Midlands History and Heritage - Collaborative Approaches
Reflections by Angus Crawford (Warwick History) -
A post jointly commissioned by the Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre & My-Parish
‘Midlands History & Heritage – Collaborative Approaches’ took place on Friday afternoon, 17 January 2025. The event was designed to facilitate greater cooperation between the University of Warwick and the Lord Leycester Hospital, the partner organisation for my Collaborative Doctoral Award. The event built upon the highly successful workshop series Dr Naomi Pullin organised last year (which is being repeated this year) at the Lord Leycester Hospital. These workshops brought together University of Warwick academics and PhD students with local volunteers and researchers. Another ambition of the Midlands History & Heritage event was to foster conversation and develop relationships between leading Midlands scholars and key heritage, history, and museum stakeholders, allowing historians and public-facing institutions to interact and learn from one other.
The event started with Professor Beat Kümin and Dr Naomi Pullin, two of my PhD supervisors, welcoming guests and speakers. Naomi and Beat also informed delegates of Warwick’s Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre (EMECC) and My-Parish, which were the joint co-host institutions for this event. These are two major research clusters in the Warwick History department, giving students and staff at the university exposure to the work and approaches of academics at other institutions, as well as events with members of the public. Naomi, the EMECC Director, drew our attention to their exciting calendar of events, including an upcoming conference on work, authenticity, and social identity in early modern Britain, which I am co-organising. Beat, the network co-ordinator of My-Parish, outlined the incredible resource for everyone interested in parish history. My-Parish supports academic research by sponsoring Parish Fellows and publishing short blog posts, though the highlight is the annual symposium. The Twenty-Third Symposium on Parish Research is taking place in May 2025 on the subject of communication.
The event was structured into two halves. The first section, ‘Researching the Early Modern Midlands’, featured academic papers from Prof Ann Hughes (Emerita Keele), Prof Andrew Hopper (Oxford), and Dr Ruth Barbour (Warwickshire Local History Society). First up, Ann Hughes expertly sketched the historical outlines of early modern Warwickshire, from the time of Ambrose and Robert Dudley to the Civil War. Ann told us that although she has been working on this area of history almost fifty years, she is still guided by many of the major ideas she expressed in her PhD thesis. In particular, Ann highlighted the dynamic and complex relationship between local and central factors when investigating the history of Warwick town in this period. While Warwick faced the challenges of poverty and social stratification in the early modern period, Ann argued that the town regularly featured in, and became embedded within, wider national and international conversations. A powerful example Ann cited related to George Medley, a servant of the Grevilles of Warwick Castle, the leading local aristocratic family. Medley had appealed to the state for payment for his quartering of soldiers during the Civil War. The Greville Household Accounts also suggest that he was a Greville gardener, and he may have been particularly frustrated by the war-time destruction of flora. The example of Medley perfectly underlined that place-based local history can invite human agency and complexity into grand historical structures, such as state formation. Ann reminded us that, on the ground, the experience of state formation was often a very ambiguous and amorphous one. She underlined the potential of local history to shine a light on social experiences and show the agency of historical actors who might otherwise remain obscure.
Andy Hopper’s paper focused on the relationship between public engagement and the Civil War Petitions Project. This project, funded between 2017 and 2023, of which Andy was the principal investigator, aimed to investigate how ordinary men and women remembered the Civil War. Their principal source base consisted of the petitions that survive from ‘battle-scarred’ ex-servicemen and war widows. Incidentally, many of these petitions survive for the county of Warwickshire. Andy highlighted the impressive usability of the Civil War Petitions website, allowing researchers of all ages and experiences to filter by region and theme, while also incorporating modern transcriptions. Andy’s paper was especially helpful in demonstrating the public engagement possibilities for early modern British history, which I think spoke strongly to the Lord Leycester representatives, given the military function of the almshouse. The Civil War Petitions Project has enjoyed extensive public engagement. For example, the project cooperated with RSC actors about maimed veterans and hosted an exhibition at the National Civil War Centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire. Andy’s paper highlighted how early modern British history might exist at an interface with members of the public. The project underlines how a set of rich historical sources can be better understood and preserved when made accessible to the public, which gave everyone present lots to think about.
Ruth Barbour delivered the last paper in the first section. She spoke about the intellectual and institutional foundations of local history in Warwickshire. Though Ruth informed the audience that the formation of the Warwickshire Local History was relatively late (in 1965), she charted a much longer legacy that chiefly extends back to Sir William Dugdale’s The Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656). Ruth’s paper captured the vibrancy of local history in Warwickshire, perhaps much more so than is available in other English counties. The society’s lecture programme, journal (Warwickshire History), and regular outings to local historical sites support members of the public and academics in participating in historical conversations and learning more about the history around them. Many lectures and Warwickshire History articles have had a major impact on the research of Warwickshire.
Dr. the Hon. Philip Sidney. Pic: Naomi Pullin.
The second section, ‘Heritage and the Lord Leycester’, involved contributions from Lord Leycester staff (Rufus Dent, Bryony Goodwin and Callum Price), the master (Dr Heidi L. Meyer), brethren (Capt. Alan Gill and Maj. Janet Brodie-Murphy), the governor representing the patron’s family (Dr the Hon. Philip Sidney), and myself. The Lord Leycester representatives explained the different aspects of their responsibilities in running and maintaining a small heritage site. Philip Sidney, the son of the patron, Lord De L’Isle of Penshurst Place in Kent, talked about his role as a patron to Robert Dudley’s charity. The patronage of the Lord Leycester Hospital as a charitable institution is a commitment the Sidneys consider extremely important, forming a direct personal bond with the founder, who is Philip’s 12x great uncle. Heidi Meyer communicated the enormous honour and pleasure she has experienced in leading an institution that has existed for over 450 years and overseeing a group of buildings that are at least 600 years old. The brethren, Alan and Janet, who have recently joined the Lord Leycester community from the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, spoke about their duties as recipients of this long-standing charity and briefly touched upon their military service. Janet’s visual metaphor of an apple is something I am sure the audience will fondly remember for a long time. Janet suggested that the Lord Leycester somewhat resembles an apple: parts of it are sour and less desirable, but overall, it is sweet-tasting, healthy, and regenerative with a symbolic and physical core. Janet later told attendees that when visitors ask her if she actually lives at the Lord Leycester, she simply replies “Yes, it is my home”, which I think epitomises the charity as a living historical site and its enormous value to the local community of Warwick. It should be pointed out that with great modesty, both Heidi and Janet did not mention that they were respectively the Lord Leycester’s first female master and brother, which the University of Warwick’s registrar, Rachel Sandy-Thomas, reminded us.
Maj. Janet Brodie-Murphy and her apple. Pic: Naomi Pullin.
I spoke last and attempted to round off the proceedings, giving an overview of how researching the Lord Leycester in the early modern period functions as a PhD project. I circled back to the influence of Thomas Cartwright, whom Ann had mentioned earlier in her paper, as a way of shining a light on the Lord Leycester both in national and local conversations. I underlined that studying the institution can be an effective way of illuminating the agency of local men and women of the past. I also reflected on some of the cross-historical themes that unite my research and the experience of the current Lord Leycester representatives, including the workings of patronage, the treatment of ex-servicemen, and the institution’s continuing success as a local site that features in national conversations and debates (for instance, see the BBC’s reporting of Janet’s installation as a brother).
Capt. Alan Gill speaking to a packed EMECC-My-Parish audience. Pic: Beat Kümin.
Many fruitful conversations continued over a generous food and drinks reception, which allowed for networking among our eclectic mix of attendees. Although this event, with its emphasis on heritage and academic contributions, was unusual for EMECC’s calendar of talks, I think it was a huge success in allowing both scholars and heritage organisations to reflect on what it takes to research and then maintain the sites which we all care deeply about. The event will hopefully be the first of many more between the University of Warwick and local heritage organisations, advancing these relationships. In particular, we were pleased to welcome the Warwickshire County Record Office to the event as the department looks forward to working with them in an upcoming Collaborative Doctoral Award, starting in October 2025. This relationship will also hopefully enhance the university’s connections with another key historical stakeholder in the town of Warwick.
Finally, this event would not have run so smoothly without the considerable help of Amy Evans, the EMECC coordinator, Dr Naomi Pullin, and Professor Beat Kümin. I am grateful to EMECC and My-Parish for financially supporting this event.
Angus Crawford is a second-year PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Warwick. His project, funded by AHRC-Midlands4Cities, is a Collaborative Doctoral Award between the Lord Leycester Hospital and the University of Warwick.
Pic: BK.
