Profile

Stephen Caunce

Senior Lecturer in Early-modern History

School of Education and Social Science

University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE

+(44) 1772 893047

sacaunce@uclan.ac.uk

University College, London        1969-72
 B.A. (First Class Hons.), Medieval and Modern History.

The University of Leeds         1972-75
 Ph.D. research, 'Farming with horses in the East Riding of Yorkshire:
 some aspects of recent agricultural history'. Awarded 1989.

Leeds University.        1990-98
Lecturer in Economic and Social History, Leeds University Business School.

The Open University.        1991-92
Tutor.

Freelance Historian.        1988-90

Yorkshire Mining Museum (now National Mining Museum)   1987-88
Caphouse Colliery, Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Curator.
Kirklees Metropolitan Council Museums     1978-87
Huddersfield and the Heavy Woollen District, West Yorkshire.

Curator, 1986-87, Tolson Memorial Museum, Huddersfield.
Curator, 1983-86, Red House Museum, Gomersal (assisted with development of Oakwell Hall historic house and country park, Birstall).
Assistant Curator, 1982-83, Bagshaw Museum, Batley, Tolson Museum, Red House Museum.

Beamish Museum, Stanley, Co. Durham     1975-77
Cataloguer/Researcher.

Current Research & Supervision

I am currently working on long-term research projects relating to the Taylor family of Gomersal as representatives of Yorkshire clothiers during industrialisation; on farm mechanisation in the north east (in collaboration with Beamish Museum); on northern identity; on northern urbanisation, and on northern hiring fairs. I have also recently organised a short-term oral history project in Frenchwood, Preston in association with Preston City Council’s regeneration efforts there, and see this as part of a community engagement strategy for the future.

My research interests group around a search to understand the transformation of the north of England, and especially Lancashire and Yorkshire, between 1600 and 1900, and also to examine through evidence rather than theory the impact of this process upon ordinary people. My approach is to comprehend the diversity of the process, and therefore I have maintained a strong interest in agriculture and its contribution to change in the north since completing my PhD, while museum experience gave me direct insights into woollen textiles and the merchants and manufacturers of west Yorkshire and also into the development of coal mining and usage. Chaos theory has been a vital tool in analysing such a wide range of research.

PhD, Director of Studies, The Influence of Railways on the Development of Accrington and District, 1848-1914.

PhD, Director of Studies, Local Media and Local Identities: Assessing the Influence of Local Newspapers And Periodicals on the Construction of Identities in Lancashire Towns, 1861-c. 1900.

PhD, Second Supervisor, Financing Lancashire’s Industrial Development, 1775-1825.

PhD, Second Supervisor, ‘Football’s Consumer Culture and the Construction of Fan Identities, c1880-c1960’

MPhil, Second Supervisor, Families, Faith & Freehold: Craven 1535-1640.

MA, Second Second Supervisor, Mortality Crisis in Lancashire, c1727-1730.

PhD, Second Second Supervisor, The Nature and Significance of Changes in Official and Community Attitudes Towards Common Rights to Building and Fuel Resources in Westmorland from 1780 to 1939.

Teaching

Current portfolio (not all active at once):

HY1112 Early-modern Europe (level 1 core module, BA)
HY1118 Museums, Heritage and History (level 1 core module, BA)
HY1121 Preston: A Case Study in Urbanisation (level 1 team module, BA)
HY1101 Understanding History (team core module, level 1, BA)
HY1113 The Modern World Since c. 1750 (team core module, level 1, BA)
HY2001 Sources and Methods in History (level 2 core module, BA)
HY2028 Community History Project (team module, level 2, BA)
HY2086 Reformation to Revolution: State and Society in England, 1485-1700 (team
  module, level 2, BA)
HY2202 Insight into Museums (employability half-module, level 2, BA)
HY3026 Technology and Society (level 3, BA)
HY3990 / 3991 / 3997 Dissertation options in History (level 3, BA)
HY3972 History Work Placement (level 3, BA)
EE3401 Museum Exhibit (level 3, BA)

Northern English history topics (level 4, for MA team module)

Selected Publications

Amongst Farm Horses: The Horselads of East Yorkshire, Alan Sutton, Stroud, 1991.
Oral History and the Local Historian,Longman, 1994.

 ‘Twentieth-Century Farm Servants: the Horselads of the East Riding of Yorkshire’,  Agricultural History Review, 39,1991, 143-66.

‘Yorkshire Post Newspapers Ltd 1890-1990: Perseverance Rewarded’, in J. Chartres and K. Honeyman (eds), Leeds City Business, 1893-1993: Essays Marking the Centenary of the Incorporation, Leeds University Press, Leeds, 1993, 24-56.

‘Farm Servants and the Development of English Capitalism’, Agricultural History Review, 45, 1997, 49-60.

‘Complexity, Community Structure, and Competitive Advantage Within the West Yorkshire Woollen Industry’, Business History, 39, 1997, 26-43.

'Not Sprung From Princes: the Nature of Middling Society in Eighteenth-century West Yorkshire', in D. Nicholls (ed.), The Making of the British Middle Class? Studies in Regional and Cultural History Since 1750, 1998, Sutton, Stroud, 19-41.

Urban Systems, Identity and Development In Lancashire and Yorkshire: A Complex Question’, N. Kirk (ed), Northern Identities, 2000, 19-41.

‘Banks, Communities and Manufacturing in West Yorkshire textiles, c.1800-1830’, in J.F. Wilson and A. Popp, Industrial Clusters and Regional Business Networks in England, 1750-1970, Ashgate, 2003, 112-129.

‘Houses as Museums: The Case of the Yorkshire Wool Textile Industry,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 13, 2003, pp. 329-43.

‘Northern English Industrial Towns: Rivals or Partners?’, Urban History, 30, 2003, pp. 338-58.

‘Mechanisation in English Agriculture: the Experience of the North-east, 1850-1914’, Rural History,17,  2006, 23-45.

‘Le Nord de l’Angleterre: une Constellation de Districts Industriels, 1650-1830’, in Colloque organisee par le Ministre de l’Economie, des Finances et de l’Industrie sous le Direction Scientifique de Michel Lescure, Comite pour l’Histoire Economique et Financiere de la France, Paris, 2007.

‘Revealing a New Northern England: Crossing the Rubicon with Daniel Defoe’, Prose Studies, 29, 2007, pp. 136-52.

Database: Farm equipment offered for auction in the north-east of England, 1850-1914. Published as a CD-Rom by Beamish Museum.