Professor Chris Woolgar
Head of Special Collections; Professor of History and Archival Studies
Contact details
Telephone: +44 (0) 23 8059 2721
Fax: +44 (0) 2380 5451
E-mail: C.M.Woolgar@soton.ac.uk
To enquire about the Special Collections and their use, please e-mail: Archives@soton.ac.uk
Biographical notes
Chris Woolgar is a graduate of Southampton and Durham universities, and qualified as an archivist at the University of Liverpool. After cataloguing the archives of two Oxford colleges, he returned to Southampton in 1982 to work on the papers of the first Duke of Wellington. He has been Head of Special Collections in the University Library since 1991. A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society, he was appointed to a chair in History and Archival Studies in 2007.
Events
Inaugural lecture: ‘Wellington, his papers and the nineteenth-century revolution in communication’ was given on the 20 November 2008. The text can be downloaded from this link.
Wellington Congress 2010: the fourth in the University’s series of Wellington Congresses will be held at Southampton, 8-11 July 2010. The deadline for the call for papers is 16 October 2009.
Responsibilities
All aspects of the work of the Special Collections Division. For courses taught, follow this link: www.soton.ac.uk/history/profiles/woolgar.html
Research interests
There is a close link between my archival work and my research. Material discovered in my first archival post led to Household accounts from medieval England; and current editorial work on episcopal probate material develops another area. I have worked extensively with archives from the medieval period onwards, currently with political and military papers of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and with Jewish archives. I have an interest in the forms of documents and patterns of communication. Another focus of research is the day-to-day life of the past, particularly in medieval England, ranging from food to perception.
Research projects
My descriptive curatorial and editorial work centres on the papers of British statesmen from the eighteenth century onwards and on the archives of Anglo-Jewry, together with aspects of the application of automation to the management and description of archives. Current projects include:
— General editorial work on the detailed catalogue databases of the archive collections of the University Library, especially on the papers of the first Duke of Wellington, currently for the period of the Peninsular War. Follow the link to connect to the The Wellington Papers Database (ed.) C.M.Woolgar, with J.Davy, S.Donnelly, A.George, N.Hamilton, K.Robson, M.Romans, P.Romans and C.L.Smith,, (Southampton, University of Southampton, in progress, 1983 to date)
— Preparing guide-level descriptions for additions to the Library’s archive and manuscript collections, to be published electronically as well as cumulatively in hard copy. Follow the link to connect to the Guide to the archive collections:
I am currently working on three medieval research projects: an edition of the unpublished probate material, inventories and executors’ accounts for English and Welsh bishops, 1200-1413, for the Canterbury and York Society; a book on the culture of food in late medieval England; and a study of the role of custom.
I have recently succeeded Professor Anne Curry as editor of the Journal of Medieval History
Areas where I can offer post-graduate supervision
Aspects of daily life in the Middle Ages; themes associated with the Special Collections; patterns of documentation and communication
Links to primary research group
The Centre for Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/history/research/cipcs.html
The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture: [www.hip.humanities.soton.ac.uk/Postgraduate--Research/AHRC-and-Research-Centres/Centre-for-Medieval-and-Renaissance-Culture.asp]