PhD studentship, Manchester: Spaces of industrial heritage (AHRC-funded collaborative)
Spaces of industrial heritage: a history of uses,
perceptions and remaking of the Liverpool Road Station site, Manchester
Fully-funded AHRC PhD studentship
Application deadline: Friday 14 June
Applications are invited for an AHRC-funded PhD on the
former Liverpool Road Station complex which forms the site of the Museum of
Science and Industry in Manchester. This studentship is one of eight
fully-funded awards made by the newly-established Collaborative Doctoral
Partnership managed by the Science Museum Group.
The project will be supervised by Dr James Sumner
(University of
Manchester) and Jack Kirby (Museum of Science and Industry).
The studentship, which is funded for three years
full-time equivalent, will begin in September 2013.
THE STUDENTSHIP
The world's first passenger railway, connecting the
manufacturing and trading hub of Manchester to Liverpool and the coast, opened
in 1830.
The original Manchester terminus building on Liverpool
Road in the Castlefield district, site of the fort of Roman Manchester,
survives along with its departure platform. Yet the site was closed to
passengers within a few years: it developed instead as a goods station, with a
major complex of warehouses, extending Castlefield's established importance as
a canal freight hub. After a long period serving the growth of industrial
Manchester, and following sharp decline across the middle years of the
twentieth century, Liverpool Road Station closed in 1975. Soon afterwards, the
site found a new role as home to the Museum of Science and Industry, re-opening
in 1983.
The project will chart the uses and perceptions of
Liverpool Road, and its relationship with the city and wider region, from the
1820s origins of the railway project to the Museum's opening. It offers
opportunities to combine approaches from social and cultural history, the
history of science and technology, historical geography, industrial
archaeology, heritage studies and museology. Research questions include: how
did the wider contexts of industrialisation and de-industrialisation influence
the uses and meanings of Liverpool Road, and how, in turn, did the material
form and working cultures of the site influence wider developments? What can we
learn by bringing sites of transportation (of goods and people) more strongly
into a narrative of industrial history currently dominated by sites of
production and dwelling? How far can the historian go to capture the changing
nature of buildings and landscapes 'as lived', including sights, sounds,
smells, reputations and expectations? And how can museum professionals use
these insights in interpreting historic sites?
The student will be based in Manchester and will use the
fabric of the site itself – the Museum buildings and adjacent viaducts and
goods yards – as a central resource. The focus will not be on industrial
archaeology (on which extensive research has already been carried out), but on
tracing documentary evidence to explain how the site was formerly used and
understood, and examining how to interpret its significance for Museum
visitors. This research will involve surveying sources such as local
newspapers, and business and family records held in local archives. The study
will also seek to identify and interview former workers at the goods station,
and those involved in the site's 150th anniversary celebrations in 1980 and the
establishment of the Museum in 1982-3.
HOW TO APPLY
Applicants should have a good Master's degree (or
equivalent) in the history of science/technology, general history, human
geography, museum studies or another related subject, and will need to satisfy
AHRC academic and residency eligibility criteria, as listed on the AHRC website
at http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/ .
Applicants should submit a short curriculum vitae and a
brief letter outlining qualifications for the studentship in the form of a
single Word file no more than three pages in total. The names and contact
details of two academic referees should also be supplied. Applications should
be sent to james.sumner@manchester.ac.uk
no later than FRIDAY 14 JUNE 2013.
Interviews are scheduled to be held at the Museum of
Science and Industry, Manchester, on THURSDAY 27 JUNE 2013.
For further information concerning the project, please
contact James Sumner (james.sumner@manchester.ac.uk).
==
My book: Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700-1880
http://www.pickeringchatto.com/brewing
| August 2013