Robert Morris

Position: Professor of Economic and Social History. Economic and Social History, School of History and Classics. Edinburgh.

Outline biography: After a first degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, did postgraduate work at Nuffield College, Oxford, 1965-68. Moved to Edinburgh in 1968 as lecturer and then senior lecturer (1983-1991). Personal Chair in Economic and Social History, 1983 to date. He was active in the founding of the Scottish Economic and Social History Society and the Association for History and Computing, as well as the revival of the Urban History Group. He was President of the European Urban History Association, 2000-2002. He convenes the Edinburgh University Press Committee. He has been external examiner at Glasgow, St Andrews and Queens University Belfast.

Research areas

A continued interest in social class formation and industrial towns in the nineteenth century has extended to a wide ranging interest in the nature of urbanization and in all aspects of urban social structure, especially gender, ethnicity, religion and language. An interest in urban stability and instability has led to a focus on civil society and governance in towns with a choice of Belfast and Montreal as case studies. All these themes link to an interest in the distinctive nature of urban Scotland. Studies of family, property, power and space also link them to a long term interest in the creation and nature of the urban built environment.

Recent publications

"Structure, culture and society in British Towns" in Martin Daunton, Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 395-426

"The Industrial Town" in Philip Waller (ed.), The English Urban Landscape, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 175-208

Urban Governance. Britain and beyond since 1750, (edited with Richard H Trainor) Ashgate Publishing Co, Aldershot 2000

"Family Strategies and the built environment of Leeds in the 1830s and 1840s", Northern History, vol.35 (December 2000), 193-214.

E-mail:
rjmorris@ed.ac.uk

Phone:
+44 131 650 3834

Fax:
+44 131 650 6645

Address:
Economic and Social History, School of History and Classics. William Robertson Building, George Square. Edinburgh EH8 9JY, Scotland

Visiting address:
Room 232, William Robertson Building, George Sq