Madge Dresser

Reader in History

B.A. (California), M.Sc. (LSE), M.Sc. (Bristol), Postgrad. Diploma, Radio, Film and Television (Bristol), F.R. Hist. S.

Telephone number: +44 (0) 117 32 84388
Email: Madge.Dresser@uwe.ac.uk

I am a Reader in History and throughout much of my thirty year career my work has dealt with questions of national identity, the position of ethnic and religious minorities and the history of slavery in 18th century Britain. My longstanding interest in social justice and ‘history from below’ has lately caused me to stray into more contemporary periods and also sparked my engagement in debates around public history and collective memory.

Main Areas of Teaching

My current areas of focus are on Britain and the Transatlantic Slave System, Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century (1688-1832) and Men and Women in Georgian England.

Current Research Interests

I am currently seeking funding to do a project on Somalis in Britain with special reference to Bristol. This grew out of my  work from 2005-2008  leading a £120,000 Lottery-funded project on ‘Identity and the City: a History of Ethnic Minorities in Bristol, c. 1000-2001.  This project (comprised of a book and a website) is part of a national initiative called ‘England’s Past for Everyone’ run by the University of  London’s Institute of Historical Research. The book, Bristol: Ethnic Minorities and the City c.1000-2001, was published at the end of 2007 and the website is nearing completion.

'My interest in the impact of slavery on British society, past and present resulted in my first monograph, Slavery Obscured (2001, reprinted 2007, read the book review) and more recently in an article on Slavery and Public Monuments in London published in the History Workshop Journal (October 2007) and a forthcoming article on 'Remembering Slavery and Abolition in Bristol 1907-2007' in the journal Slavery and Abolition (June 2009).

Currently I am working on an article on the relationship between academic and public history, organizing a major conference in partnership with English Heritage on Slavery and the British Country House, and serving as historical advisor for the forthcoming Museum of Bristol. I have just been nominated to serve as a member of the Peer Review College of the Arts and Humanities Research Council in 2010.

Doctoral Students

I’ve successfully supervised three doctoral students in recent years: Kay Taylor on seventeenth-century Quakers in Wiltshire; Edson Burton on the Church of England and African-Caribbeans in Britain; and  Jonathan Harlow, whose ‘Life and Times of Thomas Speed’, is about  a 17th century Bristol merchant, My current doctoral student Roger Ball, is researching 'Volent Public Disturbances in Bristol, London and Liverpool in the 1980s.

At present, I’d be especially interested in supervising doctoral students to examine new records on ‘race relations’ in twentieth century Bristol

Recent Publications

Books
(with Peter Fleming)  Bristol: Ethnic Minorities and the City 1000-2001  (London:Phillimore and the Institute of Historical Research, 2007)

Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in an English Provincial Port c. 1698-c.1833 ,( 2001 reprinted 2007). I also edited The Diary of Sarah Fox (Bristol Record Society, Bristol, 2003), and with Philip Ollerenshaw, The Making of Modern Bristol (1996)

Articles/chapters in books
‘Set in Stone? Slavery and Statues in London,” History Workshop Journal, (October 2007), no. 64, pp. 162-199.

'The Book of Your Own Heart: Moravian Women's Religious Experience in Georgian Bristol' in Historic Churches and Church Life in Bristol, Joseph Bettey, ed., (Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2001), pp. 134-148.

'Squares of Distinction, Webs of Interest: Slavery, Gentility and Urban Development in Georgian Bristol c. 1698-1820', Slavery and Abolition vol. 21, no. 3, (December 2000), pp.21-47.

Other printed work
Catalogue of the Bristol and the Atlantic Slave Trade Exhibition, co-edited with Sue Giles (Bristol City Museum,1999), 151pp.;

’ Isaac Jacobs’ for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
‘Black History in British Museums’ and ‘Bristol’ in the Oxford Companion to Black British History, 2007

on-line contributions include
‘Slavery in Goree’ for Guardian Unlimited  ( 17 July 2003)

‘Culture Wars? Bristol and the Campaign Against the Colour Bar’ for BBC History on-line (2004) ,

‘Reaching out from the archive: minority history and academic method’ Madge Dresser (University of the West of England) (February 2005), http://www.history.ac.uk/education/conference/index.html

Beyond the pale? Mary Carpenter and the Irish poor in mid-Victorian Bristol in Issue 11 (Autumn 2006) of History in Focus (Institute of historical Research, London)

Other Professional Activities

I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and one of the three Joint General Editors of the Bristol Record Society.

I was Co-Director and Co-Founder of UWE's Regional History Centre.1997-2004 and served for three years until 2007 on the National Committee of the Victoria Country History Project which is part of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. I am also a member of the Council of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society and was in 2007 invited to serve on the Board of the http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/birtha/centres/institute/

Museums
In 2004 I was appointed to the steering committee of the Museum of Bristol funded for some £35 m by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Bristol City Council which is due to open in 2010. In 2007 I was seconded to head the Museum of Bristol’s Academic Advisory Panel..

This builds on over a decade of work as an historical consultant to the Bristol Museums Service which began in 1997 when I worked on the Museum's city slavery trail  and its ‘Respectable Trade’ exhibition on Bristol and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Subsequently I  was commissioned to write reports on luxury in the eighteenth century, and on the recent history of Bristol's ethnic minorities..

I also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the Empire and Commonwealth Museum’s 2007 ‘Breaking the Chains’ Exhibition on Slavery and Abolition in Britain.

Radio and Television
Over the past ten years I’ve appeared on numerous television and radio documentaries on Channel 4, BBC1, ITV, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the Open University, the BBC World Service, Radio 3 (‘Nightwaves’), Radio 4 (Women’s Hour, Front Row, ‘The Long View’, ‘Making History’, ‘Soldier Soldier’ , ‘Bricks and Mortals’, ‘In Our Time’) and in 2005 presented a Radio 4 Documentary ‘Black and White on the Buses’on Bristol’s 1960’s colour bar on my own previously published research..

Websites
This museum work has led to my working as a historical consultant on a number of slavery history web sites including PortCities, New Opportunities Fund, National Maritime Museum, Victoria Country History Project(University of London). In 2002 I went briefly to the Gambia to help advise on the UNESCO web site on slavery history and have since contributed to the 'Breaking the Silence' web site of the Anti-Slavery Society

Other advisory work
In 2006 I was invited to serve on a working party at the National Archives at Kew to advise on readers’ guides concerning slavery records and was also asked to advise English Heritage on slavery and country houses.

I’ve acted as reader for the University of Manchester Press and for the The William and Mary Quarterly.
Since 2006, I’ve been part of the Bristol Black Archive Partnership, a consortium of grass roots and official institutions, which has successfully bid for funds to promote research into African-Caribbean History in Bristol.

Currently I am also involved as a historical consultant for two Arts Council funded projects in Bristol: The Four Coins Project (a film and arts installation) and a series of short plays by established and new writers commissioned by the Show of Strength Theatre Company.

External Examinerships
Undergraduate History degrees: University of Greenwich (1999-2004) and the University of Bristol (2004-2007)

Doctoral dissertations: The University  of  Leeds and the University of Oxford.

Academic Papers and Conferences
Aside from organising conferences and public talks myself, I have been invited to give numerous papers on my research (including some keynote talks) at various academic conferences held at  the universities of London, Oxford, Newcastle, Liverpool, Bristol, and York as well as at University College, Dublin, the University of California (UCLA and UCB), the Huntingdon Library, the University of Pittsburgh, and  Dartmouth College.

Other public involvement
 I have also spoken at the Museum of London, the National Maritime Museum, the London Museum in Docklands and the Empire and Commonwealth Museum, the Bristol City Museum, the Bristol Record Office, the Bristol Watershed, the Bristol City Library and at many schools, colleges, community and family history groups in Bristol, the West Country and London.