Overview

This volume illuminates some of the manifold ways in which Britain’s communication infrastructure affected everyday life in nineteenth-century Britain. Accordingly, it highlights socio-economic, cultural, and material repercussions of selected aspects of mediated communication. It covers: The rise and role of the communication worker and the Post Office’s status as Britain’s largest employer as well as pioneering employer of women. The campaigns surrounding Sunday labour. The connections between new leisure opportunities and activities and new media of communication such as the postcard. Concerns about morally suspect uses of new media and technologies of communication, e.g. the use of the telegraph for gambling. The presence of changing communication practices in material culture, e.g. the increasing popularity of greeting cards and new types of stationery.

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Author Information

Karin Koehler is a Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at Bangor University. Her research explores the relationship between nineteenth-century literature and connective infrastructure, focusing on Anglophone and Welsh-language material. Nicola Kirkby held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Royal Holloway, London (2019-2023), investigating nineteenth-century infrastructure and literary culture. Her works include Railway Infrastructure and the Victorian Novel (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press). Kathleen McIlvenna is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Derby. Her research focuses on histories of work, health and retirement in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Ellen Smith is a historian and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol. Her work explores communication cultures in colonial South Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Harriet M. Thompson is Visiting Research Fellow in nineteenth-century literature and culture in the Department of English, King’s College London. Her research explores the relationship between communications technologies and print culture. Eleanor Hopkins is a Senior Policy Adviser in Higher Education & Research at the British Academy. She provides strategic oversight of the Academy's Research & Development (R&D), innovation and skills policy.

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