Prof Jon Stobart

Role: Professor in History
Area: Social Sciences - History

Telephone number: 01604 89 2098
Email address: jon.stobart@northampton.ac.uk

An historical geographer by training, much of my research has focused on the role of space in structuring historical processes and social practices, from industrialisation to shopping. After completing my doctoral research on early industrialisation in north-west England, I have held posts at Staffordshire and Coventry Universities before moving to my present post as Professor in History in 2005. I am a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Urban History and Local Population Studies; a member of the Council of the Northamptonshire Record Society, and am course leader for the MA in Social and Cultural History.

I am also a member of the Executive Committees of the Economic History Society and the Social History Society.

History of Heritage
Eighteenth-century trade and commerce
Consumption and shopping in the eighteenth century
Household and material culture

PhD supervision

I am currently the lead supervisor on five PhD projects: long term changes in local business networks and social capital; consumption and identity amongst Caribbean settlers in Northamptonshire (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award); community, heritage and identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; consumption and material culture at Audley End, Essex (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award, in conjunction with English Heritage); image and reality of the village shop in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

I would welcome enquiries about projects covering various aspects of social, cultural and economic history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, particularly material culture and consumption, retail history, and social or business networking.

My research ranges across the economic, social and cultural history of England in the long eighteenth century. I have worked on industrial, urban and regional development in the Midlands and north-west England, published as The First Industrial Region and Towns, Regions and Industries; the construction and articulation of social and business networks, and the geographies of leisure and retailing. The last of these involved research, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, on the inter-relationship between the spaces and social practices of polite leisure and shopping in provincial towns.

Currently, I am working on a number of related projects. One offers a detailed analysis of the changing world of the grocery trade in the period 1650-1850 as both retailers and consumers transformed their behaviour and attitudes in the face of a range of new exotic imports. This is to be published as a monograph entitled "Sugar and Spice" (O.U.P. 2012). A second examines the relationship between fashion, taste and second-hand circuits of exchange, seeking to challenge traditional notions that second-hand markets were based on economic necessity. A third, supported by a major research grant from the AHRC, explores 'Consumption and the country house, c.1730-1800'. Through detailed case studies of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire country houses, this project seeks to link the identity, supply networks and consumption practices of the gentry

Publications on NECTAR

Jump to: 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2004

2012

Russel, B., Stobart, J. and Kakabadse, N. (2012) Urban elites in eighteenth-century Northampton. In: Kakabadse, A. and Kakabadse, N. (eds.) Global Elites: The Opaque Nature of Transnational Policy Determination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 262-285.

2011

Stobart, J. (2011) Achat pour les épiceries exotiques en mi-18ème-siècle Angleterre. Histoire Urbane. 30, pp. 127-146. 1628-0482.
Stobart, J. (2011) Elite consumption in eighteenth-century England: fashion, status and personal preference. Invited Keynote presented to: Consumption and Standards of Living Since the Eighteenth Century: Economic History, Social History, Cultural History, University of Huddersfield, 13 September 2011.
Stobart, J. (2011) Gentlemen and shopkeepers: supplying the country house in eighteenth-century England. Economic History Review. 64(3), pp. 885-904. 0013-0117.
Stobart, J. (2011) Luxury and country house sales in England, 1750-1830. Paper presented to: Economic History Society Annual Conference, Robinson College, University of Cambridge, 01-03 April 2011.
Stobart, J. (2011) Novelty, luxury and the consumption of groceries in eighteenth-century England. Paper presented to: Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) Conference: Food and Beverages: Retailing Distribution and Consumption in Historical Perspective, University of Wolverhampton, 07-08 September 2011.
Stobart, J. and Rothery, M. (2011) Rearranging the furniture: fashion, status and personal preference at Stoneleigh Abbey, c.1730-1800. Invited Presentation presented to: Design History Society (DHS) Seminar: Country Houses Then and Now: Formation Patronage and Interpretation, University of Wolverhampton, 06 June 2011.
Stobart, J. (2011) Who were the urban gentry? Social elites in an English provincial town, c.1680-1760. Continuity and Change. 26(1), pp. 89-112. 0268-4160.

2010

Stobart, J. (2010) A history of shopping: the missing link between retail and consumer revolutions. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing. 2(3), pp. 342-349. 1755-750X.
MacArthur, R. and Stobart, J. (2010) Going for a song? Country house sales in Georgian England. In: Stobart, J. and Van Damme, I. (eds.) Modernity and the Second-Hand Trade : European Consumption Cultures and Practices, 1700-1900. Basingstoke: Palgrave. pp. 175-195.
Stobart, J. (2010) Luxury and country house sales in England c.1750-1830. Paper presented to: Recycling Luxury and Waste in the Long 18th Century: the Afterlife of Used Things in Britain and France, Paris, France, 22-23 June 2010.
Stobart, J. and Van Damme, I., (eds.) (2010) Modernity and the Second-Hand Trade : European Consumption Cultures and Practices, 1700-1900. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave. 9780230229464.
Stobart, J. (2010) Selling spaces: grocers' shops in eighteenth-century England. Panel Presentation presented to: British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS) Annual Conference, Oxford, 5-7 January 2010.
Stobart, J. (2010) Taste and textiles: selling fashion in eighteenth-century provincial England. Paper presented to: Pasold Research Fund and the Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) Conference: Distribution Networks for Textiles and Dress, C.1700-1945, Wolverhampton, 08-09 September 2010.
Stobart, J. (2010) Tea and cakes: elite consumption of groceries in eighteenth-century England. Paper presented to: European Social Science History (ESSHC) Conference, Ghent, Belgium, 12-16 April 2010.
Stobart, J. (2010) Textiles and the second-hand trade in the long eighteenth century. Invited Keynote presented to: Textile Society AGM and Conference: RE: wind - Recycling and Sustainability, De Montfort University, Leicester, 26-28 November 2010.

2009

Stobart, J. (2009) A history of shopping: the missing link between retail and consumer revolutions. Paper presented to: 2009 Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) Conference: Retailing and Distribution History, University of Wolverhampton, England, 9-10 September 2009.
Stobart, J. (2009) A settled little society: networks, friendship and trust in eighteenth-century provincial England. In: Baigent, E. and Mayhew, R. (eds.) English Geographies 1600-1950: Historical Essays on English Customs, Cultures, and Communities in Honour of Jack Langton. Oxford, England: St John's College Research Centre. pp. 58-70.
Stobart, J. (2009) Exotic or everyday? Advertising groceries in Georgian England. Paper presented to: Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) Workshop - Retailing History: Texts and Images, University of Wolverhampton, England, 29 April 2009.
Blonde, B., Coquery, N., Stobart, J. and Van Damme, I., (eds.) (2009) Fashioning Old and New: Changing Consumer Patterns in Europe (Seventeenth-Nineteenth Centuries). Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. 9782503528786.
Stobart, J. (2009) Geographies of selling: the grocery trades in Georgian provincial towns. Paper presented to: Annual Conference of the Association of Business Historians: 'Cities of Business, the Business of Cities...', University of Liverpool, England, 3-4 July 2009.
Stobart, J. (2009) In and out of fashion? Advertising novel and second-hand goods in Georgian England. In: Blonde, B., Coquery, N., Stobart, J. and Van Damme, I. (eds.) Fashioning Old and New: Changing Consumer Patterns in Western Europe (1650 - 1900). Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. pp. 133-144.
Stobart, J. (2009) Making the town: William West's walking tours. Paper presented to: Social History Society Annual Conference, University of Warwick, England, 3-5 April 2009.
Stobart, J. (2009) Men of substance? Defining the status of shopkeepers in 17th and 18th century England. Paper presented to: Social Cohesion in Pre-Modern England, 1500-1800, Lincoln College, Oxford, England, 2 May 2009.
Stobart, J. (2009) Shop and home: the material culture of selling in eighteenth-century provincial England. Paper presented to: Local History in Britain after Hoskins, University of Leicester, England, 9-12 July 2009.
Stobart, J. (2009) Sociability, space and the shopkeeper in eighteenth-century England. Paper presented to: Visiting Rites: Accessing the English Home, c.1650-1850, University of Northampton, England, 10-11 September 2009.
Stobart, J. (2009) Taste and textiles: selling fashion in eighteenth-century provincial England. Paper presented to: Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century: Comparative Perspectives from Western Europe, University of Northampton, England, 10-11 June 2009.
Stobart, J. (2009) The shopping streets of provincial England c. 1650-1850. Paper presented to: The Landscape of Consumption: Shopping Streets in European Cities, c.1500-1914, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 22-23 October 2009.

2008

Stobart, J. (2008) Member of Editorial Board. International Journal of Regional and Local Studies. Lincoln: University of Lincoln. 1750-0478.
Stobart, J. (2008) Member of Editorial Board. Journal of Urban History. Thousand Oaks, California and London: SAGE Publications. 0096-1442.
Stobart, J. (2008) Member of Editorial Board. Local Population Studies. Hatfield: Local Population Studies Society. 0143-2974.
Stobart, J. (2008) A settled little society?: networks, friendship and trust in eighteenth-century provincial England. Invited Keynote presented to: Sixth Gustav Wasa Seminar, Jyvaskyla, Finland, 6-7 June 2008.
Stobart, J. (2008) Accommodating the shop: the commercial use of domestic space in English provincial towns. Panel Presentation presented to: European Association for Urban History Conference, Lyon, France, 27-30 August 2008.
Stobart, J., Blonde, B. and Coquery, N. (2008) Cosmopolitanism and the city: urban production and consumption 1600-1800. Paper presented to: IXth International Conference on Urban History, Lyon, France, 27-30 August 2008.
Stobart, J. (2008) Gentlemen and shopkeepers: supplying the country house in eighteenth century England. Panel Presentation presented to: Economic History Conference, Nottingham, 28-30 March 2008.
Stobart, J. and Schwarz, L. (2008) Leisure, luxury and urban specialization in the eighteenth century. Urban History. 35(2), pp. 216-236. 0963-9268.
Stobart, J. (2008) Making the high street: William West's walking tours of Birmingham, 1830. Panel Presentation presented to: Centre for History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) Conference: Clone towns? The High Street in Historical Perspective, Telford, 10-11 September 2008.
Stobart, J. (2008) Manchester and its region: networks and boundaries in the eighteenth century. Manchester Region History Review. 19, pp. 66-80. 0952-4320.
Stobart, J. and Van Damme, I. (2008) Second-hand circuits of exchange in Europe, 1650-1850. Chair presented to: 7th European Social Science History Conference (ESSCH), Lisbon, Portugal, 26 February - 1 March 2008.
Stobart, J. (2008) Selling (through) politeness: advertising provincial shops in eighteenth-century England. Cultural and Social History. 5(2), pp. 309-328. 1478-0038.
Stobart, J. (2008) Spend, Spend, Spend! A History of Shopping. Stroud: History Press. 9780752443690.
Stobart, J. (2008) Sugar and spice: shopping for exotic goods in mid-eighteenth-century England. Panel Presentation presented to: European Association for Urban History Conference, Lyon, France, 27-30 August 2008.
Stobart, J. (2008) The country house, c.1700-1850: materiality, power and patronage. Chair presented to: 7th European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC), Lisbon, Portugal, 26 February - 1 March 2008.
Stobart, J. (2008) The provincial pleasure gardens of Georgian England. Invited Presentation presented to: Vauxhall Revisited: Pleasure Gardens and Their Publics, 1660-1880, Tate Britain, London, 14-16 July 2008.
Stobart, J. (2008) The shop and the home: retail space in early eighteenth-century English provincial towns. Panel Presentation presented to: British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Oxford, 8-10 January 2008.

2007

Stobart, J. (2007) Accommodating the shop: the use of domestic space for selling in English provincial towns, 1660-1740. Panel Presentation presented to: Social History Society Annual Conference, Exeter, 30 March - 1 April 2007.
Stobart, J. (2007) Food retailers and rural communities: Cheshire butchers in the long eighteenth century. Local Population Studies. 79, pp. 23-37. 0143-2974.
Stobart, J. (2007) In and out of fashion? Advertising novel and second-hand goods in Georgian England. Panel Presentation presented to: 2007 Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) and Association of Business Historians (ABH) Conference: Business Links: Trade Distribution and Networks, University of Wolverhampton, 29-30 June 2007.
Stobart, J. (2007) Rus et Urbe? The hinterland and landscape of Georgian Chester. In: Barnwell, P. and Palmer, M. (eds.) Post-Medieval Landscapes. Macclesfield: Windgather Press. pp. 107-118.
Stobart, J. (2007) Selling (through) politeness: advertising provincial shops in the eighteenth century. Panel Presentation presented to: Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) Workshop, Wolverhampton, 21 March 2007.
Stobart, J., Hann, A. and Morgan, V. (2007) Spaces of Consumption: Leisure and Shopping in the English Town, c.1680-1830. London: Routledge. 9780415424561.
Stobart, J. and Van Damme, I. (2007) The shop and the street: selling consumer goods in England and the Southern Netherlands c.1650-1750. Panel Presentation presented to: Urban Living: Society, Culture and Politics in the English Town, 1700-1850, Northampton, 5-6 July 2007.

2004

Stobart, J. (2004) Building an urban identity. Cultural space and civic boosterism in a 'new' industrial town: Burslem, 1761-1911. Social History. 29(4), pp. 485-498. 1470-1200.
Stobart, J. (2004) The First Industrial Region: North-West England, c.1700-60. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 0719064627.
Stobart, J. (2004) The economic and social worlds of rural craftsmen-retailers in eighteenth century Cheshire. Agricultural History Review. 52(2), pp. 141-160. 0002-1490.

This list was generated from NECTAR on Thu May 24 06:50:26 2012 BST.

Other publications

Books

Urban and industrial change in the Midlands, 1700-1840 (University of Leicester, 2000) - ed. with P. Lane
Urban Fortunes: Property and Inheritance in the town, 1700-1900 (Ashgate, 2000) - ed. with A. Owens
The First Industrial Region: North-West England 1700-1760 (Manchester University Press, 2004)
Towns, regions and industries: urban and industrial change, 1700-1840 (Manchester University Press, 2005) - ed. with N. Raven
Buyers and Sellers: Retail circuits and practices in medieval and early modern Europe (Brepols, 2006) - ed. with B. Blonde, P. Stabel and I. Van Damme
Spaces of Consumption: Leisure and Shopping in the English Town, 1680-1830 (Routledge, 2007) - with A. Hann and V. Morgan
Spend, Spend, Spend. A History of Shopping (History Press, 2008)
Fashioning Old and New (Brepols, 2009) - ed. with B. Blonde, B., N. Coquery and I. Van Damme
Second-hand and modernity: buying and selling used goods in Europe, c. 1700-1900 (Palgrave, 2010) - ed. with I. Van Damme

Articles and Book Chapters

'An eighteenth century revolution? Urban growth in North West England, 1664-1801', Urban History, 23, 1 (1996)
'Geography and industrialisation: the space economy of North West England, 1701-60', Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, 21, 4 (1996)
'Shopping streets as social space: consumerism, improvement and leisure in an eighteenth century county town', Urban History, 25, 1 (1998)
'Textile industries in NW England in the early eighteenth century: a geographical approach', Textile History, 29, 1 (1998)
'In search of a leisure hierarchy: English spa towns in the urban system', in P. Borsay, G. Hirschfelder and R. Mohrmann (eds) New Directions in Urban History (Waxmann, 2000)
'Social and geographical contexts of property transmission in the eighteenth century', in J. Stobart and A. Owens (eds) Urban Fortunes: Property and Inheritance in the town, 1700-1900 (Ashgate, 2000)
'Regions, localities and industrialization: evidence from the east midlands, c. 1780-1830', Environment and Planning A, 33, 7 (2001)
'Culture versus commerce: societies and spaces for elites in eighteenth-century Liverpool', Journal of Historical Geography, 28, 4 (2002)
'County, town and country: three histories of urban development in eighteenth-century Chester', in P. Borsay and L. Proudfoot (eds), Change, convergence and divergence: Provincial towns in Early Modern England and Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2002)
'City centre retailing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: structure and processes', in J. Benson and L. Ugolini (eds), A Nation of Shopkeepers: a history of retailing in Britain 1550-2000 (Tauris, 2003)
'Identity, competition and place promotion in the Five Towns', Urban History, 30, 2 (2003), 163-82
'Retailing revolution in the eighteenth century: evidence from north-west England', Business History, 46, 2 (2004)
'Personal and commercial networks in an English port: Chester in the early eighteenth century', Journal of Historical Geography, 30, 2 (2004)
'The economic and social worlds of rural craftsmen-retailers in eighteenth-century Cheshire', Agricultural History Review, 52, 2 (2004)
'Building an urban identity. Cultural space and civic boosterism in a 'new' industrial town: Burslem, 1761-1911', Social History, 29, 4 (2004)
'Networks and hinterlands: transport in the Midland', in J. Stobart and N. Raven (eds) Towns, regions and industries: urban and industrial change, 1700-1840 (Manche Manchester University Press, 2005) - with N. Raven
'New towns of the industrial coalfields: Burslem and West Bromwich', in J. Stobart and N. Raven (eds) Towns, regions and industries: urban and industrial change, 1700-1840 (Manchester University Press, 2005) - with B. Trinder
'A settled little society of trading people? The eighteenth-century retail community of an English county town', in B. Blondé and N. Coquery (eds) Retailers and consumers in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (University of Tours, 2005)
'Sites of consumption: the display of goods in provincial shops in eighteenth century England', Cultural and Social History, 2, 2 (2005) - with A. Hann
'Leisure and shopping in the small towns of Georgian England', Journal of Urban History, 31, 4 (2005)
'Information, trust and reputation: shaping a merchant elite in early eighteenth century England', Scandinavian Journal of History 30, 3 (2005)
'Clothes, cabinets and carriages: second-hand dealing in eighteenth-century England', in B. Blonde, P. Stabel, J. Stobart and I. Van Damme, (eds), Buyers and Sellers: Retail circuits and practices in medieval and early modern Europe (Brepols, 2006)
'Rus et Urbe? The hinterland and landscape of Georgian Chester', in M. Palmer and P. Barnwell (eds), Post-Medieval Landscapes in Britain: Landscape History after Hoskins, Vol. 3 (Windgather Press, 2007)
'Leisure, luxury and urban specialization in the eighteenth century', Urban History, 35, 2 (2008), 216-36 - with L.D. Schwarz
'Accommodating the shop: the commercial use of domestic space in English provincial towns, c.1660-1740', Citta e Storia, 2 (2007)
'Selling (through) politeness: advertising provincial shops in eighteenth-century England', Cultural and Social History, 5, 2 (2008)
'Manchester and its region: networks and boundaries in the eighteenth century', Manchester Region History Review, 19 (2008)
Stobart, J. 'In and out of fashion? Advertising novel and second-hand goods in Georgian England', in B. Blonde, N. Coquery, J. Stobart & I. Van Damme (eds) Fashioning Old and New .... (Brepols, 2009)
Stobart, J. 'A settled little society?: networks, friendship and trust in eighteenth-century provincial England', in E. Baigent and R. Mayhew (eds) English geographies: historical essays on English customs, cultures, and communities in honour of Jack Langton (2009)
'Achat pour les épiceries exotiques en mi-18ème-siècle Angleterre', Histoire Urbaine (forthcoming, 2009)
'Going for a song? Country house sales in Georgian England', in J. Stobart and I. Van Damme (eds), Modernity and the Second-hand Trade (Palgrave, 2010), with R. MacArthur
'Gentlemen and shopkeepers: supplying the country house in eighteenth-century England', Economic History Review, 64:3 (2011)
'Who were the urban gentry? A social elite in an English provincial town, c.1680-1760', Continuity and Change, 26:1 (2011)

Update needed? If you are a member of staff see the updating your staff profile page to find out how to get the information in the staff directory changed.