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Professor Keith D.M. Snell

	Professor of Rural and Cultural History Centre for English Local History Contact Details: Email: kdm@le.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)116 252 2763 Office Location: Room 20, Marc Fitch House, Salisbury Road Semester 2 office hours: anytime by appointment

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Research Summary The poor law and the history of welfare, 1600-1948 The oral history of 'Belonging in Modern Britain' English and Welsh rural history, 1600-1945 The history of 'Community' Victorian religion Churchyards and cemeteries The history of the family and historical demography The regional novel in the British Isles Thomas Hardy
Current Projects Books on: Belonging in Modern Britain: An Oral History Community Churchyards and Cemeteries The New Poor Law Northern Rural Societies during Industrialisation 'Death and community in rural settlements: changing burial culture in small towns and villages, c. 1850-2007’ [more]
Recent Publications Books Parish and Belonging: Community, Identity and Welfare in England and Wales, 1700-1950 (Cambridge, 2006) (co-editor) Women, Work and Wages in England, 1600-1850 (Boydell & Brewer, 2004) The Bibliography of Regional Fiction in Britain and Ireland, 1800-2000 (Ashgate, 2002) Rival Jerusalems: the Geography of Victorian Religion (with Paul S. Ell), (Cambridge University Press, 2000) (editor) The Regional Novel in Britain and Ireland, 1800-1990 (Cambridge University Press, 1998) (editor) Letters from Ireland During the Famine of 1847 (Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1995) Church and Chapel in the North Midlands (Leicester University Press, 1991) (editor) The Whistler at the Plough (Merlin Press, London, 1989) Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1985) Articles and chapters Many articles in journals such as Past & Present, Economic History Review, Social History, Journal of Historical Geography, The Historical Journal, Oral History, History Workshop, Rural History, Local Population Studies, Continuity & Change, and History of Education, including recently the following: Gravestones, belonging and local attachment in England, 1700-2000', Past and Present, 179 (2003) 'The culture of local xenophobia', Social History, 28 (2003) 'English rural societies and geographical marital endogamy, 1700-1837', Economic History Review, 55: 2 (2002) 'The Sunday school movement in England and Wales: child labour, denominational control and working-class culture', Past and Present, 164 (1999) 'From the 1676 Compton Census to the 1851 Census of Religious Worship: religious continuity or discontinuity?', Rural History, 8 (1997) (with Alasdair Crockett) 'The apprenticeship system in British history: the fragmentation of a cultural institution', History of Education, 25 (1996) Keith is co-founder and editor of the journal Rural History: Economy, Society, Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1990-).
Teaching and Supervision Modules taught Making History (HS1000) Landscape and Community History (HS2202) Modern regional societies (MA in English Local History) Modern regional cultures (MA in English Local History) MA in English Local History by Individual Supervised Study (Summer intensive course) Past PhD students' research topics Processes of Parliamentary enclosure in Nottinghamshire Peasants and stockingers: agrarian change and politics in the Guthlaxton Hundred, Leicestershire, c. 1700-1900 The marriage bar and the employment of middle-class women in inter-war Britain Popular culture in a provincial town: Ilkeston, 1700-1900 An analysis of the 1851 Religious Census for England and Wales The economy of the Somerset mining villages, c. 1600-1938 Rural services and networks in south Worcestershire, c. 1700-1860 Women's health, domestic science, and midwifery in the inter-war period Women's roles in industrialisation: the Leicestershire hosiery industry, c. 1700-1900 Economic, trading and genealogical networks in Shropshire, c. 1660-1860 The folklore of women: a comparative study of Leicestershire, Somerset and Derbyshire, c. 1500-1900 Estate villages, paternalism and social structures in Rutland, 1600-1900 A profile of Rugby working women, c. 1850-1950 Post-war immigration and settlement of West Indians in Nottingham: an oral history study The social geography of 'secularisation' in England and Wales, 1676-1851 The poor law and the laws of settlement in Northamptonshire, 1662-1834 Primitive Methodism in Shropshire Women's work in Leicestershire, c. 1600-1850 A history of the Sikh community in Leicestershire Women and evangelical religion in the early nineteenth century Land, farming and structural change in east Devon, 1840-1945 Vestry politics and the poor law in Cambridgeshire, c. 1795-1894 Law, structure and purpose in Warwickshire charities, c. 1600-1945 Midland rural communities and their churches, 1660-1830 Aspects of agricultural change in the Wreake valley in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries The socio-economic and religious history of the Whitby area, North Yorkshire The early Quakers in Staffordshire A history of the Nottingham Diocese, c. 1850-1990 The settlement and cultures of white immigrants in Leicester, Nottingham and Derby, 1939-1990 Education, literacy and society: Leicester, 1800-1870 The Anglican Church and socio-economic change in Norfolk, 1800-1914 The culture and marketing of hops in Kent, c. 1700-1945 The growth of rural industries in parishes of north-west Leicestershire, c. 1700-1900 Economics, exploitation and environment: north-west Leicestershire, c. 1850-1914 Immigration to Guernsey, c. 1700-1914 Rural housing in Dorset and Leicestershire in the nineteenth century The office and role of the coroner, 1700-1926 Medical Officers and the New Poor Law Present PhD students' research topics The history of illegitimacy in south-west Wales Eden Phillpotts and rural society, 1860-1960 The folklore of the Isle of Man Measuring democratisation: alternative electoral geographies of nineteenth-century England A hosiery town: Hinckley, c. 1750-1950 Nineteenth-century rural housing and the Duke of Bedford's estates Holland Fen: social and topographical changes in a Fenland environment Poor relief and welfare: a study of the Cheltenham and Belper poor law unions, c. 1834-1914 Out-migration from Cardiganshire, 1700-1940 A comparative history of the English and Welsh New Poor Law: Llandilofawr and Caistor Women's cultures and organisation in Leicestershire and Rutland, 1700-1930 Punishment and the New Poor Law in Kent Local Government Reform and its effects on local identity, 1945-1974: The Nottingham and Erewash valley area Shropshire and Montgomeryshire workhouses and the New Poor Law The history and politics of water management in Leicestershire, 1750-1900 Supervision Please click here to see my area of expertise for PhD/MPhil supervision. Administration Dissertations Co-ordinator Admissions Officer for English Local History Examinations Officer for English Local History Member of the Staff/Student Committee for English Local History Member of the Arts Faculty Staff Development Committee Member of the Board of Victorian Studies Centre Member of the Social Science Graduate Studies Committee Member of the Social Science Research Training Committee