Dan Meldon
I am a first-year PhD researcher in History at the University of Warwick, funded by the AHRC-Midlands4Cities. My PhD project is titled 'Problematising Warwickshire: Early Modern Environmental Perspectives', and is a Collaborative Doctoral Award, working in concert with the Warwickshire County Records Office.
Research
My research aims to explore the extent to which processes of environmental change in early modern Warwickshire impacted the identities of those living in the region across the early modern centuries, tackling the concepts of county communities and regional spatialisation in doing so. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, I handle source material varying from 15th-century literature and early maps to parish and manorial records. I also explore GIS and its applications in representing large datasets for regional studies.
My working definition of identity is broad; identity is not just individual, but often familial, professional, communal, religious, and to a lesser extent, regional, across this period. Through my interdisciplinary approach, I hope to assess to what extent the significant processes of environmental and climate change in the early modern centuries impacted these identities, and whether these identities transformed, competed, or became increasingly entrenched in this period.
This research navigates broad themes, including protest, poverty, governance, as well as processes of environmental, socio-economic, and cultural change in county spaces across the early modern centuries. Ultimately, this research aspires to uncover how ecology and landscape shaped life and identity in early modern Warwickshire, and how the transformation of the physical environment, whether through anthropogenic or natural processes, impacted the lives of those living in Warwickshire in the early modern centuries, across broad social, economic, and political strata.
I am supervised by Professor Beat Kümin and Dr Naomi Pullin.
Research Activities
Co-Organiser of 'Parish Data: The Twenty-Fourth Symposium of Parish Research' with Beat Kümin, Jeanne Dufresne & Lynn Mariott (University of Warwick) and Marek Słoń (Institute for the Historical Geography of the Church in Poland - John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin) and Artur Karpacz (Lublin).
Wider Research Interests
I am also interested in the history of nostalgia, especially its imagining of rural spaces and deployment in political discourse. I wrote my Master's thesis on the topic, titled Conserving Merry England: Merry England Mythology in Conservative Literature, 1790-1845, supervised by Dr Christopher Donaldson.
I am also particularly interested in critical cartographic approaches, and broader methodological conversations regarding the development and application of cartographic materials, as well as the handle of these as historical documents.
My research interests also include environmental histories more broadly, particularly in relation to the early modern world, and the continuities of early modern environmental change with contemporary climate crises and challenges. This is especially in relation to social unrest, generated through processes of environmental change, in this period.
Education and Related Experience
2016-2019: BA (Hons), History, Lancaster University
2019-2020: MA (Distinction), History and Heritage, Lancaster University
2022-2024: Postgraduate Diploma in Education, (PGDE, Distinction), Sheffield Hallam University.
October 2025 onwards, PhD in History, University of Warwick. M4C Funded CDA.
I also hold Qualified Teacher Status (Awarded in 2023)