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  3. Caroline Nielsen

  • Caroline specialises in the social and cultural history of medicine, health and disability in Britain, circa 1660-1918. Her research looks at the complex historical relationship between war, medicine, and social welfare institutions, such as workhouses, hospitals, almshouses and asylums.

    She also researches and teaches public history and employability, and works with students to develop their employability skills through participation in research projects and work-informed and work-based learning opportunities.

    She joined the History team at Northampton in September 2015. Prior to this, she was the Economic History Society Tawney Research Fellow at the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research (IHR).

    Research Interests:

    • British social and cultural history, c. 1660-1918
    • Social and cultural history of medicine
    • Disability history and historical experience of physical and mental impairment
    • Historical experiences of poverty and the poor
    • Historical experiences of veterans and military personnel, c. 1600-1918
    • Social and cultural history of death and bereavement
    • Public history
    • Graduate employability and careers guidance information in the humanities

    Caroline welcomes applications for postgraduate Masters and PhD-level supervision in these areas.

  • Caroline teaches the following modules:

    • HIS1023 Health and Healers: An Introduction to the History of Medicine (module leader)
    • HIS2003 Research Skills in History (module leader)
    • HIS3032 Death and Bereavement in Britain, 1500-1914 (module leader)
    • HIS4001 and HIS4003 Single Honour and Joint Honours Dissertations (module leader)
    • HIS045 MA History – Medicine and Healing Through the Ages

    Caroline coordinates the History degree programmes work-informed and work-based learning programmes. She welcomes enquiries or expressions of interest in these.

    Previous modules at Northampton include:

    • EDU2029 Education and Heritage (co-taught module with Dr Toby Purser)
    • HIS1019 Introduction to Heritage

  • Research Interests:

    • British social and cultural history, c. 1660-1918
    • Social and cultural history of medicine
    • Disability history and historical experience of physical and mental impairment
    • Historical experiences of poverty and the poor
    • Historical experiences of veterans and military personnel, c. 1600-1918
    • Social and cultural history of death and bereavement
    • Public history
    • Graduate employability and careers guidance information in the humanities

    Funded Research Projects:

    • 2018-20: ‘Employability in UK History Programmes: An Evaluation of Staff and Student Perspectives’ – Research project funded by the East Midlands Centre for History Teaching and Learning. Co-investigator with Dr Andrew Gritt (Nottingham Trent University).
    • 2018-19: ‘Employability, Placements and Work-Based Learning in History: Sharing Pedagogic Developments and Best Practice’ – Research project funded by the East Midlands Centre for History Teaching and Learning. Co-Investigator.
    • 2017: ‘“Now Walks Like Others”?: Health, Medicine and Disability in Northampton during the First World War. Research project funded by the AHRC and the University of Hertfordshire Everyday Lives in War: First World War Engagement Centre. Working with the Northampton General Hospital Historical Archive.
    • 2015-16: ‘HistoryPin Evaluation’ – evaluation project funded by the University of Hertfordshire Everyday Lives in War: First World War Engagement Centre.
    • 2014-15: – ‘Disabled by the state: the Pensioners of the Chest at Chatham and their communities, 1660-1807′ – Research project funded by the Economic History Society Tawney Fellowship.
    • 2015-16: ‘HistoryPin Evaluation’ – evaluation project funded by the University of Hertfordshire Everyday Lives in War: First World War Engagement Centre.
    • 2014-15: – ‘Disabled by the state: the Pensioners of the Chest at Chatham and their communities, 1660-1807′ – Research project funded by the Economic History Society Tawney Fellowship.

    Caroline was previously was the AHRC Research Associate on the BBC collaboration ‘World War One at Home: North East and Cumbria’.

    She also coordinated the University of Hertfordshire’s Heritage i-Teams Programme (2015), a collaboration between the University of Hertfordshire and the Institute of Manufacturing, University of Cambridge.

  • For publications, projects, datasets, research interests and activities, view Caroline Nielsen’s research profile on Pure, the University of Northampton’s Research Explorer.

  • Caroline's PURE profile

    2016

    • Old Soldiers: The Royal Hospital of Chelsea, Military Pensions and British Society, 1660-1834 – in preparation
    • Naval Charity: The Records of the Chest at Chatham, 1673-1799 (London Records Society – in preparation)

    2014

    • ‘Disability, Fraud and Medical Experience at the Royal Hospital of Chelsea in the Long Eighteenth Century’ in Britain’s Soldiers: Rethinking War and Society, 1715-1815, eds Kevin Linch and Matthew McCormack (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014), 183-201.

    2013

    • ‘”Continuing to Serve?”: Representations of the Elderly Veteran Soldier in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries’ in Men After War, eds. Stephen McVeigh and Nicola Cooper (London: Routledge, 2013), 18-35.