Listening to the Commons: The Sounds of Debate and the Experience of Women in Parliament c. 1800

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Did women have a presence in the House of Commons before they were granted the right to vote and stand as MPs in the early twentieth century? 'Listening to the Commons' brings political history into dialogue with creative digital acoustic technology, virtual reality and buildings archaeology to explain how women participated in Commons debates long before they were formally enfranchised in 1918. Through 'Vote 100', Parliament is spearheading this 100th anniversary with a major series of events and exhibitions. Listening to the Commons will contribute to Vote 100 by adapting a 3D visual model of the historic Commons chamber constructed by the AHRC 'St Stephen's Chapel' project, to recover the soundscape of debate as experienced by women listening through a ventilator in the old House of Commons ceiling around 1800.Between 1548 and 1834 the House of Commons met in the converted royal chapel of St Stephen in the Palace of Westminster. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Commons witnessed intense debates which came to define modern Britain: the abolition of the slave trade, the ethics of capital punishment, the Reform Bill extending the franchise to working-class men. Women had often watched Commons debates from the public galleries, but in 1778 they were ejected following complaints from some MPs. Women responded by occupying the space above the Commons ceiling, accessed by a ladder, where the architecture of the medieval St Stephen's chapel was still visible. Surviving drawings show women watching and listening through the ventilator. Our follow-on activity focuses on this little-known but highly significant space.Acoustic and virtual reality technologies create an exciting new opportunity to develop the 3D model of the historic Commons chamber, created as part of the St Stephen's Chapel project, to model the soundscape of the Commons. Listening to the Commons will scale up this existing 3D model for the incorporation of historic sound. Building on a successful University of York Research Priming Fund pilot project to test out this idea, we will model the ventilator space and produce auralisations (the audio equivalent of visualisation) to enable us to recover the experience of women listening to Commons debates. We will explore the important narrative of women's engagement with Parliament at this time through this hidden space. Translating our results for a virtual reality experience will deliver a novel, historically and politically important, high profile example of how arts and humanities research can communicate with new cultural and heritage partner audiences via technology founded in the creative economy.The 3D visual and acoustic model, auralisations, and VR representation will be incorporated in the 'Vote 100' exhibition in Westminster Hall (July-Oct 2018). Exhibition visitors will experience debate from the perspective of women commenting on the all-male world of the House of Commons, dispelling the myth that women were absent from parliamentary politics before the twentieth century. The digital audio and VR content produced will be made accessible and shareable to provide further outreach for this exhibition and dissemination of this work.Listening to the Commons brings together three centres of expertise at York - the Dept of History, Dept. of Electronics Audio Lab, and the Digital Creativity Labs - into collaboration with the 'Vote 100' team, and this follow-on initiative develops the already strong relationship between the University of York and Parliament established by the St Stephen's project. Combining innovative digital technologies to highlight the deep history of women's participation in politics, our follow-on collaboration with Parliament's 'Vote 100' project will make a compelling demonstration of the impact of AHRC-funded research in the creative economy to engage new audiences and enable modern people to hear new histories told in new ways.