Resources, risk and disasters in the nineteenth century British city (20 credits)
Course proposer: Dr Shane Ewen
A
Rationale
This is a new course which will examine the relationship between the built
environment and natural resources within nineteenth century British cities. Building
on growing academic interest in environmental history and, more specifically, urban
environmental history, the course will explore the impact of the built environment on
the natural environment, but also nature’s influence on urban development, which
often took a dramatic, even destructive, role in shaping urban growth. In so doing, the
course will also examine the ways in which cities controlled the risks and crises
associated with environmental problems like fire, pollution, dirt, and natural disasters.
It is anticipated that this course will be of interest to a wide range of students,
including those in economic and social history, history, Scottish history, social and
political studies, geography and environmental studies. The course builds on Dr.
Ewen’s current research, which is concerned with the perceptions and realities of risk
and disaster in nineteenth century British cities, focusing especially on the impact of
fires on urban development and resilience.
B
Course aims and objectives
This course aims to:
1. introduce students to the rapidly growing fields of environmental and urban
environmental history;
2. provide students with an overview of the main natural resources involved in urban
development during the nineteenth century, as well as the chief risks faced by cities
and the ways in which their inhabitants learned to deal with specific natural and manmade crises;
3. introduce students to theories associated with risk and urban disaster and encourage
them to consider their application to urban case studies selected from the nineteenth
century British experience, such as the ‘great fire’ of Edinburgh in 1824, the ‘great
stink’ in London, the cholera epidemic of 1832, the Edinburgh fetid irrigation
controversy of 1839-40, and the Sheffield flood of 1864;
4. encourage students to apply secondary reading to case studies through a variety of
primary sources ranging from written reports and newspaper accounts to visual
representations;
5. enhance student understanding of the ways in which Britain’s natural and built
environment interacted during the nineteenth century.
C
Learning outcomes
Students undertaking this course will acquire:
• A substantive knowledge of the history and historiography of the British urban
environment and disaster during the period 1800-1914;
• An ability to deploy both historical and social scientific concepts and theories in
analysing the events and responses of cities to disasters and crises, and in attempting
to harness natural resources like water in improving urban life;
• An ability to handle key primary sources related to nineteenth century British urban
environmental history, including parliamentary reports, newspaper accounts, maps
and contemporary books.
D
Student intake
The course is aimed at Honours students in the School of History and Classics, the
School of Arts, Culture and the Environment, the School of Social and Political
Studies, and the School of Geosciences. The course will not run with less than 5
students but there is no upper limit to the number of students who may take the
course.
E
Course content
This course will cover the following topics:
1. Introduction
2. What is environmental and urban environmental history?
3. Building the city: the British urban environment in its social and economic
context
4. Polluting the city: dealing with public health crises
5. Watering the city: water as resource and risk
6. Cleaning the city: dealing with dirt
7. Burning the city: fires and the process of city growth and resilience
8. Greening the city: green open spaces for all?
9. Countrifying the city: garden cities and the birth of modern town planning
10. Resources, risks and disaster in international comparison
Although it is not a pre-requisite to have taken either of the first and second year
social history courses offered by Economic and Social History for entry onto this
honours course, it is beneficial to have some experience of courses taught in either a
historical discipline, in social and political studies, or in geosciences.
F
Organisation of teaching
The course organiser and lecturer is Dr. Shane Ewen. The 20-credit course will be
taught in nine 1-hour lectures and nine 1.5-hour seminars over ten weeks in semester
two. The first week will comprise a short introduction to the course, with the
following nine weeks comprising lecture and seminar. Seminars will be organised
around student presentations, usually comprising a case study approach to discussing
environmental resources and risks in cities.
G
Student assessment and guidance
The course will be assessed by means of one two-hour written examination and a
piece of assessed work of c.3000 words. The exam will account for 75% of the final
course mark and the semester assessed work for 25%.
Students will be expected to give a non-assessed class presentation during a seminar
on one of the course themes, and will be asked to write their assessed coursework
essay on a different theme to that which they covered in their class presentation.
H
Feedback and evaluation
Students will receive comments on their seminar presentations and on their assessed
essays. The usual Subject Area monitoring procedures will be followed in the form of
questionnaires and staff-student meetings.
I
Resource requirements
The course will not require significant new resources or additional funding. There are
no substantial implications in terms of library books. There already exists a variety of
suitable texts that are available during the second-year ESH core course, ‘Social
History 2’; other degree programmes, including the MA in ‘Architectural History’ run
by the School of Arts, Culture and the Environment; and other honours courses such
as the School of Geoscience’s ‘Historical Geographies of Geographical Knowledge’.
As ‘Social History 2’ is taught in the first semester, it is expected that resources will
be available to teach this course in the second semester. A number of online resources
are freely available for consultation.
J
Documentation
The course booklet will be made available to students and to the external examiners,
both in hard-copy form and also on WebCT.
K
Select reading list
Adams, John, Risk (London: UCL Press, 1995) .3013 Ada
Beck, Ulrich, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage, 1992) .3013
Bec
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Briggs, Asa, Social History of England (London, 1994 edn) .9(42)01 Bri
Brimblecombe, Peter, The Big Smoke: a history of air pollution in London since
medieval times (London: Methuen 1987) .61471(421) Bri
Chadwick, Edwin, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of
Great Britain 1842 (Edinburgh: EUP, 1965, ed. M. Flinn) RA625 Cha
Clapp, B. W, An environmental history of Britain since the Industrial Revolution
(London: Longman, 1994) .33372(42) Cla
Crouch, David, The Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture (London, 1988) .635(42)
Cro
Daunton, Martin, House and home in the Victorian city: working-class housing, 18501914 (London, 1983) HD7333.A3 Dau
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1700-1850 (Oxford, 1995) HC254.5 Dau
Daunton, Martin (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain Vol. III 1840-1950
(Cambridge, 2000) HT133 Cam
Daunton, Martin, Wealth and Welfare: An Economic and Social History of Britain
1851-1951 (Oxford, 2006)
Dennis, Richard, Clout, Hugh, A Social Geography of England (Oxford, 1980)
.3013(42) Den
Dyos, H.J., Victorian Suburb (Leicester, 1961) HT133 Dyo
Dyos, H.J. (ed.), The Study of Urban History (London, 1968) HT111 Stu
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York: Routledge, 1997) .33372(42) Eva
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Technology and Culture, xxi (1980), pp. 29-50 Per .6 Tec
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1983) HT111 Pur
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Gandy, M., Recycling and the Politics of Urban Waste (London: Earthscan, 1994)
.628445 Gan
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DA560 Lat
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Hal
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Ham
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New College Library