Awards and Fellowships
'The Carboniferous Capitalist: John Buddle, the Industrial Enlightenment and Technical Innovation in the North East Coal Mining Industry'
Funded by the AHRC, Training Grant scheme
This grant, jointly held by Dr Pete Maw and Dr Keith Baker (Politics), will fund a PhD student for three years. The student will work on the archives of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers (NEIMME) in Newcastle - one of the finest and most comprehensive libraries in the world for research into the development of the coal industry and early industrialisation.
The project has two main objectives. First, it will re-examine the role of technological change in the British coal industry, with a particular focus on John Buddle – a leading carboniferous capitalist who was at the leading edge in the development and adoption of new technologies and managerial techniques. Secondly, the project also aims to [re]integrate the work of historical institutionalists into the study of economic history. Historical institutionalists point to the importance of the sociological, political and institutional factors that encouraged the adoption of particular technologies by mine owners.
The project aims are:
- To provide a new analysis of the breadth, depth and sequencing of technological change in coal mining by providing a micro study of the practices of John Buddle.
- To produce a historically and theoretically informed account of the main drivers of technological change (and continuity) in the North East coal mining industry.
- To provide the first detailed analysis of the NEIMME archive and to increase its accessibility and usability for scholars and the general public.
- To contribute to recent historiographical and theoretical debates on the origins and sustainability of industrial revolution.
- To engage popular audiences in the study of Britain’s industrial heritage, a subject that remains a major source of civic pride in the North East.
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