History: Discovering Victorian Nottingham

Discovering Victorian Nottingham offers an ideal opportunity to use maps, old photographs and other historical sources to reveal the 19th century development of Nottingham. We will combine our knowledge to reveal key development factors and to find out what features survive in the present landscape from the Victorian period. Hosiery and Lace were certainly very important but what other industries attracted entrepreneurs and workers into the City? We will explore this through various sources and consider how local housing was influenced by these trends. How did the City Council of those days tackle overcrowding and related problems and what was done to provide open space in the forms of parks and gardens ? This part of the course will look at the 1845 Inclosure Act and consider how the Forest and Arboretum were created. A City is more than its physical streets and buildings. But how did Nottingham connect with the wider world of culture; of science, education, music, literature, the arts and music? The course is in the Mechanics that was itself founded in Victorian times. We will explore the City’s cultural development and discover how many institutions of the time still flourish and have a presence in the present day landscape and culture of Nottingham.