This six-week course will study the social history of London from the middle of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries, starting with the Great Plague of 1665, the Great Fire of 1666 and the rebuilding of the City. Students will learn about medicine and mortalities, the circumstances around the abandonment of infants and the development of Bloomsbury (where this class will be held). The course will conclude by discussing female criminality by considering case studies from the Newgate Calendar and the Proceedings of the Old Bailey for evidence of the punishment of 'unruly women.'
Prerequisites:
None. Students should be able to work independently, and be excited at the prospect of working with historical documents and artifacts in museums, archives, libraries and galleries.
Learning outcomes:
Students who complete the course will have developed a good understanding of some of the major themes of the social history of London from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th centuries and the historic events that shaped the capital and changed Londoners' lives. They will appreciate and reflect on the complexity and diversity of situations, events and past mentalities. Students will read texts and course materials paying attention to critical and conceptual frameworks and the tasks required of them will enable them to build and write a research paper based on library, museum and archival sources. They will develop an ability to gather, organise and deploy information and gain familiarity with appropriate means of finding, retrieving, sorting and exchanging information. Sharing and discussing their experiences will improve their skills of communication and ability to present their findings in an engaging and cogent manner. Bibliographical skills will also be enhanced by the completion of this course.
Method of presentation:
To provide the historical context, class sessions will include lectures and seminars, guided-walks and visits to libraries, museums and galleries.
Required work and form of assessment:
Students will be required to select a topic of their choice and write a paper of not less than 1,500 words which must show evidence of wide secondary reading around the subject, and most importantly, the consultation and analysis of primary sources. A class presentation and quiz will also be required.
10% participation which reflects class work, organisation, motivation and engagement throughout the six- week course
10% class presentation
20% class quiz
60% research paper of 1,500 – 2,000 words
content:
Session 1: Living and Dying in 17th and 18th Century London
Students will be orientated to the twelve-session course and its various work requirements. They will also be given an introduction to the social history of London in the 1660s, and the backdrop to the first two major themes of the course: the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London in 1666. There will be a guided-walk to the National Portrait Gallery where they will study the portraits of key figures in the period reviewed by the course.
Session 2: Visit to the Museum of London
A guided-walk will take students to the Museum of London where they will study the 17th and 18th century galleries in search of evidence relating to: the Great Plague of 1665; the Great Fire of 1666; the Rebuilding of London; crime and punishment; working lives, and leisure and entertainment. Time will also be allocated to students to appraise the gallery displays and artefacts which might be suitable material for a research paper.
Session 3: The Great Plague of 1665
An illustrated lecture will be given on the Great Plague of 1665 and its impact on London.
Session 4: Visit to the Monument and study session at the Guildhall Library
The class will meet at the Monument, the memorial to the outbreak of the Great Fire of London, which destroyed 80% of the City of London in 1666. From there the group will walk the short distance to the Guildhall Library where the rest of the session will be spent gathering readings and primary source material for their chosen research paper.
Session 5: The Great Fire of London
An illustrated lecture will be given on the Great Fire and the Rebuilding of London. Tutorials will be given to help finalise the wording of titles and planning of papers.
Tasks: To progress work on research essay in readiness for the production of a plan to be handed in at session 8.
Session 6: Study Session at the Guildhall Library
The class will meet at the Guildhall Library to which students should bring all their research materials, notes and references. They will spend the morning accessing secondary texts and primary source materials for the production of their research paper.
Session 7: Medicine and Mortality in 17th and 18th Century London
An illustrated introduction to this subject will be given, followed by a visit to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. Student will be given an assignment to complete on the artefacts on display.
Tasks: Progress work on the research paper. Be prepared to discuss the final plan of your research paper in class and hand in a paper copy to Professor Atkinson in session 8.
Session 8: The Foundling Hospital: London's First Modern Charity
A lecture will be given on the work of Thomas Coram's pioneering charity devoted to abandoned infants, followed by a walk to the Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square where students will be given an assigment to complete on the exhibits. In this session students will be asked to give a progress report on their work on the research paper and present their paper plan in class, and also hand in a paper copy to Professor Atkinson.
Session 9: 'The' Place To Be...: the Development of Bloomsbury in late 17th and early 18th Century London
QUIZ of 20 questions
Lecture on the origins of London's first West End suburb, followed by a guided-walk around Bloomsbury.
Session 10: Study Session at the Guildhall Library
The class will meet at the Library where students will have the morning to access primary source materials to complete their papers. Quiz papers will be returned. Case studies of examples of 'Unruly Women' will be allocated to students and which will be presented in session 12, the final class of the course. The subjects will include: Mary Blandy, the middle-class girl who killed her father for love; Harriet Magnis who abducted a little boy; the disturbed teenager Barbara Spencer who fell in with a bad crowd and counterfeited coins and was burned at the stake; the sadistic killer Elizabeth Brownrigg; Sarah Malcolm the triple-killer and Mary Bateman who was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
Session 11: 'All Kinds of Women': Ruly and Unruly Women's Lives in 17th and 18th Century London
Lecture on women's lives in London from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th centuries. Special reference will be made to The Newgate Calendar and transcripts of cases heard at the Old Bailey.
Session 12: 'Unruly Women' Class Presentation
Students will present their findings on the 'unruly woman' case study they were allocated. The class will be required to interview the presenters and ask cogent questions of the material which is being presented, and offer comments on their findings and the outcomes of the cases.
Research Paper Due
Required readings:
As this changes each semester, please refer to the course Moodle (upon arrival) page for required readings.
Recommended readings:
T.M.M Baker, London: Rebuilding the City After The Great Fire, Phillimore Publishing, 2000
Sir Norman Birkett (Ed), The Newgate Calendar, 2 volumes, The Folio Society, 1951
Emily Cockayne, Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England, Yale University Press, 2007
Ian Currie, Frosts, Freezes and Fairs: Chronicles of the Frozen Thames and Harsh Winters Since 1,000 A.D., Frosted Earth, 2001
Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year,1722, reprinted by Penguin, 1966
Laurinda S.Dixon, Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre- Enlightenment Art and Medicine, Cornell University, 1995
Peter Earle, A City Full of People: Men and Women of London 1650-1750, Methuen, 1994
Tim Hitchcock and Heather Shore (Eds), The London Streets: From the Great Fire to the Great Stink, Rivers Oram Press, 2003
Stephen Inwood, A History of London, Macmillan, 1998
Simon Jenkins, Landlords to London: The Story of a Capital and its Growth, Constable, 1975
Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Punishment of the Eighteenth Century, Verso, 2003
Gustav Milne, The Great Fire of London, Historical Publications Ltd, 1986
Liza Picard, Dr Johnson’s London: Life in London 1740-1770, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2000
Liza Picard, Restoration London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1997
Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century, Penguin, 1990
Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World, Penguin, 2000
Roy Porter, London: A Social History, Hamish Hamilton, 1997
Stephen Porter, The Great Plague, Sutton Publishing, 2000
Stephen Porter, The Great Fire of London, Sutton Publishing, 2001
Peter Thorrold, The London Rich: the Creation of a Great City, from 1666 to the Present, Viking, 1999
Adrian Tinniswood, His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Sir Christopher Wren, Jonathan Cape, 2001
Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: the Unequalled Self, Viking, 2000
Maureen Waller, 1700: Scenes from London Life, Hodder and Stoughton, 2000
The Diaries of Samuel Pepys,Vol 6 (1665) and Vol 7 (1666), reprinted by Harper Collins, 1995
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Dr. Diane Atkinson holds a Ph.D. on the politics of women’s sweated labour, 1810-1910, from the University of London. She also has an M.A. in Life-Writing from the internationally renowned Creative Writing course at the University of East Anglia. She has lectured on the social history of London at the Museum of London where in 1992 she curated the major groundbreaking exhibition Purple, White and Green: the Suffragettes in London 1906-1914. In 1996 she was commissioned by the Fawcett Society to curate and write the book for the exhibition Funny Girls Cartooning for Equality, the foreword of which was written by the Honourable Betty Boothroyd, the first women Speaker of the House of Commons. She has written several books on the suffragettes. Her most recent titles are Love and Dirt: the Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick published by Macmillan in 2003, and Elsie and Mairi Go To War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front, published by preface/ Random House in 2009.
Living And Dying In 17Th And 18Th Century London
This six-week course will study the social history of London from the middle of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries, starting with the Great Plague of 1665, the Great Fire of 1666 and the rebuilding of the City. Students will learn about medicine and mortalities, the circumstances around the abandonment of infants and the development of Bloomsbury (where this class will be held). The course will conclude by discussing female criminality by considering case studies from the Newgate Calendar and the Proceedings of the Old Bailey for evidence of the punishment of 'unruly women.'
None. Students should be able to work independently, and be excited at the prospect of working with historical documents and artifacts in museums, archives, libraries and galleries.
Students who complete the course will have developed a good understanding of some of the major themes of the social history of London from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th centuries and the historic events that shaped the capital and changed Londoners' lives. They will appreciate and reflect on the complexity and diversity of situations, events and past mentalities. Students will read texts and course materials paying attention to critical and conceptual frameworks and the tasks required of them will enable them to build and write a research paper based on library, museum and archival sources. They will develop an ability to gather, organise and deploy information and gain familiarity with appropriate means of finding, retrieving, sorting and exchanging information. Sharing and discussing their experiences will improve their skills of communication and ability to present their findings in an engaging and cogent manner. Bibliographical skills will also be enhanced by the completion of this course.
To provide the historical context, class sessions will include lectures and seminars, guided-walks and visits to libraries, museums and galleries.
Students will be required to select a topic of their choice and write a paper of not less than 1,500 words which must show evidence of wide secondary reading around the subject, and most importantly, the consultation and analysis of primary sources. A class presentation and quiz will also be required.
10% participation which reflects class work, organisation, motivation and engagement throughout the six- week course
10% class presentation
20% class quiz
60% research paper of 1,500 – 2,000 words
Session 1: Living and Dying in 17th and 18th Century London
Students will be orientated to the twelve-session course and its various work requirements. They will also be given an introduction to the social history of London in the 1660s, and the backdrop to the first two major themes of the course: the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London in 1666. There will be a guided-walk to the National Portrait Gallery where they will study the portraits of key figures in the period reviewed by the course.
Session 2: Visit to the Museum of London
A guided-walk will take students to the Museum of London where they will study the 17th and 18th century galleries in search of evidence relating to: the Great Plague of 1665; the Great Fire of 1666; the Rebuilding of London; crime and punishment; working lives, and leisure and entertainment. Time will also be allocated to students to appraise the gallery displays and artefacts which might be suitable material for a research paper.
Session 3: The Great Plague of 1665
An illustrated lecture will be given on the Great Plague of 1665 and its impact on London.
Session 4: Visit to the Monument and study session at the Guildhall Library
The class will meet at the Monument, the memorial to the outbreak of the Great Fire of London, which destroyed 80% of the City of London in 1666. From there the group will walk the short distance to the Guildhall Library where the rest of the session will be spent gathering readings and primary source material for their chosen research paper.
Session 5: The Great Fire of London
An illustrated lecture will be given on the Great Fire and the Rebuilding of London. Tutorials will be given to help finalise the wording of titles and planning of papers.
Tasks: To progress work on research essay in readiness for the production of a plan to be handed in at session 8.
Session 6: Study Session at the Guildhall Library
The class will meet at the Guildhall Library to which students should bring all their research materials, notes and references. They will spend the morning accessing secondary texts and primary source materials for the production of their research paper.
Session 7: Medicine and Mortality in 17th and 18th Century London
An illustrated introduction to this subject will be given, followed by a visit to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. Student will be given an assignment to complete on the artefacts on display.
Tasks: Progress work on the research paper. Be prepared to discuss the final plan of your research paper in class and hand in a paper copy to Professor Atkinson in session 8.
Session 8: The Foundling Hospital: London's First Modern Charity
A lecture will be given on the work of Thomas Coram's pioneering charity devoted to abandoned infants, followed by a walk to the Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square where students will be given an assigment to complete on the exhibits. In this session students will be asked to give a progress report on their work on the research paper and present their paper plan in class, and also hand in a paper copy to Professor Atkinson.
Session 9: 'The' Place To Be...: the Development of Bloomsbury in late 17th and early 18th Century London
QUIZ of 20 questions
Lecture on the origins of London's first West End suburb, followed by a guided-walk around Bloomsbury.
Session 10: Study Session at the Guildhall Library
The class will meet at the Library where students will have the morning to access primary source materials to complete their papers. Quiz papers will be returned. Case studies of examples of 'Unruly Women' will be allocated to students and which will be presented in session 12, the final class of the course. The subjects will include: Mary Blandy, the middle-class girl who killed her father for love; Harriet Magnis who abducted a little boy; the disturbed teenager Barbara Spencer who fell in with a bad crowd and counterfeited coins and was burned at the stake; the sadistic killer Elizabeth Brownrigg; Sarah Malcolm the triple-killer and Mary Bateman who was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
Session 11: 'All Kinds of Women': Ruly and Unruly Women's Lives in 17th and 18th Century London
Lecture on women's lives in London from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th centuries. Special reference will be made to The Newgate Calendar and transcripts of cases heard at the Old Bailey.
Session 12: 'Unruly Women' Class Presentation
Students will present their findings on the 'unruly woman' case study they were allocated. The class will be required to interview the presenters and ask cogent questions of the material which is being presented, and offer comments on their findings and the outcomes of the cases.
Research Paper Due
As this changes each semester, please refer to the course Moodle (upon arrival) page for required readings.
Dr. Diane Atkinson holds a Ph.D. on the politics of women’s sweated labour, 1810-1910, from the University of London. She also has an M.A. in Life-Writing from the internationally renowned Creative Writing course at the University of East Anglia. She has lectured on the social history of London at the Museum of London where in 1992 she curated the major groundbreaking exhibition Purple, White and Green: the Suffragettes in London 1906-1914. In 1996 she was commissioned by the Fawcett Society to curate and write the book for the exhibition Funny Girls Cartooning for Equality, the foreword of which was written by the Honourable Betty Boothroyd, the first women Speaker of the House of Commons. She has written several books on the suffragettes. Her most recent titles are Love and Dirt: the Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick published by Macmillan in 2003, and Elsie and Mairi Go To War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front, published by preface/ Random House in 2009.