Dr Michael Johnson

Before joining Northumbria University in 2012 as a Lecturer in Design History, I was employed as an Academic Tutor at Sunderland University, teaching on the Interior Design and Illustration courses. At the same time, I was employed as an Architecture Consultant for the Durham Victoria County History, investigating the history of Sunderland. My research resulted in the publication of a co-authored monograph[M1]  on the architecture of Sunderland (2013), as well as an independently authored study of working class housing in the city (2015).

At doctoral level, I was one of six students nationwide to gain funding for my PhD in architectural history from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (£40,000). My thesis, Architectural Taste and Patronage in Newcastle upon Tyne, 1870-1914,was supervised by Professor Cheryl Buckley and investigated the economic, social and cultural factors that underpin architectural production, thus offering a new insight into the workings of patronage. In 2012 I delivered a paper based on my research at the Institute for Historical Research and was subsequently invited to contribute to the Victorian Society’s conference in Newcastle in 2012.  

I was the first student in Northumbria University’s Department of Arts to gain Arts and Humanities Research Board funding (£10,000) for my Master’s Degree in Humanities Research. My dissertation investigated the work of the 19^th century Catholic architects Dunn and Hansom. A distillation of this research was published in Northern Catholic History in 2008 and I am currently expanding this into a scholarly monograph.

As an undergraduate student at Northumbria University I achieved the degree of BA (Hons) in the History of Modern Art, Design and Film. My dissertation was entitled Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts Movement: St Andrew’s Church, Roker, and investigated one of the finest Edwardian churches in the country, viewing it as a collaborative work by esteemed members of the Arts and Crafts movement. On the strength of this research I was invited to deliver a research paper at the church’s Centenary Symposium in 2007. This was subsequently published in Durham Archaeological Journal in 2009.