Materiality and the urban: recent theses in archaeology and material culture and their importance for the study of urban history

¹ Hume, I.N., ‘Handmaiden to history’, North Carolina Historical Review, 41 (1964), 215–25.

² N. Booth, ‘Leisure and masculinity in “Dear Old Dirty Stalybridge”, c. 1830–1875’, University of Manchester Ph.D. thesis, 2014.

³ Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish (London, 1977); Markus, T., Buildings and Power (London, 1993).

⁴ See also the author's own thesis: K. Fennelly, ‘The palace of a prince: the archaeology of lunatic asylum architecture, reform and management in England and Ireland, c. 1815–1855’, University of Manchester Ph.D. thesis, 2012.

⁵ Morrison, K., The Workhouse: A Study of Poor-Law Buildings in England: Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (London, 1999); see also Stevenson, C., Medicine and Magnificence: British Hospital and Asylum Architecture (London, 2000).

⁶ C. Newman, ‘The place of the pauper: a historical archaeology of West Yorkshire workhouses 1834–1930’, University of York Ph.D. thesis, 2010.

⁷ Some of the research from Newman's thesis has been published subsequently. See, for example: Newman, C., ‘To punish or protect: the new poor law and the English workhouse’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 18 (2014), 122–45.

⁸ This was legislated for by Planning Policy Guidance 16, which called for in situ preservation of archaeological remains where possible, and by record preservation (excavation, survey) where not. This was superseded by Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning and the Historic Environment, and has since been replaced by the National Planning Policy Framework, and the Historic Environment Good Practice Advice.

⁹ Buchli, V. and Lucas, G., Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past (London, 2001).

¹⁰ Harrison, R., ‘Towards an archaeology of the welfare state in Britain, 1945–2009’, Archaeologies, 5 (2009), 238–62.

¹¹ See also S. Penrose, ‘Archaeologies of deindustrialisation’, University of Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 2015. Penrose's thesis was not available for study from EThOS for the purpose of this review. The thesis examines the deindustrialization of East Oxford, and addresses changes in housing and demographics in the area since the closure of Morris Motor Works. See also Penrose, S., ‘Recording transition in post-industrial England: a future perfect view of Oxford's motopolis’, Archaeologies, 6 (2010), 167–80.

¹² E. Dwyer, 'Historical and contemporary archaeologies of social housing: changing experiences of the modern and new, 1870 to present’, University of Leicester Ph.D. thesis, 2014, 60.

¹³ Where licensing allows, commercial archaeological reports are (increasingly) being uploaded to the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) or London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC) websites, which are free to access.

¹⁴ R. Colton, ‘From gutters to greensward: constructing healthy childhood in the late-Victorian and Edwardian public park’, University of Manchester Ph.D. thesis, 2016.

¹⁵ J. Beaumont, ‘An isotopic and historical study of diet and migration during the Great Irish Potato Famine (1845–1852)’, University of Bradford Ph.D. thesis, 2013.

¹⁶ Beaumont published some of the results of this study in 2013: Beaumont, J., Geber, J., Powers, N., Lee-Thorp, J. and Montgomery, J., ‘Victims and survivors: identifying survivors of the Great Famine in nineteenth-century London using carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 150 (2013), 87–98 .

¹⁷ Geber, J., ‘They died in the Great Irish Famine’, Queen's University Belfast Ph.D. thesis, 2012; Geber, J., Victims of Ireland's Great Irish Famine: The Bioarchaeology of Mass Burials at Kilkenny Union Workhouse (Florida, 2015).

¹⁸ See for example Walker, D., ‘Resurrection: who is it good for? The price of achievement at the London Hospital’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 48 (2014), 388–97.

¹⁹ R. Gordon, ‘Feeding the city: zooarchaeological perspectives on urban provisioning and consumption behaviours in post-medieval England (AD1500–AD1900)’, University of Leicester Ph.D. thesis, 2015.

²⁰ Davies, P. and Parker, G., ‘Cities and the modern world’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 50 (2016), 53–72.

²¹ Green, A. and Dixon, J., ‘Standing buildings and built heritage’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 50 (2016), 121–33.

²² See text and comments on Matthew Houlbrook's post on objects, which appeared on the Modern British Studies blog in 2016. M. Houlbrook, ‘Hidden objects and untold stories’ (online source): https://mbsbham.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/hidden-objects/ accessed 10 Feb. 2017.