M.Clapson@westminster.ac.uk
telephone: +44 (20) 7911 5800 x 2191
fax:
+44 (20) 7911 5106
Room 513a
University of Westminster
309 Regent Street
London W1B 2UW
Reader in History, Department of Social and Historical
Studies
Biography
Dr. Mark Clapson was educated at the
University of Lancaster from 1979-1983, where he gained a BA (Hons)
and an MA in Modern Social History. He was awarded his
doctorate at the University of Warwick in 1989.
Research interests
Urbanisation and social change, London at war,
working-class history, and leisure.
Recent conference and seminar
papers
‘Suburban Buzz: the social life of suburbs’,
‘Suburban Buzz: the Social Life of the Suburbs’ conference,
University of Westminster, 23 April 2008, speaking against writer
Iain Sinclair.
‘Film, Blitz and Reconstruction: the Special
Housing Mission to wartime Britain’, De Montfort University
research seminar, 24 October, 2007
Conference panel discussant ‘bohemia and
suburbia’ at the ‘Seduced by the City’ conference held to coincide
with the Hogarth exhibition, Tate Britain, University of
Westminster and Tate Britain, 9 March 2007
‘Working-class suburbanization and myths of
community in England and the USA’, lecture to postgraduate students
in the MsC Advanced Architectural Studies, Bartlett School of
Graduate Studies, 1 December 2006 (invited)
‘The Special Housing Mission in wartime
London’, presentation, with screening, at the Teaching London
conference, University of Westminster, 18th November,
2006
‘Bringing town planning into the
20th century: Milton Keynes and the 1960s new towns in
Great Britain’, Saitama University, Faculty of Liberal Arts
research seminar, 16 June 2006
‘From the neighbourhood unit to the
gridsquare: town planners and conceptions of community in Britain
from the 1930s to the 1970s’, Chukyo University, Department of
Economics seminar, Nagoya, 15 June, 2006
‘From the neighbourhood unit to the
gridsquare: town planners and conceptions of community in Britain
from the 1930s to the 1970s’, Osaka City University, Department of
Economics seminar, 13 June 2006
‘Bringing town planning into the
20th century: Milton Keynes and the 1960s new towns in
Great Britain’, Setsunan University, Osaka, Department of
Architecture and Town Planning, 9 June 2006
‘Anti-urban or pro-town? The continuing
popularity of suburban living in 20th century England’,
Research seminar, Department of History, Tokyo Metropolitan
University, 8 June, 2006
Urban History Group Meeting, Risks,
Hazards and Urban Renewal, 1666-2000, University of
Reading, 30-31 March, 2006: ‘Planned dispersal and its social
consequences: sociology and the English working classes, 1945 -
70.’
‘The benign face of Uncle Sam: the United
States and the sociology of “race relations” in England from the
1940s to the 1970s’, University of Westminster, Department of
English and Linguistics postgraduate research seminar, 1 February
2006
Invited by Barnet Borough Council to
participate in the roundtable debate ‘Putting suburbs at the centre
of urban policy’ 10 November 2004.
Invited by the University of Gloucestershire
to give a public lecture entitled ‘Suburbanization and the
transformation of England in the 20th century’, 24
February, 2004.
Barcelona, July 2004, International Planning
History Society, paper: ‘The lost world of British Reconstruction
planning, 1943-65’. Also invited to referee conference papers, to
chair a session on comparative Reconstruction histories, and to
head the prize-giving committee for the best postgraduate student
paper given at the conference.
Invited by the Centre for Urban Culture,
University of Nottingham, to speak at the conference ‘Learning from
the past: mediaeval townscapes and modern cities in Europe’, 28-30
May 2004: the talk was entitled ‘Why should communities be local?
Rethinking community and association since the 1930s.’
Invited by Kingston University to be a
panellist at the launch of the Centre for Suburban Studies, 23
April, 2004.
Invited by Kingston University’s Centre for
Suburban Studies to give a seminar paper; it was entitled
‘Sociology and the suburban masses in postwar England and the USA’,
17 March, 2004.
Invited by the Centre for Urban History,
University of Leicester to give a paper in the CUH seminar
programme; the paper was entitled ‘The American contribution to the
urban sociology of “race relations” in the British city from the
Second World War to the 1970s’, 5 March 2004.
Recent and forthcoming
publications
From World War Two to Milton Keynes: The
United States and Urban Change in Postwar Britain (research
currently in progress: anticipated publication 2011)
Working-Class Suburb: Social Change on an
English Council Estate, 1930 to the Present (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2010)
The Routledge Companion to Twentieth
Century Britain (London: Taylor and Francis, 2009)
Garden Cities and New Towns: The
Hertfordshire Story (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire
Press, 2009)
A Social History of Milton Keynes: Middle
England/Edge City
(London: Frank Cass/Taylor and Francis;
January, 2004); ISBN 0 714655 244 hard cover; 0 714684 171 paper
cover; pp. 202) Contains a foreword by Jeff Rooker, Office of
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of State for Regeneration and
Regional Development.
Suburban Century: Social Change and Urban
Growth in England and the USA (Oxford and New York: Berg
Publishers; 2003; ISBN 1-85973-6432 hardback; 1-85973-6483
paperback) pp. 235.
Special Issue of Contemporary British
History, 14/1, 2000, ‘Planning, Politics and Housing in
Britain’ (London: Frank Cass, 2000: ISSN 1361-9462) pp. 190
A Century of Amusement Machines: Gaming in
the Twentieth Century (London: BACTA, 2000) pp. 28.
Invincible Green Suburbs, Brave New Towns:
Social Change and Urban Dispersal in Postwar England
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998; ISBN 0-7190-4135-X)
pp. 241.
Research Supervision
Mark has supervised four successful PHDs, and
is currently a joint supervisor for Peter Speiser. He welcomes
enquiries on any area of social and urban history in twentieth
century Britain and the USA, on the working-class in Britain since
1918, and on the history of leisure in Britain during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Teaching