University of Liverpool

Alumnus, History

School of History

Thesis Title: Working-Class Response to Unemployment on Merseyside, c.1978-1998: A Thompsonian Analysis

About

In my doctoral dissertation I explored a number of ways the working-class of late 20th century Britain responded to the negative effects of escalating unemployment and the impact of sweeping de-industrialisation on their communities.  There is special deference in this work to the social historian Edward Palmer Thompson, as my research examined the history of the late twentieth century economic decline of Liverpool through the prism of class consciousness.  The historical narrative often relied on oral sources, and in keeping with Thompson's philosophy, this history was largely told from the perspective of the very workers who faced the perils of increased de-industrialisation, joblessness and economic deprivation. 

There were six separate case studies illustrated in the dissertation.  Each of these six scenarios analysed the varied ways many working-class people in Liverpool became politicised from the 1970s-1990s.  It also detailed how they went on to act in combination and instituted systems of organised resistance to the epidemic of industrial closures and forced redundancies on Merseyside during the age of Thatcher.

My research interests lie primarily in the social and labour history of contemporary Britain, but I am also interested in drawing parallels between the working-class experience in late twentieth century Britain within the historical narrative and sociological perspectives of the working class in post-war France and America.

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