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Edge Hill University partnership

Our partnership with Edge Hill University includes History students developing a set of resources exploring the history of the Playhouse and Williamson Square, designed to be useful to theatre-goers in the 21st Century.

Matthew Pateman (EHU Head of Media), Rebecca Ross-Williams (E&P Engagement Director), Gemma Bodinetz (E&P Artistic Director), Mark Allanson (EHU Pro Vice-Chancellor (External Relations)), Roy Bayfield (Director of Corporate Communications), Martin McQuillan (EHU Director, Institute for Creative Enterprise), Allan Williams (E&P Learning Manager).

This provides the opportunity for first-year students on the Time Detectives module to research historical documents such as newspapers, street directories and maps and at the same time to think about how history is made public.

Students have worked with Allan Williams (Learning Manager) and Moira Callaghan (Engagement Administrator) to create digital public history outputs as part of the assessment on their module.

The Star Theatre exterior
The Star Theatre exterior

The Playhouse opened as The Star music hall in 1866, later developing into a repertory theatre in 1911 and earning its present name in 1917. Its internal architecture displays many aspects of Victorian social hierarchies, including stalls for the gentlemen, the dress circle for women and the gallery for Liverpool’s poorer population. It is therefore ideal for History students to begin independent research and to present their findings to the public. 

You can find examples of their work on the Edge Hill University website here.

The Suffragists of Liverpool, a film by Grace Marks. Grace’s film perfectly encapsulates the combination of rigor in research and performativity in presentation that this project wanted to encourage.

Bethany Draper wanted to think about the diversity of people in Liverpool in the 19th and 20th Centuries. She spoke to people of Irish descent in the city, producing a website based on talking to people at the Liverpool Irish Centre's pensioners' lunch club. Read more here.