Lecturer in the History of Medicine since 1500

Undergraduate Teaching

• U67502 The Age of Revolutions
• U67721 Crime and Punishment through the Ages
• U68570 Forensic Medicine in Western Society

Postgraduate Teaching

• P67569 Behaving Badly: From Deviance to Modernity

Research

History of crime in Britain; Western forensic medicine and science in the post-medieval period.

Katherine D. (Cassie) Watson was awarded her DPhil in 1994 for a thesis which investigated the role of scientific expertise in the late Victorian period. The theme of ‘expertise’ recurs in her current work, which focuses on topics where medicine, crime and the law intersect. Her main areas of research are:

• The history of crime in Britain since the early 18th century (especially a) criminal poisoning and related offences and, b) child murder), with a particular emphasis on medico-legal issues concerning these offences, the gender and social background of victims and perpetrators, the responses of the legal system, investigative practices, and regional variations in these trends.
• The history of medicine in post-1700 Britain, particularly the development of forensic medicine and the careers of its practitioners.
• The history of chemistry post-1750, especially in relation to toxicology and forensic techniques.

She is continuing her work on poisoning crimes in the form of a series of detailed case studies, and is developing a major comparative project (jointly with Anne-Marie Kilday, Principal Lecturer in History) on assault in Britain circa 1780-1840. She is currently working on a project funded by the Wellcome Trust: 'Medicine and Justice:medico-legal practice in England and Wales 1700-1914', and on acid throwing, an unusual form of assault. She organised an international conference on the history of violence, which tookplace in Oxford in July 2005: ‘“Assaulting the Past”: Placing Violence in Historical Context’. For further information please see the conference web site here

Editorships

Managing Editor & Editorial Board Member, Crimes and Misdemeanours; Deviance and the law in historical perspective (e-journal)

Membership of Professional Bodies

• British Society of Criminology
• Economic History Society
• Royal Society of Chemistry Historical Group
• Social History Society
• Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
• Society for the Social History of Medicine
• SOLON: Promoting Interdisciplinary Studies in Crime and Bad Behaviour
• SSHA Criminal Justice / Legal History Network

Books and other publications

K. Watson, Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and their Victims (Hambledon and London, 2004)

K. D. Watson (ed.), Assaulting the Past: Violence and Civilization in Historical Context (Cambridge Scholars Publishing,2007)

K. D. Watson, Crime Archive: Dr Crippen (The National Archives,2007)

Pamphlet:

K.D. Watson, Sources for the History of Science in Oxford (Oxford: Modern History Faculty, 1994)

Chapters

K.D. Watson, ‘Highlights in the history of toxicology’, in P. Wexler (ed.), Information Resources in Toxicology, 3rd ed. (Academic Press, 2000), 1-13. A revised version for the 4th edition will appear in April 2009.

K.D. Watson, ‘“Temporary hotel accommodation”? The early history of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory, 1894-1923’, in F.A.J.L. James (ed.), ‘The Common Purposes of Life’: Science and Society at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (Ashgate, 2002), 191-223.

K.D. Watson, ‘Criminal poisoning in England and the origins of the Marsh test for arsenic’, in J. R. Bertomeu-Sanchez and A. Nieto-Galan(eds), Chemistry, Medicine and Crime: Mateu J. B. Orfila and His Times (Science History Publications,2006), pp. 183-206.

K.D. Watson, 'Introduction' and 'Serial homicide and civilization' in Assaulting the Past: Violence and Civilization in Historical Context (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), pp. 1-17, 286-303.

K.D. Watson,‘Response - 'Moral Pestilence': same-sex criminal cases in mid-Victorian England', in George S. Rousseau (ed.), Children and Sexuality: the Greeks to the Great War (Palgrave Macmillan,2007), pp. 200-05.

K.D. Watson, ‘Is a burn a wound? Vitriol-throwing in medico-legal context, 1800-1900', in I. Goold and C. Kelly (eds), Lawyer's Medicine: The Legislature, the Courtsand Medical Practice, 1760-2000 (Hart Publishing, forthcoming August 2009).

Journal Articles

K.D. Watson, ‘The chemist as expert: the consulting career of Sir William Ramsay’, Ambix, 42 (1995), 143-59.

R.J. Flanagan and K.D. Watson, ‘Chloroform – murder or suicide? Sir Thomas Stevenson and his role in the trial of Adelaide Bartlett’, History of Anaesthesia Society Proceedings, 32 (2003), 40-49.

A-M. Kilday and K. Watson, ‘Nursery crimes: Child murder in Georgian England’, History Today, 55, 1 (2005) 40-46.

K.D. Watson, ‘Medical and chemical expertise in English trials for criminal poisoning, 1750-1914’, Medical History, 50 (2006), 373-90.

M.C. Usselman, D.G. Leaist and K.D. Watson, 'Dalton's disputed nitric oxide experiments and the origins of his atomic theory', ChemPhysChem, 9 (2008), 106-10.

K.D. Watson, 'Religion, community and the infanticidal mother: evidence from 1840s rural Wiltshire', Family and Community History, 11 (2008), 116-33. This article appears in a special issue of the journal, co-edited by A-M. Kilday and K.D. Watson, on the theme of 'Infanticide, Religion and Community in the British Isles, 1720-1920' - see the Introduction pp.84-99.

Reference Articles

Selected encyclopaedia entries:

‘Murder’ and ‘Poisons’, in C. Blakemore and S. Jennett (eds), The Oxford Companion to the Body (Oxford University Press, 2001).

Thirty biographical articles in the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (Nature Publishing Group, 2002).

‘Linus Carl Pauling’, in D.N. Cooper (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Human Genome (Nature Publishing Group, 2003).

Thirty-eight articles in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004).

‘Sir William Ramsay’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (Thoemmes Press, 2004).

‘The history of toxicology’, in P. Wexler (ed.), Encyclopedia of Toxicology, 2nd edn (Elsevier,2005), pp 364-70.

Research Dissemination

Lecture:

‘Are You Trying to Kill Me?’, Oxford Brookes Christmas Lecture, 7 December 2005 (with Elizabeth Hurren, Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine)

'Before CSI: Crime, Medicine and Science in History', Newcastle Science Festival, 17 March 2007

Selected Conference Papers

‘Marriage, motherhood and multiple infanticide in rural Wiltshire: Rebecca Smith (1806-1849)’, Women’s History Network regional meeting, University College Worcester (May 2004).

‘The British serial poisoner since 1800’, Assaulting the Past: Placing Violence in Historical Context conference, St Anne’s College, Oxford (July 2005).

‘Crimes of the blackest dye? Judicial responses to child murder in England and Wales, 1700-1900’, European Social Science History Conference, Amsterdam (March 2006).

'Medicine and justice: medico-legal practice in 18^th and 19^th century England and Wales',British Society of Criminology Conference (September 2007).

‘Losing face: vitriol throwing, shame and stigma in Britain, 1820-1900', European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon (February 2008).

'Women, violence and the criminal law in Wales, 1730-1900', Women and Crime in Britain and North America Conference, Lyon (September 2008).

Conferences Organised

Organiser of an international conference on the history of violence: ‘“Assaulting the Past”: Placing Violence in Historical Context’ at St Anne’s College, Oxford, 7-9 July 2005. For further information please see the conference web site here

Organiser of a half-day meeting on ‘The History of Forensic Chemistry’, The Royal Institution, London, 26 October 2005.

Organiser of a session on ‘Child Murder in North-Atlantic Europe, 1700-1900’ for the European Social Science History Conference, Amsterdam, 22-25 March 2006.

Organiser of a session on 'Women and Violence in the British Isles' for an international conference on Women and Crime in Britain and North America since 1500, Lyon, 12-13 September 2008.