Catherine Mills graduated from the Universities of Birmingham and Exeter. She joined history at Stirling in 2009 after having successfully completed a Wellcome funded post doctorial fellowship exploring the relationship between the regulatory politics of clean air and respiratory health in post war Britain at the Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter. Catherine was programme director for the MA Environmental History & Policy and MRes Historical Research (Environmental History) 2010 – 2013, and both created and directed the successful MSc Environment, Heritage and Policy 2013 – 2019. She was also Deputy Director for Centre for Environmental History and Policy (later Centre for Environment, Heritage, and Policy) 2010 -2014 followed by Director 2014-2019.
Catherine has a research background in the historical management and control of unhealthy environments with an emphasis on both the urban atmosphere and the underground workplace in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain. Since moving to Stirling, the emphasis of Catherine’s research has shifted towards post-industrial landscapes and the cultural and social value of these marginal and edgeland spaces with a particular emphasis on former colliery sites. She is a passionate advocate of both public engagement and interdisciplinary study. Her research is strongly community facing and combines traditional archival material with geo-archaeological, ecological and environmental investigation, and ethnographic and sociological approaches. Catherine’s current project, Coalscapes and Communities: Understanding post-industrial landscapes in a zero-carbon future, in partnership with the National Mining Museum Scotland, combines environmental history, sociology, ecology and the creative arts. The study proposes and exploration of community experience, perception and understanding of five former Scottish colliery sites and the characteristics that underpin their construction, set against the current drive towards a carbon zero economy. Catherine’s first monograph explored the health and safety regulation of the British mining industries, 1800-1914. She has also published on the occupational health of Cornish miners, urban air pollution and former mining landscapes. Catherine is the creator of the Landscape Legacies of Coal App. This is an expanding series of community produced and curated heritage walks, free to download to a mobile phone, that narrate the story of Scottish coal mining through the medium of, and active engagement with, former colliery sites and their associated communities.
Industrial Devon
PI: Dr Catherine Mills
Funded by: Strathmartine Trust
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Environmental and Occupational Exposure to Heavy Metals Poisoning: Scottish Lead Mining 1600 to 1900
PI: Dr Catherine Mills
Funded by: The Carnegie Trust
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Cornish Mining World Heritage Site grant Part Fund Mining History Congress Proceedings publication
PI: Dr Catherine Mills
Funded by: Cornish Mining World Heritage Site
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Relationship between Historical Mining and Metallurgical Practices, Pollution and Health 1700-1950
PI: Dr Catherine Mills
Funded by: The Carnegie Trust
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Article
'I see the site of the old colliery every day': Scotland's landscape legacies of coal
Mills C & McIntosh I (2020) 'I see the site of the old colliery every day': Scotland's landscape legacies of coal. Landscapes, 21 (1), pp. 50-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/14662035.2020.1864095
Software
Mills C (2019) Landscape Legacies of Coal [Coal app]. [Mobile phone app] 2019. https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties/arts-humanities/our-research/centre-for-environment-heritageand-policy/outreach-and-public-engagement/landscape-legacies-of-coal-mining
Article
Industrial Devon: Reflections and learning from schools-based heritage outreach in Scotland
Mills C, Simpson I & Geller J (2019) Industrial Devon: Reflections and learning from schools-based heritage outreach in Scotland. Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage, 6 (3), pp. 172-188. https://doi.org/10.1080/20518196.2019.1602967
Article
Occupational Exposure to Heavy Metals Poisoning: Scottish Lead Mining
Mills C & Adderley WP (2017) Occupational Exposure to Heavy Metals Poisoning: Scottish Lead Mining. Social History of Medicine, 30 (3), pp. 520-543. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkw084
Article
Technological Innovation and Adaption: Tyndrum Lead Mine and the German Managers, 1838 to 1865
Mills C (2015) Technological Innovation and Adaption: Tyndrum Lead Mine and the German Managers, 1838 to 1865. Welsh Mines and Mining, (4), pp. 51-62.
Edited Proceedings
Mining Legacies: History, Archaeology and Environmental Impact
Mills C & Claughton P (eds.) (2015) Mining Legacies: History, Archaeology and Environmental Impact. volume 19. Mining History, 3. The Proceedings of the NAMHO Conference 28th June - 1st July 2013, Aberystwyth, 29.06.2013-30.06.2013. Matlock Bath, Derbyshire: Peak District Mines Historical Society Ltd.
Conference Paper (published)
Mills C & Claughton P (2015) Introduction: Mining Legacies. Mining legacies: the environmental, physical and cultural impact of mining, Aberystwyth. Mining History, 19 (3), pp. 1-2.
Article
The lead legacy: The relationship between historical mining, pollution and the post-mining landscape
Mills C, Simpson I & Adderley WP (2014) The lead legacy: The relationship between historical mining, pollution and the post-mining landscape. Landscape History, 35 (1), pp. 47-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/01433768.2014.916912
Editorial
Landscapes of Conflict: Introduction
Mills C & Adderley P (2014) Landscapes of Conflict: Introduction. Landscapes, 15 (2), pp. 98-102. https://doi.org/10.1179/1466203514Z.00000000027
Edited Book
Mining Perspectives: The Proceedings of the Eighth International Mining History Congress 2009
Claughton PF & Mills C (eds.) (2011) Mining Perspectives: The Proceedings of the Eighth International Mining History Congress 2009. Truro: Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, Cornwall Council.
Book Chapter
Introduction: Mining the future?
Claughton PF & Mills C (2011) Introduction: Mining the future?. In: Claughton PF & Mills CJ (eds.) Mining Perspectives: The Proceedings of the Eighth International Mining History Congress 2009. Truro: Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, Cornwall Council, pp. 6-10. http://www.cornishmining.net/
Book Review
The Riches Beneath our Feet: How Mining Shaped Britain
Mills C (2011) The Riches Beneath our Feet: How Mining Shaped Britain. Review of:
Geoff Coyle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 288 pp. 978-0199551293. Britain and the World, 4 (2), pp. 348-350. http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/brw.2011.0030; https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2011.0030
Book Review
Toxic Archipelago, A History of Industrial Disease in Japan
Mills C (2011) Toxic Archipelago, A History of Industrial Disease in Japan. Review of:
Brett L. Walker, University of Washington Press, 2010, Pp. 284 + xvii. $35. ISBN 978 0 295 98954 9.. Social History of Medicine, 24 (3), pp. 838-839. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkr122
Edited Proceedings
Mining Perspectives: the Proceedings of the Eighth International Mining History Congress 2009
Mills C & Claughton P (eds.) (2011) Mining Perspectives: the Proceedings of the Eighth International Mining History Congress 2009. Eighth International Mining History Congress, Redruth Cornwall, 12.06.2009. Truro: Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, Cornwall Council.
Book Review
The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play
Mills C (2011) The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play. Review of: The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play, James C. Whorton, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, 448 pp. 978-0199605996. Journal of British Studies, 50 (2), pp. 536-537. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658258; https://doi.org/10.1086/658258
Authored Book
Regulating Health and Safety in the British Mining Industries, 1800-1914
Mills C (2010) Regulating Health and Safety in the British Mining Industries, 1800-1914. Studies in Labour History. Surrey: Ashgate. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754660873
Book Chapter
Regulating Health and Safety in the British Mining Industries, 1800-1914 (Introduction)
Mills C (2010) Regulating Health and Safety in the British Mining Industries, 1800-1914 (Introduction). In: Mills C (ed.) Regulating Health and Safety in the British Mining Industries, 1800-1914. Studies in Labour History. Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 1-10. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754660873
Book Review
Marketing Health, Smoking and the Discourse of Public Health in Britain, 1945—2000
Mills C (2010) Marketing Health, Smoking and the Discourse of Public Health in Britain, 1945—2000. Review of:
Virginia Berridge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. xv + 338 pp. ISBN 9780199260300. Journal of Contemporary History, 45 (1), pp. 241-242. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094100450011117
Article
Mills C & Dale P (2008) A Preference for Doing Nothing or a Misplaced Focus on Men?: Problematic Starting Points for Early Twentieth-Century Public Health Reform in Cornwall. Cornish Studies, 16, pp. 126-145. http://www.exeterpress.co.uk/en/Book/485/Cornish_Studies_Volume_16.html
Book Review
Caught in the Machinery: Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Mills C (2008) Caught in the Machinery: Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Review of:
Jamie L. Bronstein, Palo Alto, CA, Stanford University Press, 2007, 240pp, ISBN-13: 978-0804700085. Journal of British Studies, 47 (4), pp. 966-967. https://doi.org/10.1086/592921
Article
The Emergence of Statutory Hygiene Precautions in the British Mining Industries, 1890-1914
Mills C (2008) The Emergence of Statutory Hygiene Precautions in the British Mining Industries, 1890-1914. Historical Journal, 51 (1), pp. 145-168. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=HIS; https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X07006619
Book Review
Shock cities, the environmental transformation and reform of Manchester and Chicago
Mills C (2007) Shock cities, the environmental transformation and reform of Manchester and Chicago. Review of: Shock Cities: The Environmental Transformation and Reform of Manchester and Chicago, Harold L. Platt, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 592 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0226670768. Social History, 32 (3), pp. 353-355.
Book Review
Inventing pollution: Coal, smoke and culture in Britain since 1800
Mills C (2007) Inventing pollution: Coal, smoke and culture in Britain since 1800. Review of: Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain Since 1800 (Series in Ecology & History), Peter Thorsheim, Athens, OH, Ohio University Press, 2006, 360 pp. ISBN 0-8214-1680-4. Social History, 32 (2), pp. 242-242.
Book Review
Landscapes of exposure, knowledge and illness in modern environments
Mills C (2005) Landscapes of exposure, knowledge and illness in modern environments. Review of: Landscapes of Exposure, Knowledge and Illness in Modern Environments, G. Mitman, M. Murphy and C. Sellers (eds), Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004, ISBN 0–226–53251–8.. Social History of Medicine, 18 (3), pp. 516-517. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hki068
Book Review
Mills C (2005) Science at the borders, immigrant medical inspection and the shaping of the modern industrial labour force. Review of: Science at the Borders, Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labour Force, Amy L. Fairchild, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii + 385.ISBN 0 8018 7080.. Social History of Medicine, 18 (1), pp. 127-127. https://doi.org/10.1093/sochis/hki013