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The Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies, a collaboration between the Queen Mary English Department and Dr Williams's Library, Gordon Square, London, has undertaken a long-term and ongoing programme of funded research projects, public engagement events, and publications in print and online. Dr Williams's Library is a non-HEI (owned by Dr Williams's Trust, Charity number 214926) dedicated to the preservation and study of collections related to the history of Protestant dissent. Prof Isabel Rivers (QMUL 2004-), and Dr David Wykes, Director of the Library, founded the Centre in 2004 because of their mutual interest in the field. The work of the Centre's Queen Mary researchers, including publications hosted on the Centre's website, has enhanced the public profile of the Library, improved its accessibility to the wider public, and transformed the public understanding of the history of Protestant dissent.
The research project `The Cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians 1918-2005' has facilitated a better understanding of fascism and its legacy by challenging preconceptions about Benito Mussolini and examining the legacy of his leadership `cult' in Italy and beyond. The project achieved impact on CULTURAL LIFE through collaboration with a professional curatorial team in an exhibition at a significant UK gallery, the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London, engaging in the process with a wider, non-academic audience. The project's public engagement activities and the production of teaching resources in a variety of media have also had an EDUCATIONAL impact, improving public awareness of the propaganda strategies of Fascism.
The impact of this case study is located in uncovering the contribution of Margaret Collier to the Anglo-Italian literary and cultural relations from Risorgimento to Resistance through her individual initiative as well as her legacy in the literary works and political commitment of her daughter, Giacinta Galletti, and grand-daughter, Joyce Salvadori. Impact is achieved through disseminating and promoting the understanding of this lesser-known intergenerational female legacy nationally and internationally through publications, conferences, and lectures in public domains; in translating texts previously available only in Italian; in broadening the knowledge of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literary communities in Italy; and in deepening the understanding of concepts of nationality, multiculturalism, migration, otherness and difference.
Between September 2006 and January 2009, the Department of English's Gladstone Project was centred on William Ewart Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, North Wales (formerly St Deiniol's Library). It created an online electronic catalogue of the Library's holdings and a separate online catalogue detailing Gladstone's own books, with contextualised details of his annotations in them.
As a direct result, a significant body of work has been preserved and Gladstone's Library has today established itself as a major heritage centre and visitor institution, developing wider public and media interest in Gladstone, his political career and his relationship to nineteenth century literature. Impact has also extended into teaching practice at other HE institutions, through the work of the Gladstone Centre for postgraduates.
The medieval seals projects have enabled substantial non-academic audiences to engage more effectively with and appreciate more fully the cultural heritage of Britain. There is now a deeper understanding among schoolchildren and adult interest groups (e.g. local history societies) of the importance of seals in medieval culture and their role in establishing identities. The projects have also alerted heritage professionals to the significance of seals as a heritage asset, and developed their skills in preserving and presenting this undervalued resource. In attracting visitors to Wales and the Marches through exhibitions and outreach events the projects have delivered an economic return.
Research into the cultural value and potential meanings of archival television has been applied to the development of a new access route to the holdings of European broadcasters, changing their culture and developing new forms of cataloguing, search and discovery techniques. Research into everyday television has alerted archivists to the value of their neglected holdings and to the need to refine their preservation policies. The research includes the action research project VideoActive which led directly to the development of the first metadata schema for archival material held by European broadcasters for the current EUScreen project
The Wars of the Roses and Richard III remain engrossing and controversial after 500 years throughout the Anglophone world and beyond. Hicks and Holford have made a significant impact on public knowledge and understanding of the period's politics and society. Their publications, printed and online, are valuable resources for professional and amateur historians, students and the general public, nationally and internationally. Hicks' Anne Neville underpinned Philippa Gregory's novel, The Kingmaker's Daughter and hence the BBC series The White Queen. The website, blog and twitter, Mapping the Medieval Countryside, are making the inquisitions post mortem (IPMs) much more widely accessible and useful than hitherto.
This creative/critical collaboration sought to reclaim Spenser's The Faerie Queene for today's world, investigating how to remake this religious poem and national epic for diverse audiences and users, and exploring its potential to revivify religion and society, through artistic works and new liturgies. Impact beyond the academy was always at the conceptual heart of the project. Bringing together members of different faith groups, school communities, and cultural practitioners (musicians, puppeteers, poets), it engaged them in debate and sought to produce new cultural forms that would not only contribute to cultural life but affect civil society and public discourse. An unforeseen if powerful impact was a national debate and controversy over deployments of the figure of St George.
This case study relates to cultural life and education. Kenneth Fincham is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of British Early Modern History, and the impact arose from a major research programme funded by the AHRC to create:
The database is an online resource launched in 2005 and available free to all users. It provides a relational database and supporting website containing key information on clergy, schoolteachers and ecclesiastical patrons which has brought together for the first time a comprehensive range of sources. From the start CCEd was designed to serve constituencies outside as well as within academia, and it has proved an invaluable resource for genealogists across the globe seeking information on clerical ancestors, local historians researching parish histories, independent researchers interested in the clergy, and hard-pressed archivists responsible for managing and interpreting major diocesan collections. It has received in excess of 9.9m hits since 2010 and highly positive feedback from its many different types of user.
The Bloomsbury Project, which gathers the results of archival research into the geographical, cultural, and social development of Bloomsbury, London, in the 19th century, has assisted and enriched the investigations of local historians and organisations into the area. The Bloomsbury Project website receives over 3,000 hits each month (and often closer to 5,000), Professor Rosemary Ashton's monograph Victorian Bloomsbury (2012) has been widely reviewed, and a series of well-attended public events has brought together members of the community working on Bloomsbury-related projects.