Dr Dennis Mills’ research interests covered a wide variety of themes relating to the historical geography and local history of Lincolnshire and well beyond the county’s borders. In this one-day conference, a range of speakers, whose work has been influenced in various ways by that of Dennis, will present papers on subjects directly connected to his research interests and enthusiasms. The aim of the day is to honour the tremendous contribution made by Dennis in a remarkably long academic life comprising eight decades of publications.

The conference programme*

Dr Kate Tiller
Dr Dennis Mills: an overview of his life and work (Keynote address)
Kate Tiller is Reader Emerita in Local History and a Founding Fellow of Kellogg College at the University of Oxford. Dr Tiller’s academic fields are British social and local history, with particular research interests in English rural change post-1750, and in religion and community in Britain since 1730. She was appointed OBE for services to local history in 2019.

Dr Rob Wheeler
J.S. Padley's Great Map of Lincoln: its conception, updating and afterlife
Rob Wheeler was co-editor, with Dennis Mills, of Historic Town Plans of Lincoln, 1610-1920 (Lincoln Record Society, 2004). He has also edited Maps of the Witham Fens from the Thirteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries (Lincoln Record Society, 2008).

Dr Sarah Holland
Communities in Contrast: Revisiting the 'open-close' parish debate - Doncaster's rural hinterland, 1830-1880
Sarah Holland is Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham and is author of Communities in Contrast: Doncaster and Its Rural Hinterland, c.1830-1870 (2019), which engaged extensively with Dennis’s work on open-close villages.

Dr Martin Watkinson
Power and authority in English parishes, 1750-1850: reconceptualising the ‘closed’ parish model
Martin Watkinson is a former Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester, where he undertook a doctorate in the Centre for English Local History. Martin worked in a variety of management roles at the Open University between 1976 and 2011.

Dr Shirley Brook
‘High farming is economy of labour and manure, and plenty of both’: the centrality of manure in the provision of buildings for improved farming in the nineteenth-century.
Shirley Brook’s University of Hull PhD thesis is entitled ‘The buildings of high farming: Lincolnshire’s farm building,1840-1910’. Amongst many other roles, Shirley is co-co-ordinator of the Lincolnshire Archives Research Seminar series, which was initiated by Dennis. 

Dr Andrew Walker
Interrogating the growth of a city: exploring Lincoln’s building applications database, 1866-1914
Andrew Walker was Vice Principal of Rose Bruford College between 2010 and 2020. He is series editor of The Survey of Lincoln’s neighbourhood and thematic volumes, exploring the history of the city.

Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall
In translation: Dennis Mills and the Joint Service School for Linguists
Claire Hubbard-Hall is Programme Leader in Military History and Postgraduate Study at Bishop Grosseteste University. She specialises in Second World Intelligence History with a particular focus on the intersecting histories of secret warfare and wartime society.

*The programme of speakers was correct at the time of going to press.

Lincoln Connections: Aspects of City and County Since 1700. A tribute to Dennis Mills (2011), edited by Shirley Brook, Andrew Walker and Rob Wheeler, is available from the SLHA bookshop, priced £8.50 (£11.50 by post).

Further details

The event will be held over Zoom Webinar.

Use the Book Now button below to gain admission to this event.

The cost of attendance is £7.00.
Members of any of the four organisations associated with the event may book for a discounted rate of £5.00. Please contact your member organisation for your discount code. (BALH members, sign in to the members area to receive your discount).

More information, if required, can be obtained from Andrew Walker – andrewwalker1163@gmail.com.