The Great Fire of London, Reconsidered

Sat 3 September 2016 – Wren Suite, St Paul’s Cathedral

The Great Fire of London has long been held as a pivotal moment in London’s history. Over the course of four days in September 1666, an infernal blaze claimed over 13,000 houses, 87 churches and 52 livery halls, and rendered an estimated 70,000 people homeless. Yet while cellars still burned there were whispers at court that the conflagration might actually be ‘the greatest blessing that God ever conferred’ upon King Charles II because it had crippled the ‘rebellious’ City of London; forever opening its gates to royal power.

Three hundred and fifty years on, The Great Fire: Reconsidered aims to re-examine the impact of the Great Fire of London and explore its wide-ranging legacy.

Programme

9:00 – 9:30 Registration & Welcome

9:30 – 10:30 Keynote lecture

Michael Hebbert (UCL), FVMANTIBUS IAM TVM RVINIS – Reconstruction Reconsidered

10:30 – 11:45 Panel One, ‘London mourning in ashes’

Hazel Forsyth (Museum of London), Butcher, Baker, Candlestick maker: Surviving the Great Fire of London

Una McIlvenna (University of Kent), Ballads about the Great Fire of London

Elaine Tierney (V&A), ‘Miserable Huts and Hovels’: Temporary Shelter after the Great Fire of London

11:45 – 12:30 Lunch

12:30 – 13:45 Panel Two, Religion and Conspiracy

Jewell Johnson (University of Sydney), The Present Future Past: Prophecies and Conspiratorial Fascinations

Lara Thorpe (Royal Holloway, University of London), A designed buisines’: post-Fire Anti-Catholic Hysteria according to Ejected Puritan Minister John Allin

Alan Marshall (Bath Spa University), The Great Fire, 1666, and the conspiracy mentalitiè in Restoration England.

13:45 – 14:15 Coffee break

14:45 – 16:00 Panel Three, ‘A More Beautiful City’

Marit Leenstra (MOLA), The archaeology of the Great Fire of London

Mark Kirby (University of York), The City churches and “The Glory of all Christendom”

16:00 – 16:10 Final Remarks

Clare Jackson (Trinity Hall, Cambridge) offers final thoughts on the day’s proceedings.

16:15 Wine Reception

Refreshments and lunch are provided and delegates will receive a complimentary visitor ticket to St Paul’s Cathedral that day (open until 9pm), which can be used following the event.

Registration: Please click on the link to register for the conference: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-great-fire-reconsidered-tickets-26002821138

Position: Lecturer in Early Modern History

History
Salary: £33,242
Closing Date: Monday 18 May 2015
Interview Date: See advert
Reference: A1222

The History Department at Lancaster University is seeking to make a temporary appointment in early modern History for the academic year 2015/16 to cover for Professor Naomi Tadmor, who has been awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Fellowship.

The History Department is one of nine constituent departments in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS). The Department of History enjoys a thriving research culture, with 82% of our research ranked as world-leading or internationally excellent in the REF 2014. We were proud to receive a perfect 100% score for our world-leading research environment. Our teaching embraces political, religious, cultural and socio-economic history, and often has an innovative cross-disciplinary emphasis. We teach highly-regarded courses in the ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern periods, and we are particularly proud of our leading contribution to the history of the North West, exemplified by our Regional Heritage Centre (http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/rhc/). Our NSS student satisfaction score, at 94%, compares well with other History departments nationally.

The Department offers a broad chronological and geographical range in undergraduate teaching, with modules from Ancient Greek history to contemporary society, and covering Europe, North America, the Middle East, India and the Pacific. Students take either one-third or two-thirds of their first-year options in History, move in the second year to a largely choice-driven suite of modules centred around a methods and skills-based core, and progress in their third year to a double-weighted special subject and dissertation plus two further module choices.

You will be expected to contribute lectures to, and take seminar groups on a first-year module, HIST 102: Reform, Rebellion and Reason: Britain, 1500-1800, in Michaelmas Term; to convene an existing 15-credit module, HIST 290: Culture and Society in England 1500-1750, in Lent Term; to convene a third-year special subject in the general area of early modern History running across the academic year; and to supervise a number of pre-allocated third-year dissertations. There may also be opportunities to contribute to existing core methods courses at UG and MA level. An explanation of the degree course structure and indicative lists of modules can be found at http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/history/undergraduate/index.php

You will be joining a team of early modern historians whose interests range from science and patronage, poverty and charity, literacy and beliefs, landscape and environment, colonialism and settlement in the New World, global exploration and encounters with indigenous peoples (http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/history/profiles/). The early modern area also has a strong concentration of PhD students, with around one-third of our current students studying topics based in the period c.1500-1800.

Interviews are likely to take place in mid June, this is a fixed term post from 1 September 2015 for one year.

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups

Dr Stephen Clucas
Editor, Intellectual History Review
Reader in Early Modern Intellectual History,
English and Humanities,
Birkbeck, Univesity of London,
Malet Street,
London WC1E 7HX