Dr Hugh Willmott MIFA FSA
Senior Lecturer in European Historical Archaeology
Director of Graduate Taught Programmes
BA Hons., MA, PhD (Dunelm)
Email address
H.Willmott@sheffield.ac.uk
Telephone
0114 2222940
Department of Archaeology, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 4ET
Room 202
Brief personal biography
Hugh studied archaeology at the University of Durham, completing his PhD in 1999. After a brief period working in commercial archaeology, he was appointed a lecturer in European Historical Archaeology at Sheffield in 2004, and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2010.
Research interests
Hugh's research interests lie in the archaeology of the later medieval and early modern period in Europe.
Currently, he is primarily focused upon exploring the archaeology of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, although other aspects of his work examine the development of historical societies through their production, consumption and deposition of material culture.
Current research projects
Converting from Christianity, the Archaeology of the Dissolution
In 2011 Hugh started a major survey and excavation project centred on the well-preserved monastic enclosure at Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, a site that was converted into a early modern estate by several successive families of wealthy landowners. This project is a key case study in a wider research project investigating the aftermath of the Dissolution on the Monasteries in Northern England.
Trade and Exchange in The Adriatic
Hugh recently published (with Dr Irena Lazar) the first comprehensive analysis of the glass cargo of Gnalić shipwreck, a Venetian galley that sank in the 1580s. He will shortly be extending this research into the material culture of the Adriatic, in collaboration with colleagues from Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg and Univerza na Primorskem, to help better understand the cultural encounters that took place between Christian and Ottoman groups in the region during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Early Medieval Glass Production
Hugh has recently finished investigating (with Dr Kate Welham of Bournemouth University), the Saxon glassworking evidence from Raleigh Radford´s 1950s excavations at Glastonbury Abbey as part of an AHRC funded project. This research is now being extended to look at other early medieval monastic sites with evidence for glass manufacture.
Research supervision
Hugh is interested in supervising research students who have an interest in historical archaeology and/or material culture research.
Recently completed PhD students
- Greig Parker - The material environment and the formulation of social identity amongst Huguenot communities in London (2011)
Current PhD students
- Rachel Askew - The social role of material culture in Civil War period castles (AHRC)
- Alex Cassels - Dress accessories in England AD 1200-1500, an archaeological study of consumption (UoS Studentship)
- Claire Finn - The material culture of drinking in the 17th-century Dutch Republic (AHRC)
- Charlotte Howsam - Book fittings and fixtures: an archaeology of medieval literacy (AHRC)
- Freya Massey - Ritual practices and special deposits in vernacular housing of the post-medieval period (UoS Studentship)
- Lenny Salvagno (Second Supervisor) - The neglected goat: a methodological approach to the understanding of the role of this species in English medieval husbandry
- Peter Townend - An Archaeological Study of the Monastic Order of the Gilbertines
- Verónica Velasquez Sánchez-Hidalgo - Maiolica and the construction of ideologies in New Spain
Teaching
Undergraduate
- Research Skills in Archaeology
- Archaeological Fieldwork, Profession and Practice
- Later Historic Europe (coordinator)
- World Civilisations
- From Discoverers to Discoveries
Postgraduate
- From the Wars of the Roses to Elizabeth, the Archaeology of England 1455-1603 (coordinator)
- Introduction to Material Culture Studies (coordinator)
- Heritage Museum and Field, Medieval Archaeology in Practice
- Archaeological Practice and Assemblage Studies (coordinator)
- Death and Commemoration
- Archaeology and Ethnography of Production and Consumption
- Method and Theory in Medieval Archaeology
Selected publications
Books
- Glass from the Gnalić Wreck. Univerza na Primorskem. ISBN: 9616328425 (with I.Lazar).
- A History of English Glassmaking AD 43-1800. ISBN: 0752431315
- John Baker's 17th-century glass furnace at Vauxhall. Museum of London Monograph 28. ISBN 1-901992-44-6 (with K. Tyler).
- Consuming Passions: Dining from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century. ISBN: 0752434454. (With D. Hadley & M. Carroll).
- Early Post-medieval Vessel Glass in England: C.1500-1670. Council for British Archaeology ISBN: 190277129X.
Papers
- 'Late Seventh-Century Glassmaking at Glastonbury Abbey' (with K. Welham), Journal of Glass Studies 55. (in press).
- 'Changing to Suit the Times, a Post-Dissolution History of Monk Bretton Priory, South Yorkshire'. (with A Bryson) Post-Medieval Archaeology. (in press)
- Glass recipes and the output from a 19th-century glass works: examples from Percival, Vickers & Co. Ltd., Jersey Street, Manchester. (with C Jackson & I Miller) Industrial Archaeology Review 34/1, 51-64. (2012).
- 'The hidden material culture of death: coffins and grave goods in late 18th- and early 19th-century Sheffield', (with D Mahoney-Swales & R O´Neill) in King, C & Sayer, D. (eds) The Archaeology of Post-Medieval Religion. Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Monograph, 215-232. (2011).
- 'Irish glassmaking in its wider context', in Hearne, JM (ed) Glassmaking in Ireland 100AD - 2005 AD. An archaeological, historical, social and economic survey, 1-14. Irish Academic Press (2010).
Other professional activities
- Membership Secretary, The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology, and formally assistant editor for the society’s journal, [top rated 'A' by the European Reference Index for the Humanities] (2009-).
- Peer reviewer for the Qatar National Research Fund (2011-)
- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (2005-).
- Member of the Institute for Archaeologists (2002-).