John Lamb
- Email: J.T.Lamb1@leeds.ac.uk
- Thesis title: Boundary Battles: The politics of municipal expansion in Victorian and Edwardian Manchester.
- Supervisors: Dr Pete Maw, Dr Katherine Rawling
Profile
Following a career in the water industry, I enrolled for the Open University’s under-graduate history course. My chosen areas for study were religion in history which looked at conflict, conversion and co-existence, world empires from 1492 to 1975, and the ancient world including the Roman Empire. My MA, with the Open University, included a dissertation, the subject of which was voluntary evangelical ragged schools and the impact of the 1870 Elementary Education Act upon them. During this period of study, I developed an interest in Victorian local government.
Research interests
Having served in local government, as a councillor for many years, I have always been acutely aware of political boundaries, whether they be municipal or ward boundaries. For councillors they are ever present, and become the subject of passionate debate when local authority or ward boundaries are proposed for change.
The subject of boundaries was also controversial and attracted great attention,in the latter part of the nineteenth-century, when large industrial cities, such as Manchester, sought, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to spacially grow their cities. My research interests include:
- How the nineteenth-century local elite saw their cities and how they projected them onto the gobal stage.
- The link between the height of the British Empire and the impact this had on urban expansion especially municipal boundary expansions.
- How those who could vote in local elections reacted to proposals by large industrial cities to absorb smaller contiguous local governments.
Qualifications
- BA (Hons) History (OU)
- MA History (OU)
- MSc Management (MMU)