How Do We Place Events in Time?

Hello, I’m Susie, the newest member of the Lichfield Bawdy Courts team. I am completing a PhD in History at Keele University in partnership with Staffordshire Archives and Heritage.  My background is in archaeology, focusing on social history through documents, artefacts and architecture from 1650 onwards. Some of the projects I’ve worked on include how students of different social classes were separated in school buildings in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and the experiences of displaced persons in Britain immediately after the Second World War. 

Susie in the courtyard of Gaudi’s Casa Batllo, Barcelona.

For my PhD I will be exploring how individuals place events in time. Imagine you are sitting at home and you hear a loud crashing sound. A month later you are visited by the police and asked when you heard the crashing sound. How would you answer? What methods would you use to describe the date and time of the event? Can you think of any methods which do not use technology?

In modern times, we can relate events to time using clocks, our phones, calendars, what was on the TV, and many other accurate methods. My PhD will investigate how people did this before these things were invented by using witness testimonies across three centuries and geographic areas which have different industries and occupations. The broad range of dates and areas mean I will be able to make comparisons and track changes in how people refer to time.

I am looking forward to getting to grips with reading historic handwriting and connecting to people from the past through their own words. I’ll be sharing my findings throughout my PhD through this blog, and if you would like to ask any questions about this research, you can email me at s.v.mcgraw@keele.ac.uk. 

One method of measuring time in a world before technology – the trusty cockerel.