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Professor Robert Shoemaker
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Major Publications
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Biography
Robert Shoemaker is Professor of Eighteenth-Century British history. His main interests lie in social and cultural history, particularly urban history, gender history, and the history of crime, justice and punishment, and in the use of digital technologies in historical research. His first book, Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, ca. 1660-1725, (1991) examined the social impact of the prosecution of petty crime in London. A developing interest in gender led him to write Gender in English Society, 1650-1850: The Emergence of Separate Spheres? (1998) and edit a collection, with Mary Vincent, Gender and History in Western Europe (1998). Combining his interests on gender and crime, he subsequently wrote articles on masculinity and violence, public defamation, and public punishments, focusing particularly on eighteenth-century London. These articles led to the publication of The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England (Hambledon and London, 2004), which charts the changing nature of public conflict in eighteenth-century London, focusing on street life, litigation, and the press. It documents the decline of the defamatory public insult and public violence; the changing character of duelling; the transformation of popular responses to public punishments such as the pillory; the changing character of popular protest; and the new role played by print in shaping public life. He is co-director, with Professor Tim Hitchcock at the University of Hertfordshire and Professor Clive Emsley of the Open University, of the Old Bailey Proceedings Online, which created a fully searchable edition of the entire run of published accounts of trials which took place at the Old Bailey from 1674 to 1913, and, with Hitchcock, London Lives, 1690-1800: Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the Metropolis, a fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscript records and fifteen datasets which makes it possible to compile biographies of eighteenth-century Londoners. In January 2011 he and Hitchcock were awarded the Longman-History Today Trustees Award, presented to a person, persons or organisation that has made a major contribution to history, for their work on the Old Bailey and London Lives projects.
Membership of Professional Bodies
Research
Current Research Professor Shoemaker is currently writing two books. The first, Criminal Knowledge: Print culture and public attitudes towards crime and criminal justice in eighteenth-century London, examines how knowledge about crime was created. Through analysis of the literature of crime and by examining evidence of its reception in private correspondence and diaries, he will ascertain how the explosion of print culture shaped public attitudes towards crime. The initial fruits of this work can be seen in his articles on changing representations of highway robbery and the representation of crime and criminal justice in the Old Bailey Proceedings, a chapter on print culture and the creation of public knowledge about crime, and a book of case studies about notorious eighteenth-century criminals he co-wrote with Tim Hitchcock, Tales from the Hanging Court. Arising out the London Lives project, he is also writing a book, co-authored with Hitchcock, entitled Poor Man, Sick Man, Beggarman, Thief: Plebeian Lives and the Making of Modern London, 1690-1800. Planned as an e-book, this will examine the role played by plebeian Londoners, through their interactions with the agencies of poor relief and criminal justice, in the evolution modern social policy. Building on his previous experience with digitisation, he is also currently the principal or co-investigator on three digital humanities projects: - Connected Histories is creating an integrated search facility for interrogating more than a dozen major electronic resources in British history, 1500-1800. - Data Mining with Criminal Intent, an international project which is creating new data mining tools for humanities scholars based on the Old Bailey Online. - Crime in the Community is assessing the ways in which the Old Bailey Online is currently used, and will implement a series of new tools and online facilities that will allow educationalists and researchers to make more effective use of the site.
Research Interests Professor Shoemaker's teaching includes a third year document-based module on crime, justice and punishment in eighteenth-century London (special subject) and contributions to MA modules on early modern and eighteenth-century topics. He welcomes postgraduate students interested in any aspect of eighteenth-century English social and cultural history, particularly topics relating to gender, urban history, print culture, crime, justice and punishment, and the digital humanities.
Research Supervision Current and recently completed PhD Students:
ResponsibilitiesProfessor Shoemaker was Head of the History Department between September 2004 and September 2008. He is currently Director of Research and Innovation in the Department. He is also Deputy Director of the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Sheffield. Selected Publications - (with Tim Hitchcock), London Lives, 1690-1800: Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the Metropolis, www.londonlives.org (2010) - 'Print Culture and the Creation of Public Knowledge about Crime in Eighteenth-Century London', in Crime Prevention, Surveillance and Restorative Justice: Effects of Social Technologies, edited by Paul Knepper, Jonathan Doak and Joanna Shapland (2009) - 'The Old Bailey Proceedings and the Representation of Crime and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century London', Journal of British Studies 47 (2008), pp. 559-580. - (with Tim Hitchcock and Clive Emsley), The Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674-1913, www.oldbaileyonline.org (2003-2008) - (with Tim Hitchcock), Tales from the Hanging Court (Arnold, 2006, pbk 2007) - 'The Street Robber and the Gentleman Highwayman: Changing Representations and Perceptions of Robbery in London, 1690-1800', Cultural and Social History 3 (2006), pp. 381-405 - The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England, (Hambledon and London, 2004) - 'The Taming of the Duel: Masculinity, Honour and Ritual Violence in London, 1660-1800', Historical Journal, (2002) - 'Male Honour and the Decline of Public Violence in Eighteenth-Century London', Social History, (2001) - 'The Decline of Public Insult in London, 1660-1800', Past and Present, (2000) - Gender in English Society, 1650-1850: The Emergence of Separate Spheres?, (Longman, 1998) - Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, c.1660-1725, (Cambridge University Press, 1991) |
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