Chair of the University Ethics Committee, Member of the History Research Strategy Committee and Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine

Personal Profile

Dr. Elizabeth T. Hurren worked for ten years in international banking before becoming an academic. She obtained a 1^st class honours degree - BA (Hons) Humanities: History and English - in 1996 - followed by a PhD in History - in 2000 - from Leicester University. She has been lecturing full-time for nearly ten years and is currently a senior lecturer in the history of medicine. In 2008 she became Chair of the University Ethics Committee at Oxford Brookes University - see http://www.brookes.ac.uk/res/ethics. She is also a regular contributor to the BBC Making History series produced by Pier Productions Ltd for Radio 4. She has recently won a Wellcome Trust Broadcast Award to develop a television series on the history of the body in 2008/9 (see public engagement below).

Undergraduate Teaching

U67504 Medicine and Society in Europe c. 1650-1914

U67556 History of the Body, 1500-1900

U68589 Brainstorming: A History of the Brain (this module is not yet running)

Postgraduate Teaching

P67579 The History of Death and Dying in Britain, 1750-1900

Research

History of anatomy and the body from antiquity to the twentieth century; history of poverty and society in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; history of ‘the politics of place’ and local democracy; the history of body trafficking of pauper corpses to train medical students under the New Poor Law, circa 1832 to 1929.

Dr Hurren’s research expertise has six interwoven-strands:

• The history of nineteenth century poverty and the experience of being poor
• The New Poor Law and public health politics in Victorian Britain
• The history of death and dying in Britain
• The history of anatomy and the body since antiquity
• Medical ethics, coroners, research and "body" debates in biomedicine
• The history of the brain and scientific breakthroughs
• Women and childbirth from Tudor England to Modern Incubator

Current Projects

Dr Hurren has six projected research activities in the period from 2008 to 2010:

1. In 2008, research was completed on the how paupers became staple dissection subjects of a 19th-century medical education. A unique database has been compiled of the body-trafficking networks in leading provincial and London medical schools. This is the subject of a forthcoming book contracted to Palgrave Macmillan – Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and its Trade in the Dead Poor, 1832 to 1929, (September 2010). Writing-up is funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Leave Award in 2009-10 of £45, 000.
2. In semester one 2010, a new project funded by the recent £675, 000 Wellcome Trust Strategic Award, of which Dr Hurren was a co-applicant, will be launched. It has two facets: the care and use of the poor for medical research in major teaching hospitals and the subsequent history of the Strangeways Laboratory at Cambridge.
3. In 2009/10, academic articles have been produced on the social history of 19th century coroners and their professional jurisdiction over the corpse.
4. In 2009/10, an academic article has also been produced on the history of anatomists and their public engagement work in the 19^th century.
5. In 2009/10, a Wellcome Trust Broadcast Award of £10,000 in conjunction with Pier Productions Ltd was won to pitch the production of a television programme on the ‘History of the Body’, currently under consideration with BBC “Timewatch”.
6. In 2008/9, Elizabeth won a Leverhulme Trust Study Abroad Fellowship for £5,235 and an award of 2, 500 euros from the EHESS Paris. She took up a prestigious Overseas Scholarship to work on the comparative history of anatomy in England and France in May 2009 and returns again in November 2009 to give guest lectures and complete the project.

Editorships

Elizabeth is the joint-editor of the Pickering and Chatto series, The Body, Gender and Culture. The purpose of this series is to publish high quality research projects that explore ‘the body’ as a site of critical enquiry. The series extends from the early modern period to the nineteenth century. It is particularly concerned with ‘the body’ as a medical, social and cultural construction. It also explores how the body mediates between self and society in the process of determining our relationship to the world around us. For further details see: http://www.pickeringchatto.com/series/body_gender_and_culture_the

Books and other publications

E. T. Hurren, Protesting About Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in Late-Victorian England, c. 1870-1914 (Boydell and Brewer, 2007).

E. T. Hurren, Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and its Trade in the Dead Poor, 1870 to 1929, (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming September 2010).

E. T. Hurren, A. Gestrich, S. A. King and L. Raphael (eds), Poverty and the Development of Health-Care in Modern Europe, (Rodopi, forthcoming 2010).

Chapters

E. T. Hurren, 'The Business of Anatomy and Being Poor: why have we failed to learn the medical and poverty lessons of the past?' in A. Gestrich, S. A. King, and L. Raphael (eds), Being Poor in Modern Europe, (Peter Lang, 2006).

E. T. Hurren, 'World without Welfare? The Late-Victorian Poor Law Reconsidered', in S. A. King and R. M. Smith (eds), Poverty, Poor Relief and Welfare in England from the 17th to the 20th century (Boydell and Brewer, forthcoming 2010).

Journal Articles

E. T. Hurren, 'Labourers are Revolting: Penalising the Poor and a Political Reaction in the Brixworth Union, Northamptonshire, 1875-1885', Rural History,11, 2 (2000), 37-55.

E. T. Hurren, 'Agricultural Trade Unionism and a Crusade Against Outdoor Relief: Poor Law Politics in the Brixworth Union Northamptonshire, 1870-75', Agricultural History Review, 48, 2 (2000), 200-222.

E. T. Hurren, 'Welfare-to-Work Schemes and a Crusade Against Outdoor Relief in the Brixworth Union, Northamptonshire, 1880s', Family and Community History, 4, 1 (2004), 19-30.

E. T. Hurren, 'The Pauper Dead-House: The expansion of Cambridge anatomical teaching school under the late-Victorian poor law, 1870-1914, Medical History, 48, 1 (2004), 69-94.

E. T. Hurren and S. A. King, 'Begging for a Burial: Form, function and meaning of nineteenth century pauper funeral provision', Social History, 30, 3 (2005), 321-341.

E. T. Hurren, 'Poor Law Versus Public Health: Diphtheria and the late-Victorian Poor Law's Challenge to Public Health Improvements, 1870-1900, Social History of Medicine,18, 3 (2005), 399-418.

E. T. Hurren, 'Selling and Buying the Dead Poor to Train English Doctors, 1870-1900', Journal of Social Studies, (Stein Rokkan Centre), (2006), 1-16.

E.T. Hurren, 'A Radical Historian's Pursuit of Rural History: The Political Career and Contribution of the Rev. Dr. John Charles Cox, c. 1848 to 1919', Rural History 19, 1 (2008), 81-103.

E. T. Hurren, ‘Whose body is it anyway? Trading the dead poor, coroner's disputes and the business of anatomy at Oxford University, 1885-1929', Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82, 4 (2008), 775-819.

E. T. Hurren, 'A radical historian's pursuit of rural history: The political career and contribution of the Rev. Dr. John Charles Cox, c. 1848 to 1919', Rural History 19, 1 (2008), 81-103.

with I. Scherder, ‘Dignity in death? The dead body as an anatomical object in England and Ireland, circa 1832 to 1900’, in Steven King and Andreas Gestrich (eds.), The Dignity of the Poor: Concepts, Practices, Representations, (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2010), 1-52.

Research Dissemination

Public Engagement:

E. T. Hurren, 'Late-Victorian Alder Heys? Why did medical science fail the general public in Victorian England?', Guardian Unlimited (May 2002).

E. T. Hurren, 'Late-Victorian Alder Heys? From the Nuremberg Code to the Anatomy Act - failing to learn the medical research lessons of the past' http://www.historyandpolicy.org/, (May 2002).

E. T. Hurren, 'Late-Victorian Alder Heys', Wellcome History (July 2003)

Elizabeth is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4 Making History series produced by Pier Productions.

In 2008/9, Elizabeth will be working with Hampton Court palace on "Henry VIII and IVF", to recount his medical world. For details of her latest outreach in connection with the 500^th celebrations of Henry's accession to the English throne - see http://www.hrp.org.uk/hamptoncourtpalace/

Selected Conference Papers:

'Begging for a Burial: Pauper Funeral Provision in the 19th Century', Political Scandals Conference, Salford University, (June 2001) and Death, Dying and Disposal, University of York (September 2002).

'Trafficking in Pauper Cadavers - the Late-Victorian experience', Welfare and its Social Context, University of Trier, Germany, September 2003.

'Late-Victorian Alder-Heys? Selling Poor Children to Train English Medical Students, 1870-1914', Social History Conference, March 2004, Berlin, Germany.

‘World without welfare: pauper perspectives of medical care under the late-Victorian poor law’, presented at Narratives of Poverty: English Pauper Letters 1780-1840 in Comparative Perspective, Hagen Conference, Germany, 4-7 October 2007.

‘Women and Childbirth’, keynote medical history conference paper presented at Henry VIII and the Tudor Court 1509-2009, Hampton Court Palace, 13-15 July 2009.

Selected Seminar Papers:

'The Business of Anatomy: Organ Sales and Dissection at Cambridge Anatomical Teaching School, 1870-1914', October 2003, Modern Medicine Series, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.

‘Anatomy and the trade in the dead poor in the Midlands, 1832-1929’, Birmingham University, School of Medicine and Medical History, Spring 2006.

‘Whose body is it anyway? Trading the poor to train English doctors at Oxbridge, 1870-1929’. Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, Hilary Term, 2007.

‘A Tale of Two Cities: Dying, Dissection, and Anatomy in London and Paris’, May 2009, EHESS, Paris – invited speaker, conference paper, and seminar.

Media Impact:

In 2009, Dr Hurren was involved in the following public engagement activities:

• BBC ‘Making History’ on Radio 4, historical expert on the history of medicine for the series 2008/9, produced by Nick Patrick for Pier Productions Ltd.
• Historical consultant on ‘Henry VIII: 1509-2009’ at Hampton Court – filming and writing popular articles on the history of medicine – see web links:

http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/stories/palacehighlights/HenryVIIIheadsandhearts/AllaboutHenry.aspx

http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/Elizabeth%20HurrenFINAL.pdf

• Historical consultant ‘Henry Week’ on BBC Radio 4 produced by Julian May – see BBC website, ‘Hidden Henry: Henry, Medicine and Health’, 25^th May 2009. The programme was ‘Pick of the Week’ in the Guardian and had a platform audience of 4.5 million.
• Historical consultant for a ‘Little Neck’, a play set in Henry VIII’s court and performed by the Goat and Monkey Theatre Company, staged at Hampton Court Palace, September and October 2009, Wellcome Trust funded (£59,400).
• Keynote speaker on the History of Medicine at the ‘Henry VIII and the Tudor Court, 1509-2009’, 14^th July 2009 at Hampton Court.
• Historical consultant and panel expert for ’60 Minutes of Sex’ Oxfordshire Science Festival 2009, chaired by Judith Hann (formerly of ‘Tomorrow’s World’) in April 2009.
• Guest speaker, A Night at the Museum Event: ‘Death and Dissection in Oxford’, History of Science Museum, Broad Street, Oxford, May, 2009.
• Provided historical input on Apercu Productions Ltd podcasts produced for the History of Medicine Centre at Oxford Brookes – see web link: ah.brookes.ac.uk/historyofmedicine/podcasts