Dr John Price
Staff details
John is a social and cultural historian who takes a ‘People’s History’ approach to nineteenth and twentieth-century British history and the history of London.
John’s primary area of research is ‘everyday’ heroism, acts of life-risking bravery, undertaken by civilians in commonplace surroundings. He is also interested in social movements and popular protest, in particular, how popular manifestations of contentious politics, such as marches, demonstrations, strikes and riots, can be better understood and analysed by historians. John also researches urban walking and, more specifically, the relationships between historians, urban walking and urban/metropolitan history.
Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange are at the heart of John’s work, including projects on the 1977 Battle of Lewisham and on the passengers who arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948.
Academic qualifications
- PhD History, King’s College London 2010
- BA History (First-class), Roehampton University (University of Surrey) 2005
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society 2014
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 2015
Teaching and Supervision
- London's Burning: Social Movements and Public Protest in the Capital 1830-2003
- Landmarks in London History
- Walking Through London's History
- London Lives: People’s History through Digital Archives (forthcoming 2021)
- Folks Like Us: A People's History of Nineteenth-Century Britain
- Postgraduate Research Supervision
Research interests
John’s primary area of research is ‘everyday’ heroism, acts of life-risking bravery, undertaken by civilians in commonplace surroundings. His 2014 book, Everyday Heroism: Victorian Constructions of the Heroic Civilian, was the first full-length study of the concept. John is also the leading expert on the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park in the City of London, a Victorian monument dedicated to acts of everyday heroism. He has published extensively on the subject, including the official history of the monument, Postman’s Park: G. F. Watts’s Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, and Heroes of Postman's Park: Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Victorian London, which documents the lives and deaths of all sixty-two people commemorated.
In addition to heroism, John also pursues research in a number of other areas. He is interested in social movements and popular protest; in particular, how popular manifestations of contentious politics, such as marches, demonstrations, strikes and riots, can be better understood and analysed by historians. He is also interested in various aspects of public memory, memorialization, and commemoration with a particular emphasis on the reception of commemoration and popular memory.
John also researches urban walking and the relationships between historians, urban walking and urban/metropolitan history. Based on the premise that “those who walked about the city, talked about the city”, this research encompasses those in the past who explored cities on foot and also examines urban walking as a methodology for investigating and understanding the modern city in a historical context. This research works in tandem with another of John’s interests, the social, cultural and political constructions and uses of public spaces.
John welcomes inquiries from people who wish to undertake a research degree in any aspect of modern British social and cultural history, particularly People’s History.
Publications and research outputs
Book
Price, John. 2015. Heroes of Postman's Park: Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Victorian London. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 9780750956437
Price, John. 2014. Everyday Heroism: Victorian Constructions of the Heroic Civilian. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781441106650
Price, John. 2008. Postman's Park: G. F. Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice. Compton: Watts Gallery. ISBN 0956102212
Book Section
Price, John. 2017. Everyday heroism in Britain, 1850-1939. In: Simon Wendt, ed. Extraordinary Ordinariness: Everyday Heroism in the United States, Germany, and Britain, 1800-2015. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag GmbH, pp. 79-108. ISBN 9783593506173
Price, John. 2017. Bringing the past into the present: mobilising historical research through creative and digital collaboration. In: Morag Shiach and Tarek E Virani, eds. Cultural Policy, Innovation and the Creative Economy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 31-44. ISBN 978-1-349-95111-6
Price, John. 2016. Octavia Hill’s Red Cross Hall and its mural to heroic self-sacrifice. In: Elizabeth Baigent and Ben Cowell, eds. ‘Nobler imaginings and mightier struggles’: Octavia Hill and the remaking of British society. London: Institute of Historical Research, pp. 65-90. ISBN 9781909646001
Article
Price, John. 2020. Mapping Windrush Arrivals. Livingmaps Review(9), ISSN 2398-0338
Price, John. 2010. Addy, Mark (1840-1890). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
Price, John. 2010. Ayres, Alice (1859-1885). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
Price, John. 2007. 'Heroism in everyday life': the Watts Memorial for heroic self-sacrifice. History Workshop Journal, 61(1), pp. 255-278. ISSN 1363-3554
Conference or Workshop Item
Price, John. 2017. 'Walking the Battle of Lewisham'. In: Walking the Battle of Lewisham. London Borough of Lewisham, United Kingdom 12 August 2017.
Audio
Price, John. 2020. The Everyday Heroes of Postman's Park Podcast Series.
Digital
Price, John. 2021. The Everyday Heroes of Postman's Park Interactive Online Map.
Price, John. 2020. Windrush: Arrival 1948 Interactive Digital Map Layer.
Price, John and Cenci, Will. 2019. Windrush: Arrival 1948 Online.
Professional Activity
Price, John. 2017. Student Led Teaching Award for Outstanding use of Research in Teaching 2017.
Project
Price, John. December 2015 - October 2019 Remembering the Battle of Lewisham.
Price, John. 2019 - 2020 Windrush: Arrival.
Show/Exhibition
Price, John. 2019. Windrush: Arrival 1948 Exhibition (Home Office). In: "Windrush: Arrival 1948", The Home Office, 2 Marsham Street, London, United Kingdom, 4 October 2019 - 14 November 2019.
Cenci, Will and Sinclair, Rose. 2019. Windrush: Arrival 1948 at the V&A. In: "Windrush: Arrival 1948 at the V&A", Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom, 21 - 22 September 2019.
Price, John. 2019. Windrush: Arrival 1948 Exhibition (Lewisham). In: "Windrush: Arrival 1948", Lewisham Shopping Centre, London, United Kingdom, 10 August - 1 November 2019.
Price, John. 2019. Windrush: Arrival 1948 Exhibition (City Hall). In: "Windrush: Arrival 1948", City Hall, London, United Kingdom, 17 June - 19 July 2019.
Price, John. 2019. GoldDream exhibition. In: "GoldDream", Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom, 4 March – 6 April 2019.
Price, John. 2019. Windrush: Arrival 1948 Exhibition. In: "Windrush: Arrival 1948", Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom, 21 January - 21 February 2019.
Price, John. 2017. What are you taking pictures For? Exhibition. In: "What are you taking pictures For?", Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom, 1 - 13 September 2017.
Software
Price, John. 2013. The Everyday Heroes of Postman's Park: Mobile Application.
Further profile content
Featured publications
2015:
Heroes of Postman's Park: Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Victorian London
Extensive study of the everyday heroes who feature on the Watts Memorial
2014:
Everyday Heroism: Victorian Constructions of the Heroic Civilian
Landmark study of civilian heroism in nineteenth-century Britain.
Professional projects
John is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Member of the British Academy Hearth Tax Project Management Committee. He is the Chair of the Greater London Local History Committee of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, and Chair of the Friends of the Watts Memorial, an organization responsible for protecting an important piece of London’s history.
John’s research generates a high degree of public engagement; examples of this include the ‘Remembering the Battle of Lewisham’ project and the ‘Windrush: Arrival 1948’ Project. John is a member of the Goldsmiths Public Engagement Strategy Group and is Academic Lead for Public Engagement. The Public Engagement Strategy Group assists staff and postgraduates to understand and undertake public engagement linked to their research and teaching. John has participated in various public engagement activities including the Being Human Festival, the Brockley Society’s Festival of Ideas, Goldsmiths Showoff, Lewisham People’s Day, the Telegraph Hill Festival, and various talks, presentations and activities around the Watts Memorial.
Media engagements
2017: Interview with Robert Elms on BBC Radio London about the Battle of Lewisham
2016: Contributor to BBC London’s ‘Inside Out London’ TV programme about the Watts Memorial
2015: Contributor to London Live TV piece, ‘Postman’s Park: the saddest place in London’
2012: Contributor to BBC World Service documentary ‘No Greater Love’ about the Watts Memorial
Grants and awards
2020:
Winner, Warden’s Annual Public Engagement Award for Civic Engagement
Awarded for the Windrush: Arrival 1948 project
2018:
Winner, Warden’s Annual Public Engagement Award for Community Engagement
Awarded for the Remembering the Battle of Lewisham project
2018:
Goldsmiths Alumni and Friends Fund - Windrush: Arrival 1948
Award of £2,000
2017:
Winner, Goldsmiths Student-Led Teaching Award
Awarded for Outstanding Use of Research in Teaching
2016:
Goldsmiths Annual Fund - Remembering the Battle of Lewisham
Award of £3,250
2014: Finalist, National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s Engage Competition
2012:
Creativeworks London (AHRC) - The Everyday Heroes of Postman’s Park, Mobile App
Award of £15,000
