Dr Rachael Durkin

Associate Professor

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

I am an Associate Professor of History, and currently PI of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project 'Global Music Technologies: Collaboration and Cultural Exchange' (2024-28).

I was awarded my PhD from The University of Edinburgh in 2015, working between the Edinburgh College of Art (Music) and the University Museums. Having previously lectured at The University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier University, I joined the History subject group at Northumbria in 2019.

As a historian of technology, craft, and material culture, my research examines the development and innovation of musical instruments, combining approaches from the history of science and technology with material culture studies. I have published research on the histories of instruments ranging from the viola d'amore, baryton, and dancing-master's pochette or kit, through to the Victorian violin and the forgery trade, examining how instruments functioned as tools for marketing innovation and as material evidence of intersections between cultural production and literature. My monograph on the history and development of the viola d'amore is the first scholarly study of a largely forgotten instrument which sat at the centre of baroque technological developments during the long 18th century. My forthcoming monograph examines the innovation of musical instruments during the first industrial age (c.1760–1820), tracing their social networks and demonstrating how their invention depended on new technologies only made possible by advances in other learned fields—a study in the historical intersections between trades, bodies of expertise, and knowledge exchange. I was the lead editor of The Routledge Companion to Music and Modern Literature (2022), and also the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Early Modern Music and Literature.

I am lead of the Montagu Collection of Global Musical Instruments, an editor of The Galpin Society Journal, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Email Rachael

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

As a historian of musical instruments and music-making (the field of organology), I examine the material culture, technological development, and social contexts of instruments across the early modern and modern periods. I have particular expertise in instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries. My monograph, The Viola d'Amore: Its History and Development, is the first scholarly study of the once-popular baroque instrument, tracing its evolution within the broader history of music technology. My next monograph examines the innovation of musical instruments during the first industrial age (c.1760–1820), their social networks, and how their invention depended on new technologies only made possible by advances in other learned fields.

Beyond these historical studies, I have published work on a range of instruments through diverse methodological approaches including marketing theory, conservation ethics, and critical theory. I have ongoing collaborative research into the nitrocellulose degradation problem affecting electric guitars, working with the Gretsch Collection in Georgia, USA, alongside work in progress on the history of private collecting. I am particularly interested in the historical intersections between trades and bodies of expertise, migration and knowledge exchange, and the creative industries economy.

As a secondary interest, I have conducted work in music and literature studies through the lens of musical instruments as historical objects. My work on the violin in Victorian literature uncovered the influence of William Crawford Honeyman's short detective fiction on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, from the format of the tales oriented around a detective, to the symbolism of the violin; a discovery which received global press coverage, and continues to generate interest today. I am presently leading the editing of a second collection of essays on music and literature, The Routledge Companion to Early Modern Music and Literature.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
The Viola d'Amore: Its History and Development, Durkin, R. 24 Jul 2020
‘Magnificence of promises’: novelty instruments in concert in Britain, c1750–1800, Durkin, R. 1 May 2023, In: Early Music

PGR Supervision

Ailsa Critten Collections in Classrooms: Museum Musical Instruments and Primary Music Education in England Start Date: 01/10/2025
Ailsa Critten Start Date: 01/10/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
Owen Woods Tonal change and the organs of Harrison & Harrison: 1895–1972 Start Date: 26/01/2023
Benjamin Hebbert Music as the Measure of the Soul: Musical Instruments as Materiality in the English Renaissance Court and Noble Culture Start Date: 01/10/2022
Benedict Heaney The History and Development of the Early Electric Violin, 1922 to c1975 Start Date: 01/10/2023
Owen Woods Tonal change and the organs of Harrison & Harrison: 1895–1972 Start Date: 26/01/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025
Christopher Miller Organology Is Object-Oriented: New Tools for Analysis and Expanded Lexicon for the Study of Musical Instruments Start Date: 01/10/2023
Michael Redwood A Scottish Experiment: Music and its Institutions 1970s-1980s Start Date: 01/10/2022
Michael Redwood A Scottish Experiment: Music and its Institutions 1970s-1980s Start Date: 01/10/2022 End Date: 17/10/2025
Benjamin Hebbert Music as the Measure of the Soul: Musical Instruments as Materiality in the English Renaissance Court and Noble Culture Start Date: 01/10/2022 End Date: 17/10/2025
Benedict Heaney The History and Development of the Early Electric Violin, 1922 to c1975 Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025
Christopher Miller Organology Is Object-Oriented: New Tools for Analysis and Expanded Lexicon for the Study of Musical Instruments Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025