Research team

In 2013 Lucy Johnston and Helen Gibson from Dorset County Museum devised the project, in partnership with Professor Angelique Richardson and Jonathan Memel from the University of Exeter. They shortlisted students from the Department of English to participate in the  project, which involved researching and annotating fashion references in Thomas Hardy’s fiction, correspondence and biographies. They have worked together with IT professionals in the College of Humanities at the University of Exeter to create the database.

University of Exeter

Prof Angelique Richardson

Angelique Richardson is Associate Professor of English at the University of Exeter. She has a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford, and an MA and PhD from Birkbeck, University of London. She has published widely on nineteenth-century science, literature and culture, and she is a member of the Steering Group of Hardy Country, as well as leader of Hardy Country’s education strategy. She also sits on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed Thomas Hardy Journal and the Hardy Review.

Dr Demelza Hookway

Demelza Hookway is a researcher and writer based in Reading, UK. She is currently writing a book on the cultural history of John Stuart Mill, based on her PhD research completed at Exeter. She has published and lectured on how Thomas Hardy engages with Millian philosophy in his writing. Demelza is Honorary University Fellow in the College of Humanities and an editor and consultant for Hardy and Clothing: Sharing Student-led Research.

Dorset County Museum Contributors

Helen Gibson

Helen is Hon Curator of the Thomas Hardy Archive & Collection at the Dorset County Museum. She was Secretary of the Thomas Hardy Society for five years. She taught in Primary Schools for twenty four years. Her qualifications are: Teacher’s Certificate from Christchurch College, Canterbury, and two degrees in English Literature: BA (Open University), MA (University of Kent).

Lucy Johnston

Lucy Johnston is a freelance curator and museum consultant specialising in fashionable dress, shoes and rural worker’s clothing. She is a former curator of nineteenth and early twentieth century costume and wedding dress in the Department of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Published work includes Nineteenth Century Fashion in Detail (2009) and Shoes (1999).

University of Exeter students

Jonathan Godshaw Memel

Jonathan Memel is leading the project. He is a third-year PhD student at the University of Exeter. His National Trust/Great Western Research-funded research project, ‘Hardy and Education’, is supervised by Professor Angelique Richardson and Professor Tim Kendall. Jonathan sits on the Hardy Country Steering Group and is co-chair of the Hardy Country Learning Group. His work has been published in the Hardy Review and History of Education.

Samantha Briggs

Samantha Briggs is a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter where she also teaches. Her thesis, ‘Architecture and Thomas Hardy’ examines an engagement with the built environment in Hardy’s fiction. She has presented papers on the Gothic Revival as well as evolution and architecture in Hardy’s novels. Her article, ‘Thomas Hardy and the Evolution of Architecture’ appeared in the AA Files. She has helped conduct research on fashion in Hardy’s novels for the forthcoming exhibit at the Dorset County Museum.

Jane Hugen-Tobler

Jane Hugen-Tobler’s role in the Hardy project was researching the biographies for clothes references, as well as some of his fiction. She first discovered Hardy in her twenties, reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She was able to cultivate this interest when she read English at the University of Exeter recently as a mature student, and had the opportunity to further explore several of the novels and poems that she had grown to love. She finds Hardy’s writing incredibly inspiring as she is both a poet and a writer.

Georgina Hunter

Gina Hunter is a PhD student at the University of Exeter researching political economy and mid-Victorian literature. For the Thomas Hardy database Gina has been researching Hardy’s letters. Gina grew up in Dorset and has a long-lasting interest in Hardy. Prior to starting her PhD, Gina worked for the National Trust at Thomas Hardy’s Birthplace and Max Gate in Dorchester.

Special thanks

The project team would also like to thank Professor Simon Gatrell, University of Georgia, for his generous support and for his advice on the ‘Thomas Hardy: Fashion, Fact and Fiction Exhibition’.

Website created by Hannah Petrie and database created by Sam Wise.