Annual Fennell Lecture March 2023About this Event
he School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh is proud to host the annual Fennell Lecture, generously supported by alumnus Simon Fennell. The event will be delivered by Professor Julia Laite, Birkbeck, University of London, entitled ‘Like the Ruins of a World: Britain’s ‘oldest colony’ and the making and remaking of Place’.
In 1822, William Eppes Cormack, mineralogist, imperialist, and benighted humanitarian, set off to trek across the ‘unknown’ interior of the Island of Newfoundland, which had been a British fishing station and colonial possession since the early sixteenth century. His aims were manifold: to name, claim and exploit the land and resources he found there, and to search for the Beothuk, a supposedly ‘lost tribe’ who called the island home. Cormack blamed the plight of the Beothuk on the cruel negligence of the colonial government, and upon the crueller savagery of the Island’s white settlers, who clung to the coasts in poor, isolated, and technically illegal settlements. With the help of Mi’kmaq and Innu guides (for whom the interior was not, in fact, unknown), Cormack set out to remake the Island as a civilized and prosperous place.
This lecture retells the story of Cormack and his guides, as well as the story of Shanawdithit, the Beothuk woman he eventually found, whom he dubbed ‘the last of her people’. It also considers Cormack’s ‘savage’ settlers—including my own ancestors—and the story’s afterlife in contemporary Newfoundland. How might this retold story illuminate settler colonialism in a poor, remote and isolated hinterland, and how might it help remake this troubled place?
Julia Laite is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London. She researches and teaches on the history of women, crime, sexuality and migration in the nineteenth and twentieth century British world. Her latest book, The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A true story of sex, crime, and the meaning of justice (Profile, 2021) won the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and the Bert Roth Award for New Zealand Labour History. This lecture is drawn from a new project about critical family history, storytelling, and settler colonialism in Newfoundland
At the end of the discussion Professor Laite will take questions from the audience.
A drinks reception will follow the close of the event. Please indicate if you plan to attend the reception.
If you have any accessibility requirements, please contact the organiser at [email protected]
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Event Venue
Appleton Tower, The University of Edinburgh, Lecture Theatre 1, 11 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
