Rebecca Andrew | University of Chester

I am a social and cultural historian of modern Britain, with a particular interest in sense of place, landscape, youth, and leisure identities.

My research is interdisciplinary, focussing on how landscape can shape the construction of identity, sense of place, and belonging. My doctoral thesis explored how Lake District communities drew upon the region’s landscape to create a distinctive sense of place and identity, between the 1930s and 1950s. It also examined how young people’s identities and sense of connection to their local communities were shaped through leisure culture.

More recently, my research has moved on to examine urban landscapes, including 19th century industrial utopias. I am currently researching the famous Browns of Chester department store, and its relationship to the city’s place identity.

Since joining the University in 2015, I have led a number of public engagement events and projects, including:

‘Sensing the past’, part of Being Human Festival 2017.
‘The Lost Buildings of Port Sunlight’, with Port Sunlight Village Trust.
‘Hidden Histories at Chester’, part of the Institute of Historical Research’s centenary celebration programme.
‘More than a shop: Remembering Browns of Chester’, with Cheshire Record Office and Grosvenor Museum.
‘More than a shop: How the Browns family shaped modern Chester’, part of Being Human Festival 2022.

I am also a member of the Chester Heritage Festival steering group.

I lead the following modules

Flappers to Rappers: Youth and Popular Culture in Modern Britain (Level 4)
English Landscape, Culture and Identity from 1800 (Level 6)
Historical Sources: English Landscape, Culture and Identity from 1800 (Level 6)
Research Dissertation (Level 7)
Research Methods and Skills in History (Level 7)
Approaches to Historiography (Level 7)

I contribute to the following modules

Turning Points in History: Europe and the Wider World, 1000-2000 (Level 4)
Journeys in the Past (Level 5)
History Dissertation (Level 6)
Landscapes of Life, Death and the Spaces Between (Level 7)

Areas of MRes and Mphil/PhD Supervision

Modern British History
History of Education
Sports history and leisure history
History, space and place
Rural history and the history of the modern countryside
Ideas/representation of national and regional identity
Travel and tourism history
Relationship between landscape, culture and identity
History of planning and landscape design

R. Andrew, 'Roots in the soil': the evolution of a countryside youth service in Westmorland, 1939-c.1950’, History of Education, 51, 5 (2022).

R. Andrew, ‘A spectacle for the cameras’: the survival of a Lakeland leisure tradition, 1930- c.1955, Journal of Tourism History, 12, 2 (2020), 95-115.

R. Andrew, N. Walton & G. Brent, ‘Safe to Imagine, Space to Belong: Reflections on Nurturing Resilience at The Hepworth Wakefield’, Engage, (2015).

R. Andrew, ‘Social Dancing in 1930s Lakeland’, Manchester Region History Review, Special edition: Growing up in the North-West 1850s-1950s 22 (2011) 51-66.

PhD History (MMU)
BA (Hons)
History (MMU)

Dr Rebecca Andrew