Poor Law Research Assistant

A Century of Struggle: Pauperism and the New Poor Law in Wales 1834 – 1930 is a collaborative research project led by The National Archives in collaboration with Aberystwyth University and Nottingham Trent University. The project aims to provide, for the first time, a detailed picture of the totality of the New Poor Law in Wales. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (award reference: UKRI1432).

The post holder will be responsible for executing a programme of work on poverty and the poor law in Wales from 1834 to 1930 as agreed with the funder, The Arts and Humanities Research Council.

This post will be focused mainly on the archives held in various north and mid-Wales Archive Services and the National Library of Wales, with regular visits to The National Archives in Kew. This post is a fixed‑term appointment for three years.

Key responsibilities

• Collect digital imaging and/or sample sources and undertake substantial transcription of handwritten, typed or printed primary source material.
• Capture the views and life stories of Welsh paupers, the wider poor and their advocates; and the same of parochial, union, and central poor law authorities, as well as statistical and operational data.
• Analyse materials collected, including coding/geocoding, linguistic/corpus analysis, qualitative and quantitative analysis as required.
• Provide substantial volunteer liaison and management experience of working with volunteer editors and their development in the production of historical New Poor Law data sets.
• Take on a full range of public engagement activities including public presentations and social/other media engagement.
• Be responsible for academic engagement activities including proposing and delivering conference research papers.
• Contribute to the episodic reporting of outcomes to the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
• Author or co‑author articles and other outputs named in the original grant application, including a major historical project book.

Person specification

• Educated to PhD or equivalent (in experience/publications) in a relevant discipline.
• Demonstrable detailed knowledge of the relevant poor law related archival collections at both The National Archives and local/county archives and the ability to deal with the complex palaeography of original 19th and early 20th century archival documents.
• Significant experience of authoring written outputs including writing books (either as a solo or co‑author), writing peer‑reviewed articles, and writing/compiling research resources.
• Demonstrable experience of creating historical datasets from a varied archival series, coding/geocoding them and presenting the data in paper and in online environments.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and negotiation skills, and therefore able to interact well and build effective relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders.
• Demonstrable ability and experience to engage and persuade stakeholders (e.g. archive managers, volunteer managers, and volunteers).
• Demonstrate excellent organisational skills with the ability to manage your own time (either when working independently or within a team) to handle a varied and demanding workload, prioritise different task demands and meet challenging deadlines.
• Significant experience advising, managing or working with volunteers.
• The ability to read Welsh documents would be an advantage.
• Experience of advising, managing or working with volunteers to create research data sets, including quality assessment of compiled data, identifying deviations from required protocols and providing sensitive, constructive feedback to volunteers, will be an advantage.

Full‑time post; requests for part‑time working, flexible working and job share will be considered, taking into account at all times the operational needs of the Department.

Seniority level: Associate — Employment type: Full‑time — Job function: Research and Other — Industries: Museums, Historical Sites, and Zoos and Government Administration.

For full details and to apply, please click the \’Apply\’ button on this page.