University of Dundee

Improving the Nation: investigating the principles of improvement in the new planned settlements of rural Scotland, c. 1750- c.1905

Academic History:

2015 - 2018 PhD, Modern History - University of Dundee

2013 - 2014 MA, Early Modern History - Durham University

2010 - 2013 BA (Hons) History - University of Gloucestershire

Supervisors:

Prof Graeme Morton (University of Dundee)

Dr Alasdair Ross (University of Stirling

Alison Diamond (Argyll Estate Archives)

Advised by Annie Tindley (Newcastle University)

Research Interests:

Broadly, my interests are in the rural social history of England & Scotland between the seventeenth & nineteenth centuries. More specifically, I have interests in -

• The concepts & character of landownership
• The history of cartography & surveying
• Landscape history
• Historical geography
• The history of power relations
• Rural development in the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries

My current research examines the social history of improvements & the planned village movement in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries. It aims to unlock the complexities of planned settlement foundation, motivation & legacy. As part of this project there is an element of public engagement through working with Argyll Estate Archives, based at Inveraray, ultimately aimed at producing a mobile exhibition app for the town of Inveraray, planned by the third duke of Argyll in the 1740s.

Previous Research Projects:

'John Norden & the Surveying of the Crown Estates: resistance, custom & negotiation in early-modern England' (MA Dissertation, Durham University, 2014)

Scholarships:

ARC Studentship 2015-2018

Contact Details:

Addres: History, School of Humanities, University of Dundee, Tower Building, Nethergate, Dundee DD1 4HN

Email: m.j.gibbard@dundee.ac.uk

Website/Blogs: https://dundee.academia.edu/MickyGibbard

First published: 3 November 2016