History

I came to Keele in 1993 when the University entered a partnership with Staffordshire County Council to continue the work of the Victoria County History in Staffordshire, where I had been based since 1979. Before that I was at St Andrews University as a research assistant, helping to produce an edition of a medieval Scottish chronicle, having gained a PhD at Aberdeen University on an edition of medieval records at York Minster. Besides continuing to write VCH volumes at Keele, I also teach and direct the Latin and Palaeography Summer School. For many years I have edited the transactions of Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society, and also now of the Staffordshire Record Society, as well as sitting on the Boards of both Midland History and Staffordshire Studies, and I am on the Council and Management Committee of the British Association for Local History

Editor, Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society

Editor, Staffordshire Record Society

Council Member, British Association for Local History

Research Interests:

• History of Staffordshire
• Medieval ecclesiastical history, especially secular cathedrals
• Editing medieval documents

I am at present completing an edition of the 1298 survey of the estates of the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and working on volume III of the multi-volume edition of the medieval documents of the vicars choral of York Minster. Work is also in progress on the origins of Stafford as a county town for the Oxford-based collaborative Early Shire Towns project.

I teach a popular Level I elective module on Anglo-Saxon England and also on the Medieval Europe module, and have offered courses as part of the Sources and Debates module in Level II.

Next year I shall be teaching on the Medieval and Early Modern part of the Certificate for Local History, as well as supervising relevant MRes students (one this year working on the history of Ashbourne in late 18th and early 19th century).

I started to work for the Victoria County History (www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk) in 1979, as an assistant for the Staffordshire volumes, and became County Editor in 1995. I now research and write the volumes single-handedly, although I am able to call up the knowledge of many local people especially for the more recent history of places. Recent volumes covered Burton-upon-Trent and the Needwood Forest area in the east of the county; I am now working on a volume to cover the north-west of the county (including Audley, Betley, Keele, Madeley, and Trentham) for publication in 2012.