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More Than a Spa Resort?
The Urban Experience in Bath Since the Reformation

24 April 2010 at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Queen Square, Bath

Featuring keynote speakers: Prof. Rosemary Sweet (Head of History, University of Leicester) and Prof. Peter Borsay (Aberystwyth University)

Bath is a city in need of historical reappraisal. Much historiography focuses on the city as a spa resort and the personalities involved in its development, but little has been written on the residential population and links between them and the visitors. Bath attracted entrepreneurs and young people with the offer of employment opportunities and education. Could the city be seen as a centre for commerce and education outside London? The city was also a centre of conversation and opinion with many spaces set aside for sociability and display. How did these social networks develop and how were they maintained? The relationship between Bath and the rest of country also needs to be addressed. Was the city a trend follower or a trend setter? How did Bath stand in relation to London and other main towns?

To explore these issues, Bath Spa University is hosting an international symposium on 24 April 2010.

For further details contact David Hughes:

Proposed Symposium Programme

09:00 - 09:30 Registration
09:30 - 09:45 Introduction
09:45 - 10:45 Rosemary Sweet: "Increasing Urbanity: Urbanization and Urban Culture in England, 1550-1918."
10:45 - 11:00 Tea and Coffee
11:00 - 12:00 David Hughes: "The Politicisation of Bath's 'Respectable Tradesmen' after the Emergence of Radicals in the 1830s."

Emma Croker: "Time to Set the Record Straight: the Much Maligned Civic Elite of Elizabethan Bath."
12:00 - 1:00 Benjamin Heller: "Comparing Leisure Lives in Eighteenth-century Bath and London."

Barb Drummond: "Women in Georgian Bath: how a masculine City nurtured the rise of Women's Education and Power."
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch
14:30 - 15:30 Amy Frost: "Prior Park and Catholicism in Nineteenth-century Bath."

Cynthia Hammond: "The Suffragettes' Wood: Landscape, Gender and Memory on the outskirts of Edwardian Bath."
15:30 - 15:45 Tea and Coffee
15:45 - 16:15 Kristin Doern: "Interpreting Heritage for the Local, the Regional and the Global."
16:15 - End Peter Borsay: Keynote Speaker

Bookings

Registration fees:

To pre-book please send the completed booking form with a cheque payable to "Bath Spa University" to:

David Hughes,
School of Humanities and Cultural Industries,
Bath Spa University,
Newton Park,
Newton St Loe,
Bath, BA2 9BN,
United Kingdom.

Booking form: PDF / MS Word

The closing date for pre-booking is Friday 16 April 2010.

If space permits registration will be available on the day for £12.50.