At the beginning of 2024, I was wrestling with health complications arising from cancer treatment in 2023. My experience has placed wellbeing and quality of life at the top of my agenda. During the year, I developed encouraging new patterns of productivity that will stand me in good stead for 2025 and beyond.

The professional doctorate in heritage, DHeritage, which I direct at the University of Hertfordshire, celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024. I blogged about this early in the year here, and in October, I convened a 10th anniversary DHeritage symposium. It began with talks explaining the genesis of the programme and then showcased a wide range of student research before moving to snapshots of staff research and a wrap-up discussion. It is so important to reflect on and celebrate such milestones.

In February 2024, I attended a moving celebration of the life and work of design historian Charlotte Benton, convened by Emeritus Professor Tim Benton at the University of Cambridge. I reflected on Charlotte’s life there and here and Jonathan Woodham did so in the pages of the Journal of Design History, to which Charlotte contributed so much as a founder, editor and author. As current Chair of that journal, I am glad to have appointed Dr Harriet Atkinson (University of Brighton) as its first Obituaries Editor. Harriet has worked with tact and sensitivity on a series of obituaries which recognise that after half a century of design history, we are and will be saying goodbye to an increasing number of design historians. Recognising their achievements and legacies is vital.

I hope this blog makes clear the fact that I really like my job. Even so, how refreshing it is to escape desks and books for study visits with the DHeritage students and staff, learning together in the field! In April 2024, I was delighted to attend a launch symposium for Dr Sue Davies’ HARVEST project on farming, food and sustainability at the Three Rivers Museum in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. In May we visited Chiltern Open Air Museum, for a day organised by DHeritage student Sarah Fitzpatrick who has links with COAM as a Trustee. The heritage experience at COAM begins with the Victorian cast iron toilet block and continues over many acres of parkland populated with historic buildings from a recreated Iron Age house to a prefabricated bungalow. The DHeritage visit focussed on COAM’s wellbeing walks in which the act of moving together through the landscape and buildings creates a context for conversation. We learned a great deal from undertaking the guided wellbeing walks: the walking, the landscape, the buildings and the conversation are all beneficial to wellbeing. COAM’s wellbeing walks were devised and managed by Jacqui Gellman. Jacqui was kind enough to join us later for a workshop on heritage and wellbeing.

Attending the Design History Society annual conference in September always offers a great start to the academic year. The 2024 conference, Border Control, was convened by a team at the University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury. As well as listening to and enjoying many talks, I chaired a meeting of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Design History, gave a well-received paper about gloves, chaired the DHS AGM and a meeting of the DHS Executive Committee in place of DHS Chair, Dr Sally-Anne Huxtable, and hosted a reception for the Journal. I also enjoyed a walking tour of the city, and a visit to the amazing Cathedral.

Across the autumn months, I drafted an article that I had been invited to contribute to a special issue in progress. The article picks up where my 2008 article on histories of the professionalisation of interior design left off, and develops a talk I gave in 2023 at the University of Antwerp. I am expecting to revise it for publication early this year.

Also in the autumn, I focussed on two PhD examinations, one in the UK and one in Ghent. I can’t share the work examined at this point, but I can say that I very much enjoyed visiting Ghent, meeting with colleagues there and seeing the Museum of Industry among other, older, sights. I am looking forward to returning to Ghent for a public defence in March when I hope to say more about the research examined. Also in March, I have been invited to examine a PhD in the US. Examining doctoral research is a highlight of my work, as each project is unique and fascinating.

That is also true of the books that I help develop in Cultural Histories of Design, a series for Bloomsbury that I co-edit with Prof Kjetil Fallan (University of Oslo). I was delighted to attend a book launch for Dr Kerry Meakin’s CHoD book The Professionalisation of Window Display, 1919-1939 hosted by Dr Vanessa Vanden Bergh at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. CHoD was conceived in 2013 and saw its first books published in in winter 2017/18. I will reflect more on its development here in due course.

My working year ended on high when I gave an invited talk, ‘Pugin to Papercuts’, for The Pugin Society annual general meeting, which took place at the Art Workers’ Guild in Queen Square, London. In my talk, I shared part of a chapter of The Hand Book, on the ways in which we can read contemporary fine art and craft practice through the ideas of the 19th-century design reformers, Pugin, Ruskin and Morris.

The Year Ahead

2025 looks very promising across all my areas of activity. In February, I will give a talk at the College Art Association annual conference in New York. My talk is a joint presentation, with Rebecca Houze, about the process of editing our revised and expanded second edition of The Design History Reader. Our talk is part of a panel about teaching design history, sponsored by the CAA affiliate, the Design History Society. Based on my experience of meeting delegates at several previous CAA conferences, I know this is a topic of interest to many of them who may not be trained as design historians but nevertheless find themselves charged with teaching design history.

DHeritage will return to Three Rivers Museum in February for a study visit in preparation for Dr Sue Davies’ workshop on using archives to address contemporary issues, as she has done in her HARVEST project. In April, DHeritage will enjoy a visit led by DHeritage student Claire Slack with Dr Ceri Houlbrook and Prof Owen Davies to Wiltshire Museum. We will see the Wessex Folk touring exhibition that Claire has worked on and make an afternoon trip to Avebury to experience the stones and discuss site management and folk belief. This is in preparation for a workshop on Folklore and Tourism in June.

This year’s DHS conference is planned to take place in September in Ankara, Turkey. The DHS conference is usually a highlight of my working year, in which I often share my research as a speaker, Chair a meeting of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Design History, meet readers, authors and potential authors at a reception sponsored by our publishers, Oxford University Press, and share my work as Trustee of the Design History Society with members at the AGM. Also on the conference circuit this year, I have served on the Scientific Committee of ‘Cultures of Design’, the 2025 ICDHS conference. I hope to be able to attend the conference in New Delhi, India in October.

Closer to home, I continue working on The Hand Book, a long-standing, frankly overdue task that continues to absorb me. I will finish it one day, soon! I start 2025 feeling energised and optimistic; I can ask for nothing more.