Research

The Centre for Urban History (CUH) is a major, international centre for research on the past of towns and cities.

Current staff interests include colonial urban history and the history of urban governance, topography and planning. Expertise spans modern India and China and early modern and modern Britain and Ireland.  

For research interests of individuals please follow the links from the following sections: 

Academic and honorary staff PhD students 

Research Projects 

CUH staff have proved consistently successful in gaining project funding. Recent grants include:

• 2019 Richard Butler, 'Church, state and the building of Ireland's south coast cities: Cork and Waterford, c.1935-1965', AHRC, c.£200,000 
• Prashant Kidambi and Kate Boehme, 'Princely cities: towards a new urban history of south Asia, c.1860-1960', British Academy, £7,930  
• 2018 Alistair Kefford, 'Commercial property development and the remaking of British cities, 1950-2000', British Academy, £246,333 
• 2018 Simon Gunn, 'History of UK transport systems', UK Government Office for Science, £10,000 
• 2018 Toby Lincoln, 'Post-war urban reconstruction in China, 1937-1958', AHRC, £200,818  

Past research grants include: 

• Automobility and the Urban Environment in Nagoya and Birmingham, c.1955-1973 - a 3-year project funded by Leverhulme Trust 
• East Midlands Oral History Project  
• The Habitable City: Chinese Urban History in a Global Context 
• Book Trade Networks 
• Sport and the Imperial Bond 
• Urban and Industrial Change in the Midlands 1700-1840   
• Popular Photography and Camera Culture in Ireland, 1922-2000