Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Centre for Culture and The Arts
Broadening research and enhancing the preservation, presentation and dissemination of our collective criminal past.
Crime forms a significant part of our history and there is a need for knowledge exchange, collaboration and innovation in relation to the preservation, presentation and transmission of Our Criminal Ancestors.
Shore has an extensive body of work and international reputation in crime history, including her work on juvenile offenders, and her more recent research into the social and cultural history of crime from the 18th to the early 20th Centuries. A key theme which has run throughout this work has been to reveal the ‘experience’ and ‘agency’ of offenders.
This body of research informed Shore’s desire to work with research practitioners, such as curators and archivists, and with the public who ‘consume’ historical research via their research into family histories. The standard story of crime history that is told via heritage sites is one which speaks to a presumption of continuing progress in the criminal justice system – the past is presented as unnecessarily violent (capital and corporal punishment stories predominate in the public history sites), as unjust to individuals (since individual stories are the route by which the history is told) and are often sensationalist in their focus (for example, gallows stories, transportation stories), with the unintended consequence that empathy for the criminal and no accounts of victims is a common trait. The sense that ‘things are better now’ is a story that historical research suggests should be told in much more nuanced ways.
The Approach
Our Criminal Ancestors established a professional network of curators and archivists working in the crime field, to modify some of the histories of crime that have become embedded in heritage accounts – traditionally the public view of crime history has been distinctly Whiggish – and to broaden the research materials usable by amateur family historians who constitute the largest ‘consumer’ group for both heritage sites and archives. The project helped professional communities to develop their curatorial practice, specifically in Ripon and Preston. It also trained amateur users in archival sources and methods for them to use in their own family research.
The Impact
Our Criminal Ancestors’ first major impact was to successfully bring together academics from a range of disciplines (history, criminology, education, law, cultural studies) with professionals working in museums, archives and heritage sites in order to enhance greater collaboration over the preservation, presentation and dissemination of our collective criminal past. The second major impact has been to increase the level of experience and understanding of members of the public interested in researching their familial criminal ancestry.
Taking a collaborative approach
Our Criminal Ancestors reveals the importance of making initial contact and agreeing objectives between the organisations in leading to sustained collaboration. Once an initial partnership has been established, the collaboration frequently deepens as projects build on previous successes and trusted relationships between academics and external partners.
This has led to Our Criminal Ancestors making tangible benefits to curatorial practice in shaping curatorial practice towards object handling and interpretation of the material culture of crime.
Enhancing the research skills of family historians
Our Criminal Ancestors was funded as an impact and engagement project, and a key focus of the project was to engender changes in the behaviour of users and beneficiaries through public-facing workshops and other activities. The workshops developed researchers’ skills and knowledge in specific crime history research, and a number of individuals attended multiple events and gave positive feedback as to how much the events positively impacted upon their skills in research and analysis.
Reach
The route to making a difference to people and organisations is to engage with them. From the start, this project took seriously a range of engagement activities as a means to reach the public who could benefit from it.
From May 2013, social media engagement was undertaken, disseminating information about the network events, as well as events and news relating to partner networks and organisations. The twitter feed has grown to over 2,300 followers. An interactive website, Our Criminal Ancestors: Preserving Our Past, was an outcome of the second funded project, and provides resources to guide family historians and researchers interested in investigating certain types of crime, courtroom procedures, forms of law enforcement, for example. The website also has a blog, an archive and an interactive ‘Join In’ tab, to allow members of the public to upload their criminal ancestry stories to a map.
The Our Criminal Ancestors project has had extensive media coverage on local radio and in the popular genealogy magazine, Who Do You Think You Are? In January 2019 it was named as one of the 50 Family History Websites to Watch.
Research from the Our Criminal Ancestors project has also featured on the daytime BBC series, Murder, Mystery and my Family (5 June, 2019)
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