Dr Alyson Brown
Alyson began her academic career at The University of Hull where she obtained a Masters in Historical Research and a PhD on the subject of penal policy and prison disturbances in England 1850-1920. While completing her PhD at Hull University she taught on the Economic and Social History BA and then obtained a one year lectureship. She taught for a short period at Bishop Grossteste teacher training college in Lincoln before obtaining a lectureship in criminology at the University of Bedfordshire where she stayed for four years. She then took up a post in the Department of English and History at Edge hill University. She obtained her Readership in History in 2006.
Alyson's modified PhD thesis was later published by Boydell and Brewer as English Society and the Prison (2003). She has published numerous chapters and articles, including a paper in 2007 in the British Journal of Criminology, 'The Amazing Mutiny at the Dartmoor Convict Prison’ and in Twentieth Century History (2011) ‘Crime, Criminal Mobility and Serial Offenders in Early Twentieth-century Britain’. Her current major project is a book titled, 'The Dartmoor Convict Prison Riot 1932, Inter-war Crime and Penal Policy in England' which will be published by Palgrave.
Research
- British social history – nineteenth and twentieth century
- History of crime and punishment in modern England
- British penal history, particularly of the inter-war era
Publications
Books
- With D.Barrett (2002) ‘Knowledge of Evil: Child prostitution and child sexual abuse in twentieth-century England.’
(Collumpton: Willan Publications). - ‘English Society and the Prison: Time, culture and politics in the development of the modern prison, 1850-1920.’
(Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2003). - (ed.) ‘Historical Perspectives on Identities.’
(Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006) - With R.Spalding (co-ed) ‘Entertainment, Leisure and Identities.’ (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007)
Articles and Chapters
My most recent include:
- ‘A Disciplined Environment: Penal Reform in the East Riding House of Correction.’ Family and Community History 4 (2) 2001.
- ‘Conflicting Objectives: Suffragette Prisoners and Female Prison Staff in Edwardian England.’ Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 31 (5) 2002.
- ‘Legitimacy in the Evolution of the Prison: The Chatham Convict Prison Outbreak 1861.’ Criminal Justice History (18) 2003.
- With C.Maxwell ‘"A Receptacle of Our Worst Convicts": Bermuda, the Chatham Prison Riots and the Transportation of Violence.’
Journal of Caribbean History 37 (2) 2003. Reprinted in the Bermuda Journal of Archaeology and Maritime History 15, 2004. - ‘Mythologies and Panics: Twentieth Century Constructions of Child Prostitution.’ Children & Society 18, 2004.
- With E.Clare ‘ A History of Experience: Exploring Prisoners' accounts of incarceration.’ C.Emsley (ed.) The Persistent Prison: Problems, Images and Alternatives , Francis Bootle, 2005.
- ‘A ringside seat at the mutiny: large-scale prison riots at Chatham 1861 and Dartmoor 1932.’ Prison Service Journal , 2006.
- ‘The Amazing Mutiny at the Dartmoor Convict Prison.’ British Journal of Criminology 47 (2) 2007.