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 [log in to unmask] 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 ([log in to unmask]).
==
My book: Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700-1880
http://www.pickeringchatto.com/brewing | August 2013
|