New CASS Briefing now available — Language surrounding poverty in early modern England: Constructing seventeenth-century beggars and vagrants

CASSbriefings-povertyLanguage surrounding poverty in early modern England: Constructing seventeenth-century beggars and vagrants. This briefing concentrates upon attitudes towards a subset of poor people – a group who might today be termed beggars or vagrants. Seventeenth century vagrants were a marginalised group: they were overwhelmingly illiterate and politically powerless. By undertaking a study of them, we hope to improve our understanding of a people who were effectively voiceless in their own time. On a practical level, it is important to understand changing discourses on the poor because legislative change was influenced by changing public perceptions of poverty.


New resources are being added regularly to the new CASS: Briefings tab above, so check back soon.

The Rt Hon Alan Milburn – Project Ambassador for ‘Newspapers, Poverty and Long-Term Change. A Corpus Analysis of Five Centuries of Texts’

We are delighted to announce that the Rt Hon Alan Milburn has kindly agreed to become the project ambassador for our project ‘Newspapers, poverty and long-term change. A corpus analysis of five centuries of text’ led by Professor Tony McEnery.

Alan Milburn served as a Labour MP for Darlington between 1992 and 2010 and, throughout that time, was recognised for his strong commitment to combatting social inequality and modernising politics. In January 1998 he was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury and, between 1999 -2003, served as Secretary of State for Health where he led wide-ranging reforms in health and social care services. He went on to serve as Chanceller of the Duchy of Lancaster between 2004-2005.

Alan Milburn chaired the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions from 2008 and 2009 under Prime Minister Brown and was then appointed by Prime Minister Cameron to chair the Commission on Social Mobility and Child Poverty which has a statutory duty to monitor and report on both issues. In this role, he has worked tirelessly to reduce child poverty and challenge Britain’s so-called ‘glass ceiling’ which maintains deep-rooted social inequality. His background, growing up on a council estate in a small town in County Durham, has given him first-hand knowledge of the crippling disadvantage that can be engendered by social deprivation. He has spoken recently of the changing nature of British poverty, arguing that it has become a mainstream issue affecting many working families.

Alan Milburn runs his own consultancy, advising governments and international corporations, and continues to be involved in a number of charitable ventures.

Alan Milburn already has a strong connection with Lancaster. He studied history as an undergraduate at the University and, in 2000, was awarded an honorary degree. In January 2015 he will start a new role as Lancaster University’s Chancellor.

The Rt Hon Alan Milburn’s commitment to our project has stemmed from his lifelong interest in the causes and consequences of poverty. As project ambassador, he will provide expertise and guidance to the project team members at CASS and is very well-placed to share our findings with other interested parties from non-academic backgrounds.

Newby Fellow appointed to CASS

The Department of Linguistics and English Language has recently appointed a Newby Fellow, Dr. Helen Baker, to work on the CASS project entitled ‘Newspapers, Poverty and Long-Term Change. A Corpus Analysis of Five Centuries of Texts’.

Dr. Baker is a social historian who was awarded her Ph.D. in Russian History at the University of Leeds in 2002. Her thesis examined popular reactions to the Khodynka disaster, a stampede which took place during the coronation celebrations of Nicholas II in 1896. She taught Russian and European history at the University of Bradford before working as a teaching assistant in the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Leeds between 2003-2007.

Helen Baker has previously worked as a transcriber and historical researcher for the Department of Linguistics and Language, completing a historical chronology of the Scottish Glencairn Uprising of 1653 for the British Academy funded ‘Newsbooks at Lancaster’ project. This research sparked an interest in early modern history and she went on to investigate the lives of seventeenth-century English prostitutes. Her first book, co-authored with CASS Centre Director, Professor Tony McEnery, is forthcoming and uses the study of early-modern prostitution as a case study to illustrate that historians and corpus linguists have much to gain through academic collaboration.

The project ‘Newspapers, Poverty and Long-Term Change’, which is funded by the Newby Trust, aims to assemble the largest ever corpora of newspapers and related material from 1473 to 1900 and use this to investigate changing discourses on poverty across this period. Dr. Baker will officially join the project on 1 July 2014, working with Professor Tony McEnery, Dr. Andrew Hardie, and Professor Ian Gregory.

The appointment will mean something of a home-coming for Helen Baker, who studied for her undergraduate degree in the History Department at Lancaster University between 1994-1997.

The Rt Hon Alan Milburn becomes Project Ambassador for the CASS project ‘Newspapers, Poverty and Long-Term Change. A Corpus Analysis of Five Centuries of Texts’

We are delighted to announce that the Rt Hon Alan Milburn has kindly agreed to become the project ambassador for our project ‘Newspapers, poverty and long-term change. A corpus analysis of five centuries of text’. He will provide guidance and share his expertise with members of the CASS team who are working on the project which is funded by the Newby Trust and led by Professor Tony McEnery.

Alan Milburn served as a Labour MP for Darlington between 1992 and 2010. During this period, he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1998-1999); Secretary of State for Health (1999-2004); and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (2004-2005). Under the present government he has been appointed to chair the Commission on Social Mobility and Child Poverty which has a statutory duty to monitor and report on developments in both areas.

Alan Milburn’s commitment to our project has stemmed from his lifelong interest in the causes and consequences of poverty: “I am happy to support this worthwhile and fascinating project that will investigate changing attitudes to poverty throughout five hundred years of our history. By finding out how poverty is conceived, we are better equipped to eradicate it.” We wholeheartedly welcome Alan Milburn as our project ambassador and look forward to sharing our research with him as it progresses.