and uncover women’s Yorkshire, providing an insight into enclosure experiences of enclosure in the East Riding of within a more localised context. Yorkshire through close study of all extant enclosure awards.

Steven Hollowell’s book Enclosure Records for Historians (2000) has also been an invaluable Women, Property and the Law: Mapping resource for my research. It provides a Sexual Inequality in the East Riding of comprehensive overview to the diverse array of Yorkshire (1750-1850) processes, issues and legal aspects that were bound up in the complicated histories of All of these books have informed my research enclosure. This book has allowed me to project which seeks to bring together the themes appreciate the dramatic impact that enclosure of property ownership, the agricultural had on the English landscape and has enabled landscape and enclosure. The project utilises me to situate my case study within the broader parliamentary enclosure records to quantify and context of the English landscape and nation- map women’s property ownership in the East wide enclosure patterns. The volume is very Riding of Yorkshire between 1750 and 1850, with accessible and provides numerous examples of the intention of situating women more enclosure documents including photographs, resolutely within the historiography of property scans of enclosure awards and maps. Hollowell ownership. This interdisciplinary project will details the layout and structure of these incorporate themes from a number of scholarly documents, in doing so he offers a guide for subjects including geography, history and law. accessing and interpreting documents such as To do so the project calls upon a number of these within the archive. primary archival sources including Parliamentary Enclosure Acts, awards and The second strand of literature that has been historic maps from 215 townships located in the included for this ‘Shelfie’ focuses specifically on East Riding area—the majority of which were women’s roles within these wider historical produced during the period under study. processes. Amy Erickson’s book Women and Property in Early Modern England (1993) has As has been demonstrated by historical helped me to develop my understanding of landscape studies, mapping is a useful tool English Common Law and how legal doctrines through which we can gain valuable insight into such as primogeniture and coverture impacted the important issues involved in processes of women’s ability to own land in the Early Modern enclosure. Consequently, my research project period. Although Erickson’s book focuses utilises Geographical Information Systems specifically between 1580 and 1720, which pre- (GIS) to aid in the quantification of women’s dates my period of study (1750-1850), it has been property ownership, and, more significantly, to useful research for the project. determine whether women were awarded less favourable plots of land at enclosure. By While Erickson centres her attention on the lives analysing—amongst other parameters—the of ordinary families and their relationship to area, perimeter and relief of plots, as well as the property and inheritance, Briony McDonagh’s distance between plots of land and local monograph Elite Women and the Agricultural amenities, the research intends to develop a Landscape 1700-1830 (2017), has observed elite deeper understanding of the relationship between gender and enclosure in this specific HGRG Website women’s experiences of these important historical processes. The book covers a very local context. In order to add further nuance to the largely quantitative dataset, the research HGRG Twitter similar time period to my research project and addresses similar themes; the most notable project also intends to include biographies of individual female landowners to demonstrate HGRG Newsletter,Newsletter, Summer Autumn 2018 2016 being women’s property ownership during women’s experiences of property ownership them placing significant importance on utilising Shelfie during periods of enclosure. To achieve this, maps (especially enclosure maps) and others qualitative data will be collected from expressing the importance of qualitative studies

supplementary archival sources which might (such as biographies) in addition to quantitative include: diaries, wills, accounts and probate data collection. As such, my research draws on documents. both of these methodological approaches to build a picture of women’s experiences of Concluding Thoughts parliamentary enclosure.

Each of the books have influenced my research My next step is to consider further how GIS can

in different ways. From Hoskins and Allison, I be used to develop my research and represent have developed my understanding and interest women’s property ownership. The gathering of in the histories of the agricultural landscape, the quantitative data is now drawing to a close exploring the agricultural phenomenon of and once analysed it will be interesting to picture enclosure and how this process impacted the the results in map form. Once this stage is British landscape. These books ultimately complete I will revisit the archives to supplement inspired me to delve deeper into the processes of the quantitative data with individual women’s

enclosure, for which Hollowell’s introduction biographies, documenting their experiences of was extremely helpful, in not only describing and parliamentary enclosure in the East Riding of explaining each of the steps involved in Yorkshire.  parliamentary enclosure, but for providing an accessible introduction to enclosure documents themselves. From Erickson and McDonagh, knowledge of Common Law practices regarding Helen Manning is a second year PhD student women and property ownership have been in Human Geography at the University of Hull. accrued. Methods of data collection and Helen is supervised by Dr Briony McDonagh presentation for the research project have also (Hull), Dr Amanda Capern (Hull) and Dr been influenced by these books, with several of Jennifer Aston (Northumbria).

Conference Reports “The past is not dead, it is Confederacy, for example, one addressed claims not even past”: Historical on American parklands, while three addressed landscapes as both commemorative and geography at the AAG, New pedagogic tools—also drawing out a wider Orleans conference theme of public engagement. Sessions also addressed questions of pedagogy April 10-14, 2018 and practice, developments in archive technologies and source work, and academic by David Beckingham writing. Another ongoing anniversary is the centenary of 018 was the 300th anniversary of the the First World War. This was addressed in a formal foundation of New Orleans and session on Great War geographies of militarism. the 50th anniversary of the assassination The effect of that conflict features in Laura 2of Martin Luther King. It was also the first time Cameron and the late John Forrester’s book the AAG had visited New Orleans since Freud in Cambridge, an intellectual history of Hurricane Katrina. The timing and place of the the remarkable interdisciplinary interest in conference created plenty of opportunities for psychoanalysis on a generation of post-war looking back, for considering what we might academics. It was one of two sponsored author- term historical geographies of the present. After meets-critics panels, the other being a panel a short review of some of the Historical discussion of Philip Howell’s recent At Home Geography Speciality Group’s sponsored and Astray: The Domestic Dog in Victorian sessions, I want to use Craig Colten’s plenary Britain, an urban historical geography that lecture to consider just some of the ways provokes us to reconsider how and where we historical work can help us think about the have placed the nonhuman. future. Plenary lecture HGSG sessions HGRG Website This year’s Distinguished Historical Geographer The HGSG sponsored over 20 sessions. Several was Craig Colten, Carl O. Sauer Professor at HGRG Twitter addressed themes of memory and landscape, Louisiana State University. With a manner as many through contemporary political issues. satisfyingly self-deprecating as it was serious, HGRG Newsletter,Newsletter, Summer Autumn 2018 2016 Two considered monuments to the Colten spoke of historical geography’s powerful Conference Reports

New Orleans in 1890-1910 Louisiana survey, US Department of the Interior, published 1921-34 Image credit: School of Geography map archive, University of Nottingham

ability to witness the extent and experience of Structures built up over centuries to keep out environmental hazards. He structured his talk water now kept it in. around three maps: a map of 1940s hazardous The consequences are now well reported—and waste management around the Monsanto they were widely addressed at the conference. Chemical Company’s Illinois works; an 1854 Flooding affected around 80 per cent of the city, sanitary map of New Orleans produced during but its effects were particularly acute in the an outbreak of yellow fever; and the Bring New lowest lying, lower income, neighbourhoods, Orleans Back Commission’s green zone such as the predominantly African American reconstruction plan produced after Hurricane Lower Ninth Ward. Here communities faced Katrina. what Colten describes as a ‘double jeopardy’,

Colten’s research enabled him, publicly, to place living in the most vulnerable areas without

Katrina’s particular impact as a kind of long sufficient means or support to evacuate. The

unfolding event and not simply a moment in city’s population is still around 20% below its

time, however devastating, the politics and pre-Katrina level.

implications of which have been widely “The past is not dead,” said Colten, nodding to commented upon. The system of defensive William Faulkner, “it is not even past”. NOLA’s levees constructed to enable this Unnatural story cannot simply be told backwards, then. Its Metropolis, wrested from nature, to take the historic management of water—its levees and title of Colten’s prize-winning 2005 book, was drainage systems, reinforced over centuries— infamously breached by Katrina’s storm surge. makes the city inhabitable today, yet it may also make it more prone to flood tomorrow. And that is without considering the potential effects of climate change. To explain how New Orleans continues to be made by a centuries-old commercial decision to plant a city in a swamp is to remind us that decisions taken today will shape the city of tomorrow. Colten’s lecture served as a powerful reminder that maps can be a tool to drive towards a particular future, and that historical work can provide vital space to consider the production and politics of such cartographies of the future. 

HGRG Website David Beckingham is an Associate Professor HGRG Twitter New Orleans, LA. in the School of Geography, University of Image credit: Jake Hodder HGRG Newsletter,Newsletter, Summer Autumn 2018 2016 Nottingham. Women’s Negotiations of involving five speakers, plus our keynote lecture.

Conference Reports Space 1500-1900, University The first panel was split into two parts, of Hull ‘Contested Spaces’ and ‘Violent Spaces’. Papers on this panel explored literary representations of the coach as a private space during the January 18, 2018 Restoration, domestic abuse and privacy in nineteenth century Scotland and female by Lizzie Rogers, violence during the early Tudor period. This

Alice Whiteoak, sparked a lively discussion about female violence and privacy, bringing violent actions Stormm Buxton-Hill, into the public eye and crossing the thresholds Helen Manning, between traditionally private and open, public spaces. This was followed by the second panel, and Sarah Shields ‘Power in Unconventional Spaces’. Four speakers presented papers on nursing during the th n Thursday 18 January 2018, we held American Civil War, legal negotiation for war our one-day conference, entitled: widows during the English Civil War, and O ‘Women’s Negotiations of Space, 1500- women in parliamentary spaces in the early to 1900’. Inspired by our alignment with the mid-nineteenth century. The legal and political Gender, Place and Memory research cluster at implications of all of these papers led to the University of Hull, we chose the theme to interesting questions and discussions of how invite speakers to engage with ideas of women in women navigated and manipulated these

different spaces and the methods used by different spaces, and took on special roles within

women in history to navigate space and them. boundaries put before them. On the day, we had twenty-two speakers, including our keynote The second panel was followed by lunch, during paper from Dr Ruth Larsen from the University which local artist Sarah Pennington exhibited of Derby. These included established academics, her art installation, entitled ‘Revolution in a early career researchers and PhD students, and Teacup’. Sarah initially approached the also covered a broad spectrum of spaces, places organising committee when the Call For Papers and approaches to research. We had fifty booked was circulated, and we felt that holding an art spaces for the conference, and on the day, forty- exhibition at lunchtime would provide further two delegates. provocation for discussion. Sarah spoke for a few minutes before lunch explaining her installation, In order to accommodate the most papers into which explored how women have always the one-day event, we restructured the day from instigated change beginning from a social our original plan of three, three-paper panels situation, traditionally sitting around a tea table alongside keynotes, to three panels of three or and talking. She collected quotations and these four fifteen-minute papers, followed by two were shown on tea cups and could be heard concurrent roundtable discussions, each aloud on record players, and these were

HGRG Website

HGRG Twitter ‘Revolution in a teacup’ by Sarah Pennington Image credit: @womensspace18 HGRG Newsletter,Newsletter, Summer Autumn 2018 2016 early modern England. This invited new Conference Reports Conference Dinner discussions using historical geographies and Image credit: @womensspace18 heritage across the full spectrum of the period the conference covered. The day concluded with a wonderful keynote address from Dr Ruth Larsen (Derby), entitled: “Upon my Lady Carlisle’s Walking: Agency and the Aristocratic Woman’s Negotiation of Space”.

Dr Larsen explored how walking and creating a presence within, and an understanding of, the landscape for elite women, as well as the association of leisure and status, moving between urban and country spaces and the idea of walking outside creating a private space away from the home. It was a really entertaining,

interesting and thought-provoking lecture that led to lots of questions and was a fantastic way to finish off the conference.

This was the end of the formal part of the conference, which we followed with a networking wine reception. This gave delegates a displayed during lunch, offering an interesting chance to get to know each other more, ask way of communicating these ideas, and further questions about papers delivered definitely gave delegates a lot to talk about, throughout the day and give informal feedback particularly with the centenary of the to us about the conference. This was preceded Representing the People Act being so close to the by our conference dinner, which was held the conference date. night before the conference, to try and break the ice for delegates and enable informal discussion After lunch, we held simultaneous roundtables ahead of the conference programme. that each featured five speakers, entitled ‘Legal

Spaces and Female Influence’ and ‘Institutional To extend the impact of the conference and

Spaces’. The formats for both were the same, enable those who couldn’t attend the

with speakers each having five minutes to conference to follow what was happening, we

introduce their research, followed by about half ran a Twitter account (@womensspace18) in

an hour of questions and discussion. In ‘Legal advance of the conference and on the day. It

Spaces and Female Influence’, papers included meant that we could share updates quickly and

female experiences of the House of Commons, publicise the conference, with many circulating

late medieval women’s wills, influence in home the CFP via this platform. We publicised our

and communal spaces and the use of marriage CFP, programme and conference details on the

settlements by women. This led to discussions Gender, Place and Memory research cluster

over female understanding and manipulation of website. During the day, we live-tweeted the

the legal situations they found themselves in and papers and discussions that took place, and

exerting influences in spaces where they are retweeted any comments made by our delegates.

traditionally viewed as having had little power. This worked well and had people engaging with In ‘Institutional Spaces’, the papers covered the theme of the conference on social media. It topics such as the redesign of Wesleyan was also a great way for people to share Methodist spaces, the institutionalisation of feedback. Ireland’s ‘fallen’ women, female religious work In order to gain feedback on the day, we handed with Victorian railway men, spiritualism and out short forms with the conference programme, psychiatry and the female experiences of the but also many delegates spoke to us before British Asylum in the late nineteenth century. leaving. The feedback from the conference was The resulting discussion looked to how women really positive, with one delegate asking if we worked within different institutions, subverting would be hosting it again next year and making it and creating their own expectations, and their an annual event. Another delegate wrote a blog unique female experience. post summarising the day and what a positive Following the roundtables, the final panel of the experience it had been.  day was ‘Landscape & Agricultural Spaces’. This encompassed papers on female architectural Editor’s note: The Women’s Negotiation of Space, 1500- HGRG Website patronage in eighteenth century Britain, secular 1900 conference was financially supported by the HGRG. The group’s support, alongside a grant from the Women’s HGRG Twitter women’s houses in the early Tudor landscape, History Network Small Grants Scheme, reduced the cost of the creation of the Bowes Museum in the attendance for 15 PhD students and Early Career Scholars, HGRG Newsletter,Newsletter, Summer Autumn 2018 2016 nineteenth century and gender and landscape in as well as providing travel bursaries. Seminar Series SEMINAR PROGRAMMES

Maps and Society Lectures

The Warburg Institute, University of London

The twenty-eighth series, 2018-19

2018 November 8 Bill Sherman (Director, The Warburg Institute) and Edward Wilson-Lee (Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge) Hernando Colón: Mapping the World of Books

November 29 Vanessa Collingridge (Independent Researcher, Glasgow) It’s All Fake News! James Cook and the Death of the Great Southern Continent (1760–1777)

2019 January 17 Desiree Krikken (University of Groningen) Bears with Measuring Chains: Early Modern Land Surveyors and the

Record of European Physical Space

March 15 Elizabeth Haines (University of Bristol)

Labour Recruitment, Taxation and Location: Mapping (and Failing

to Map) Mobile Populations in Early Twentieth Century Southern

Africa

April 26 Martin Brueckner (University of Delaware)

The Rise of Monumental Maps in America: Aesthetics, Technology,

and Material Culture

May 17 Jeremy Brown (Royal Holloway, University of London and

British Library) Democratising the Grand Tour: Self-reliant Travel and the First Italian Road Atlases in the 1770s

Lectures in the history of cartography convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research, University of London), Tony Campbell (formerly Map Library, British Library), Peter Barber (Visiting Fellow, History, King’s College, formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute).

Meetings are held at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Woburn Square, London WC1H OAB, at 5.00 pm on selected Thursdays.

Admission is free and each meeting is followed by refreshments. All are most welcome.

Enquiries: +44 (0)20 8346 5112 (Catherine Delano-Smith) or Tony Campbell [email protected]

HGRG Website HGRG Twitter HGRG Newsletter,Newsletter, Summer Autumn 2018 2016

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participating in our activities will not be a full member of the HGRG. Some of you, for instance, will have expressed an interest in the work of the group when you became a member of the RGS/IBG and so joined that way. And that’s just great! We welcome and celebrate the breadth of our membership.

Nevertheless, there are some important benefits to be gained by switching to Full membership and we would encourage you

to consider doing so. It would be of immense benefit to the Group and we promise to make you feel ‘special’ in return! As it stands if you are with us as a RGS/IBG member only, we receive a minimum contribution (as little as £2 per annum) from that. In return all you receive is this newsletter.

In short we would be delighted to welcome you to join us as a full member of the HGRG community! Membership subs are essential for us to continue to provide the full range of support and we are grateful for the collegiate generosity of members in this regard.

Full Membership £12.00 per annum. Should you choose to become a full member you will be added to the e- circulation list, will receive the HGRG Research Series and the HGRG Newsletter. Your subs will help support the grants that we provide to the HGRG community and you will be eligible to apply for these. Finally, you HGRG Website will get a reduced rate on back issues of the HGRG Research Series and have the opportunity to take up an Officering role. HGRG Twitter HGRG Newsletter, Summer 2018