Full-Time AHRC-funded Postgraduate Studentship in History/Museum Studies
'The public history of criminal justice in the United Kingdom.'
FURTHER PARTICULARS
This three-year, full-time funded studentship tenable from January 1st 2007, run by the History
Department of the Open University and the Galleries of Justice museum in Nottingham. It is financed
through a Collaborative Doctoral Award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
The proposed project involves an analysis of the gap that exists between academic understandings of
British criminal justice history, and the way that this topic is often presented in museums and other
visitor attractions. This gap will be examined in the written section of the thesis, and addressed by
means of a temporary exhibition at the Galleries of Justice.
This studentship will initially be based at the History Department of the Open University. The
successful candidate will therefore be based at Milton Keynes for their first year, but at the Galleries
of Justice in Nottingham for the second and third years.
This is a re-advertisement, following our failure to find a suitable candidate for the studentship this
summer.
Partner Institutions
The European Centre for the Study of Policing
The Open University's European Centre for the Study of Policing (ECSP) has a long-standing interest
in public history. This has comprised: the 1989-1990 ESRC-funded survey of police archives (Emsley
and Bridgeman, Guide to the Police Archives of England and Wales (Police History Society 1990));
ongoing involvement of Centre staff with the Police History Society; the 2003 survey of police
archiving policies (Williams and Emsley, 'Beware of the Leopard' in M. Proctor, (ed.) Political
Pressure and the Archival Record, (American Society of Archivists, 2006)), and the 2004 'Heritage
and History of the UK Criminal Justice System' conference, the papers of which were published as
Giving the Past a Future: Preserving the Heritage of the UK's Criminal Justice System (Francis
Boutle, 2004), edited by Chris Williams.
The ECSP has existed within the History Department since 1992. It is the most prominent group in the
UK for the study of police history, and is affiliated to the GERN (Groupe Européen de Recherche sur
les Normativités). It holds quarterly seminars on police history, and has a varied and growing archive
of primary sources, including that of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is currently being
indexed. Owing to the number of OU staff who have researched British policing policy and history
over the last two decades, the OU library is very well stocked with relevant books and journals.
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/history/policing/
The International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research
The ECSP is one of the component research clusters in the ICCCR. The ICCCR was founded in 2004,
and is one of the Open University's designated research centres. The Centre aims to bring together
contemporary practice-based research and critical policy analysis with an awareness of historical and
social context. It is both cross-Faculty and interdisciplinary. Its research is aimed at academic, policy
and practitioner audiences. It brings together acknowledged experts within the field of criminology
from a number of different disciplines: History, Social Policy, Psychology and Law. Centre members
also have strong research interests in historical, contemporary, and emerging forms of governance and
strategies of policing and regulation. A key concern of the Centre is to analyse how the meaning of
crime, policing and criminal justice is embedded within changing local and international, historical
and cultural contexts.
http://www.open.ac.uk/icccr/
The Galleries of Justice
The NCCL (National Centre for Citizenship and the Law) Galleries of Justice (GoJ) is a registered
independent museum housed in the old Shire Hall and made up of a range of Victorian courtrooms, an
eighteenth-century prison and an Edwardian police station. The site is used as a learning resource for
schools, colleges and universities, families and outreach projects aimed at young person’s groups and
the socially excluded, for which the GoJ won the Gulbenkian Award in 2004. The museum has
collections of national importance that relate to policing, the law and probation, and is also home of
the HM Prison Service collection. The GoJ's total collections resource is in the region of 25,000 items
not including the library stock.
Project Outline
Background
The issues of crime and its control occupy a huge portion of contemporary public discourse. Much of
this debate anchors itself in an interpretation of the past, which is often unrecognisable to specialists
working in the area: see for example Geoffrey Pearson's book Hooligan: a History of Respectable
Fears (Longman, Harlow 1980), which shows among other things the failure to appreciate the long
history of the clash between 'reformers' and 'conservatives' in the prison service. There is a lack of fit
between the 'received wisdom' of many public commentators and the now-firm conclusions of
historians researching in the field, on issues including (but not limited to) the competence of police
before 1829, the development of imprisonment, and the overall level of violence in society.
The traditional approach to the writing of criminal justice history in the UK was to celebrate
institutions and to see their development as a steady and teleological rise from incompetent roots
towards the present, punctuated and illustrated by the adoption of increasingly powerful technology.
This approach as applied to policing was first systematically criticised by Cyril Robinson in 1979
(‘Ideology as history: a look at the way in which some English police historians look at the police’
Police Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 35-49). A comparably teleological approach which uncritically identifies
humanitarianism as the motor for change in prison conditions was exposed by Ignatieff's A Just
Measure of Pain (London: Macmillan, 1978), yet it is this motif which is still dominant in much of the
practice of public history within museums of policing, of the courts, and of punishment, despite the
existence of an academic critique of such usage (for which see T. Bennett, The Birth of the Museum:
History, Theory, Politics (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 153-155).
Aims
The major aim is to help move the public history of crime, policing, the courts and punishment in the
UK into a more critical mode, questioning and rethinking when necessary.
Objectives
The main objective, therefore, is to develop a theoretical framework within which the public history of
criminal justice can be assessed and if necessary criticised. This framework ought to be of use to
curators in the area as well as academics, and hence its dissemination is also a key objective. This will
be assessed through an examined thesis (c. 50,000 words long) and a 'worked example': an exhibition
at the GoJ which will cover a single topic of criminal justice history, and seek to reflect as closely as
possible the historical research into the area. Ideally this exhibition would be able to transfer later to a
suitable temporary public location in Milton Keynes. The thesis could contain an analysis of the way
that this topic is covered elsewhere in the museum sector: it should analyse and justify the process
whereby the exhibition was conceived, designed, written and presented. As a companion to the
exhibition, a catalogue will be produced which can be archived electronically by the ECSP and the
GoJ, and serve as a record. This need not have the sophistication necessary to be considered as a
mirror or online version of the exhibition.
Intellectual issues to be addressed
Intellectually, the student will need to confront the problem of how closely a museum installation can
reflect a broadly accepted academic consensus, given the bounds of: commercial considerations;
available material for exhibition; space; and the need to limit the number of authorial and
interpretative voices in order to communicate directly with the general public. It is likely that a
successful project will be one that also considers the way that knowledge about the past is developed
and presented, and the extent to which it can (or ought) to be relevant to the present. Thus it is likely to
deal with the roles of: the structure of information in academic and popular history; 'common
knowledge'; and existing representations of the topic in fiction and the mass media. There are no
definite right answers to these questions, (although there are wrong ones) and the extent to which they
can be arrived at will be a good measure of how successful the research project has been.
Working methods
The precise interpretative framework which the student will use will be worked out by the student in
conjunction with the supervisory team, but ought to be compatible with the accepted methodologies of
academic history and of museum studies, and take into account the social and political context of
public history. The student may well choose to visit other museums as part of the project, to assess the
way that they are presenting this topic. The main research tasks the student needs to carry out are as
follows. First, they must select an issue in criminal justice history (broadly defined as encompassing
crime, policing, the courts, and punishment) to examine, ideally over a reasonably long chronological
period. Then, they must survey both the research literature and the way that this issue is being
presented in the museum sector. Finally, they must curate an exhibition on this issue at the GoJ,
describing and justifying in their accompanying thesis the way that this process was carried out.
Timescale
During first year, the student will be physically based at the Open University at Milton Keynes. This
period will largely be taken up with research training and initial familiarisation with the relevant
secondary literature. If the student has a museum studies background, this secondary study is likely to
be more heavily weighed towards criminal justice history, and vice versa. Supervision meetings with
GoJ staff in attendance will ensure that the project is achievable within their needs, and the student
will be able and expected to visit the GoJ to familiarise themselves with it.
During the second year, the student will be based at the GoJ in Nottingham, and will be able to other
visit and study museums including the GoJ, paying close attention to the distance (if any) between the
message of the exhibition and the current best research into the subject. This aspect of the project is
likely to be interpretive only: it will not require any systematic research into public responses to
exhibits. The existence of the MLA-supported Crime and Punishment Collections Network will
probably aid this activity. The GoJ and the ECSP are both founder members of this network, and Chris
Williams is a members of its executive committee. In this year their training will focus on curatorial
and archival practice at the GoJ, and is likely to be less formal than that delivered at the OU. They will
continue the process of gathering evidence for their personal development portfolio.
During the third year, the student will continue to be based at Nottingham, and will work on writing up
the thesis and putting together the exhibition. The archives and artefacts collection of the GoJ offers an
exceptionally large arena for the student to choose their topic. In addition, they might choose to draw
on the resources of the archive of the ECSP, which include the records of the Association of Chief
Police Officers (ACPO), film material, and police-related archival material from the nineteenth
century. The exhibition itself will open in the summer of 2009, three months before the expected
submission date. At a mutually convenient time, it will transfer to a suitable venue in Milton Keynes.
Additional funding permitting, it could later be developed into a smaller travelling exhibition which
could 'tour' OU regional offices and other venues.
The supervision will be shared between the members of each institution, with the OU supervisors
taking the lead role in the preparation of the thesis, and the GoJ supervisors the lead role in the
preparation of the exhibit. Necessary research expenses will be covered by the OU.
Training
Initial training needs assessment, and training in generic research methods (some of which will
involve transferable skills) will be carried out through the OU's standard postgraduate training scheme,
largely during the first year, although the student will subsequently retain access to training resources
at the OU if necessary. They will also be able to consult other OU academics with relevant experience,
such as Dr Yvonne Jewkes (Social Policy Department) who co-edits the journal Crime, Media,
Culture, and Professor Tony Bennett (Sociology Department), author of The Birth of the Museum:
History, Theory, Politics.
The History Department has four full-time PhD students and around 20 part-time PhD students. The
research student will have (shared) use of an office in the Arts Faculty at Milton Keynes. The office
contains computing equipment, and the student will also be allocated a laptop computer. The
University provides a generic postgraduate student induction programme, and in addition to this the
Arts Faculty runs a series of training and induction sessions, covering such matters as:

Collecting source material for research, planning and arranging visits to archives, retrieving
materials, managing data about sources, and records management;

Project planning and management, topic framing, definition and scheduling of research
programmes;

Use of libraries (including the OU library), and introduction to digital resources and
bibliographic management and software;

Attending academic conferences, presenting papers, and networking;

Wider trends in Arts scholarship, and the social and political contexts of research.
The Arts Faculty follows Quality Assurance Agency criteria for postgraduate programmes, which
involve an initial assessment of training needs, the drawing up of a training and development plan, and
the regular review of this plan. The History Department runs a regular Departmental Seminar, at
which PhD. students and members of staff present their latest research.
Training in transferable skills specific to the project will be largely delivered at the GoJ. Training
provision from both institutions will be integrated into a single process of training needs assessment,
delivery, and evaluation, handled by the student and the supervisors acting jointly, and recorded in a
single integrated portfolio of evidence.
Plans for dissemination
The student will be expected, as is normal for OU research students, to give a paper at one of the
ECSP's regular police history seminars. We anticipate that in addition to the thesis and the exhibition,
the student will be in a position to write up the project in the relevant academic history (Crime History
and Societies), criminology (Crime, Media, Culture), or museum studies journals. The higher
dissemination priority, though, will be to communicate with the public history sector via the Crime
and Punishment Collections network, and through articles in Museum Practice and the Museums
Journal. If the student wishes to convene a small conference to coincide with the launch of the
exhibition (Autumn 2009) then the ECSP will be willing to give administrative and financial support
to this.
Wider Benefits
If this project is successful, its main immediate benefit will be to the museums sector as a whole. In
addition the project ought to help to enhance appreciation by academics of the potential benefits of a
more intensive engagement with the public.
The project will break new ground by being the first systematic study concentrating on the
presentation of criminal justice history, and the 'hands-on' element should give it added currency and
ensure that it is relevant to, and informed by, the realities of curatorial practice.
Project Supervisors
The supervisors at the OU will be Clive Emsley and Chris A. Williams. Dr Williams edited and
contributed to Giving the Past a Future: Preserving the Heritage of the UK's Criminal Justice System
(Francis Boutle: London, 2004). He is engaged with public history in general through his ongoing role
as originator and academic consultant for the OU/BBC Radio 4 series 'Things we forgot to remember'.
He has written several articles on the history of policing in the UK and beyond. Professor Emsley is
the author of numerous books and articles on the history of crime and policing, including The British
Police: a Social and Political History (Longman, 2nd ed. 1996) and Crime and Society in England
(Longman, 3rd ed. 2005). He is a member of the advisory board of the Metropolitan Police Museum,
the academic council of the Société Nationale Histoire et Patrimoine de la Gendarmerie Nationale,
and is the academic advisor to the Police History Society.
The supervisor at the GoJ will be Beverley Baker. Ms. Baker has experience supervising a full time
researcher, funded through SIS (Nottingham Trent Univeristy) to research the content of the Rainer
Foundation archive. This charts the history of the London Police Court Mission (precursor to the
Probation Service) as well as various reform and industrial schools including the School of Discipline
established by Elizabeth Fry in 1825. The research led to a number of papers presented at various
academic conferences including SOLON’s 'Behaving Badly' conference at the GoJ in 2001.
Stipend and expenses
All fees will be paid by the AHRC. The studentship stipend is at the AHRC standard level (£12,000in
2005/2006), plus £500 per annum. The student will be entitled to general research expenses of £1,000
per year, plus £4,800 has been earmarked for expenses over the life of the project to cover such
necessities as regular travel between the two institutions.
Requirements
It is essential that the successful candidate has:

a masters' degree, with appropriate research skills training, in a cognate discipline, (which is
likely to be, but not limited to, History or Museum Studies), or excellent progress towards
one.

experience in studying primary source material, OR in curating historical artefacts

commitment to the furtherance of public understanding of history.
In addition, it is desirable that the candidate has some or all of the following:

knowledge of the history of the UK's criminal justice system, or another similar aspect of UK
social history.

experience of working as a curator.
Applicants must enclose with the application form a statement, of no more than 1,000 words,
explaining briefly the nature of their interest in the subject of the project, with details of any
previous work in this area, or any cognate areas. A sample of written work should also be included
(for example a chapter from an MA dissertation).
Information about the History Department
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/history.
Informal enquiries may be made to Dr Williams (chris.williams@open.ac.uk) or Professor
Emsley (c.emsley@open.ac.uk).
For detailed information and how to apply go to www3.open.ac.uk/employment, or call
Lynda White, History Department Co-ordinator on 01908 653266 or email
l.m.white@open.ac.uk. Closing date: 24 November 2006. Interviews will be held on a day
to be confirmed in December 2006.