Skip to content
University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

Dr John Langton

Academic Profile

Dr John Langton joined the School of Geography and the Environment in 1980 and is lecturer in Geography and Fellow and Tutor in geography at St John's college, Oxford. Prior to this he lectured at the University of Liverpool (1973-80), University of Cambridge (1968-73) and University of Manchester (1966-68). He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in geography at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Dr Langton was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the IBG Historical Geography Research Group in 1990.

He is a member of the Editorial Board of Geografiska Annaler, Series B and a referee for: Yale University Press (2006), The Economic History Review (2004; 2005); Norsk Geologisk Tidsskrift (2005); Journal of Historical Geography (2005); Environment and Planning A (2005; 2006); Social Science History (2005), as well as Junior Research Fellowships at Christ Church, Oxford (2003) and Newnham, Cambridge (2005).

He has also been a referee for ESRC research grants (2002 and 2003), a end of award rapporteur for an ESRC project (2005) and a member of the ESRC project advisory panel (2003-07).

He has examined geography and history PhD students at Oxford (2006), Cambridge (2004) and Leicester (2007).

Current Research

Dr Langton's research over the past decade or so has been concerned with discovering what happened to English forests and chases (that is, open land set aside by law for the preservation and hunting of deer and game) in early-modern times. In these legally defined areas, covering over half of many counties, law, land-use, social structuring, livelihood and culture interacted in a very distinctive way, but they have been almost completely neglected by research mainly concerned with the emergence of modern agriculture, industry and commerce, which were impossible in forests and chases. The forthcoming book listed below, comprising seminar papers given in 1998, contains chapters by Prof. Williams and Drs Baigent, Bendall, Freeman, Langton and Mayhew, has been severely delayed by the need to assemble introductory and contextual material almost from scratch, which has necessarily expanded to include medieval times and Wales and the Marches. It is now almost complete. Meanwhile, a gazetteer and interactive cartographic database have been initiated with Dr Graham Jones, and the website Forests and chases of England and Wales: towards a multidisciplinary survey has been developed to encourage interest in the topic. Over 70 collaborators in and end-users of the research attended a conference in April 2005, and a day-long programme on Forests and Chases is being planned for the European Medieval Congress meeting in 2008.

Selected Research Projects (since 2001)

Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

Dr Langton lectures on feudalism and the emergence and spread of capitalism for the Ecology, Resources and Societies course of the Preliminary Examination. He also lectures on 'From texts about the world to the world as text', teaches the Special Subject course The Historical Geography of England c.1650- c.1800, and takes a fieldweek, for the Final Honour School.

Postgraduate Teaching

Dr Langton teaches two classes on 'Enlightenment and Romanticism' for the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy.

Current graduate students include:
  • No SoGE students currently listed
D.Phil. students successfully completing since 2001:
  • Sarah Peers (2009)
    Power and protest: geographies of power and resistance in two cotton mill communities in England and New England: Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire and the Boston Manufacturing Company, Waltham, Massachusetts c. 1790-1860
  • Caroline Cheeseman (2008)
    Geography and modernity: changing land, law, and life on Cranborne Chase in the Nineteenth Century

Selected Publications

Books:
Monographs
  • Langton, J. (2000) The Geography of poor relief in rural Oxfordshire during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment Research Papers, 56. 60 pp.
  • Langton, J. and Hoppe, G. (1992) Flows of labour in the early phase of capitalist development: the time-geography of longitudinal migration paths in nineteenth-century Sweden. Historical Geography Research Series, 29. 76pp.
  • Langton, J. and Clarke, C.G.C. (eds.) (1990) Peasantry and progress: rural culture and the modern world. Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment Research Papers, 45. 74pp.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters since 2001
  • Langton, J. (2011) Forests and chases in Wales and the Welsh Marches: an exploration of their origins and characteristics. Journal of Historical Geography.
  • Langton, J. (2008) The human ecology of poor relief in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Oxfordshire. In, R. Smith and S. King (eds.) Poverty and its relief in England, 1500-1880. Boydell and Brewer.
  • Langton, J. (2006) Forest Vert. Southeast Woodland News, 6: 1.
  • Langton, J. (2005) Forests in early-modern England and Wales: history and historiography. In, Langton, J. and Jones, G. (eds.) Forests and chases of England and Wales c.1500-c.1800: towards a survey and analysis. St. John's College/Oxbow Books. pp. 1-9.
  • Langton, J. (2004) Sir Roger Bradshaigh of Haigh, Kt. and First Bart. In, Mathew, C. (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
  • Langton, J. (2004) Sarah Clayton of Liverpool, Merchant, Industrialist and Property Developer. In ibid.
  • Langton, J. (2004) Charles Dagnall of St. Helens, Colliery Proprietor. In ibid.
  • Langton, J. (2004) Alexander Leigh, Attomey and Gent., of Wigan. In ibid.
  • Langton, J. (2004) John Mackay of Ravenhead, Industrialist. In ibid.
  • Langton, J. (2004) William Billington, the Blackburn Poet. In ibid.
  • Langton, J. (2004) James Butterworth. In ibid.
  • Langton, J. (2004) Joseph Skipsey, the Collier Poet. In ibid.
  • Langton, J. (2004) North, south and nation: regional differences and consciousness in an integrating realm, 1550-1750. In, A.R.H. Baker and M. Billinge (eds.) The North-South Divide: Material and Imagined Geographies of England, 1000-2000. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 112-144.
  • Langton, J. (2003) Seeing the forests for the trees. TW Magazine, 1: 20-23.
  • Langton, J. and G. Hoppe. (2002) Patterns of migration and regional identity: economic development, social change and the lifepaths of individuals in nineteenth-century western Östergötland. In, D. Postles (ed.) Naming, society and regional identity. Leicester University Press. pp. 231-67.
  • Langton, J. (2001) Prometheus prostrated? In, Slack, P. and Ward, R. (eds.) The Peopling of England. Oxford University Press, Oxford. pp. 243-254.