Dr Mark Freeman
- Senior Lecturer (Economic and Social History)
telephone: 01413302786
email: Mark.Freeman@glasgow.ac.uk
Research Interests
Modern British social, economic and business history, especially:
- history of education
- poverty and social policy
- rural history
- Quakerism
- corporate governance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
For full details of my research, visit my personal website.
A podcast is available of my recent paper at the Institute of Historical Research,
'"A Movement that Moves"': The Settlement Movement in Britain after the First World War'
With Professor Robin Pearson (University of Hull) and Dr James Taylor (Lancaster University), I have recently published a book, with Chicago University Press, entitled Shareholder Democracies? Corporate Governance in Britain before 1850. This was based on an ESRC-funded project. More information is available here.
Research Contribution
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- Committee member, History of Education Society
- Visiting Fellow, Institute of Historical Research, London, 2009
- Convenor of Historians of Education in Scotland (HEdScot)
- Editorial board member, Local Population Studies
- International advisory panel member, Quaker Studies
- Special issue of History of Education (volume 38, number 3, 2009) on the theme 'Education and Citizenship in Modern Scotland'. This contains seven articles, including three by former Glasgow postgraduate students in Economic & Social History.
Grants
- Royal Society of Edinburgh, Research Workshops Scheme, £5,000: Historians of Education in Scotland (HEdScot), March 2010-February 2011.
- British Academy Small Research Grant, £2,305: 'The Family and Community Lives of Older People in the 1940s', May 2006-August 2007.
- Nuffield Foundation Social Science Small Grants Scheme, £2,173: 'Poverty and Its Investigation in Interwar Britain: Seebohm Rowntree and the Second Social Survey of York', July-September 2002.
Supervision
I am able to offer supervision in a range of areas of modern British social, economic and cultural history. My interests lie in the history of education - particularly adult education and youth movements - and in English rural history. I have also published on the history of poverty and social investigation, and am currently working on projects involving the study of local populations.
With colleagues from the University of Hull and Lancaster University, I have recently completed a collaborative project on corporate governance in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland.
See the Publications tab above for full details of my publications, and Additional information for recent conference and seminar papers.
Current research students
Matthew Winterbottom
‘Juvenile Delinquency in Scotland’
ESRC +3 funding
Commenced October 2010
Lynn Bruce
‘The Scottish University Settlement Movement’
ESRC 1+3 funding
Commenced October 2007
Recent research students
Gillian Nelson
‘Participant Observation in Britain since the Victorians’
ESRC 1+3 funding
Completed 2010
Douglas Sutherland
‘University Extension in Scotland 1886-1896’
MPhil by research; completed August 2007
Undergraduate Quality Assurance and Enhancement Officer, School of Social and Political Sciences
Undergraduate
Level 2
- ESH 2A: Economic and Social History of Britain 1770-1914
- ESH 2B: Economic and Social History of Britain since 1914
Honours
- Poverty, Poor Law and Philanthropy: Social Policy and Welfare in Britain c.1790-1885
- Poverty and Progress: Social Policy and Welfare in Britain 1885-1914
- Researching Economic and Social History 1 and 2
Postgraduate
- MSc in Social History: convenor
- Research Resources and Skills for Historians: convenor
- Poverty and Inequality in the Modern World (MSc in Global Economy, core course)
- Social Investigation in Britain from Mayhew to Mass-Observation (MSc in Social History)
Datasets
Robin Pearson, Mark Freeman and James Taylor, ‘Constructing the Company: Governance and Procedures in British and Irish Joint-Stock Companies 1720-1844’ (2007): ESDS, study number 5622.
Recent and forthcoming conference/seminar papers
'The Story of Adult Education: Hertfordshire in Context 1918-1939': St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, April 2012 (forthcoming).
'The Pensive Plain: Rural Depopulation in Nineteenth-Century England': Social History Society annual conference, University of Brighton, April 2012 (forthcoming).
‘"An advanced type of democracy"? Governing adult education in 1920s England': Modern British History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, March 2012 (forthcoming).
'A "movement that moves": The Settlement Movement in Britain after the First World War': Voluntary Action History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, December 2011. PODCAST AVAILABLE - CLICK HERE.
'"Unfolding Character": Physical Training and the Outward Bound Movement in Britain 1941-1965': History of Education Social annual conference, Glasgow, November 2011.
'"Splendid Display; Pompous Spectacle": Historical Pageants in Twentieth-Century St Albans': keynote lecture, St Albans District Local History Network Conference, October 2011.
‘Quakers and the Politics of Adult Education: Educational Settlements in the 1920s’: Quaker History Group, Friends House, London, April 2011.
‘Adult Education and Social Mobility in the Nineteenth Century: A Case Study’: Social History Society annual conference, University of Manchester, April 2011.
Keynote lecture, ‘“Unfolding Character”: The Early History of Outward Bound’: ‘Learning to Play the Game: Youth, Recreation and Voluntary Action’, conference organised by the History of Education Society, Voluntary Action History Society and British Society for Sports History (supported by the Economic History Society), March 2011.
‘Christianity and militarism in outdoor education: the Outward Bound movement, c.1940-1970’: History of Education Society annual conference, November 2010.
‘Pageantry, History and Identity: St Albans in the Twentieth Century’: St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, April 2010.
'"The mountains speak for themselves": Outward Bound and the Mountains in the 1950s and 1960s': History of Education Society annual conference, University of Sheffield, December 2009.
'"Character Training through Adventure": The Early Years of Outward Bound c.1940-1960': University of Greenwich, Avery Hill campus, seminar series, May 2009.
'The Decline of the Adult School Movement c.1900-1950: A Reassessment': Social History Society annual conference, University of Warwick, April 2009.
'The Rise and Fall of Adult Schools 1860-1950': Institute of Historical Research, London, History of Education research seminar, March 2009.
For a full list of papers presented, see:
http://markfreeman.corporategovernancehistory.org.uk/papers.html