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Heather Hughes is Professor of Cultural Heritage Studies at the University of Lincoln. She trained as a historian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and has taught at universities in South Africa and the UK. Her research interests include biography writing and contested heritage. She currently leads Reimagining Lincolnshire, a public history project aiming to reinterpret the county's history in a more inclusive way.
The project has uncovered stories such as the 5,000 black colonial volunteers who served in the RAF in Lincolnshire in the Second World War, the Asian-origin refugees from Idi Amin’s Uganda who were housed in former RAF stations and cared for by local people, and the many suffragists from this region who fought to extend the civic rights of all British people. The project examines why are people like Mary Jane Lovell, Albert West, Richard Hill, Margaret Emily Bennett, Rebecca Hussey, and Salim Charles Wilson not better known.
In February 2021, Revd Adam Watson, a vicar in Lincolnshire, invited the Reimagining Lincolnshire project to St. Chad’s church in Dunholme to examine how artefacts and church furnishings might yield neglected stories of diversity. A guide to the church, thought to have been written some decades ago by the local historian Terence Leach, mentioned the following: “The carved wooden Chancel Screen was a gift from Captain Leyland Stephenson in memory of his wife, a relative of the Wild family. It was erected in 1913. It was built by Bowman’s of Stamford, the rood figures were carved by Mahomet Phillips, a Congolese sculptor.”
The project participates in events such as Heritage Open Days, Black History Month, the Being Human Festival, and Women’s History Month. In the coming months, we will be producing exhibitions, educational resources, and campus and city trails.
A 'Decolonising our Campus' tour during Welcome Week was organised by the School of Humanities and Heritage, inspired and supported by Reimaging Lincolnshire project. The tour attracted over 150 students in the School of Humanities and Heritage, who toured around campus to explore the complex and problematic history of the figures after whom some of the buildings have been named.
To find out more about the Decolonisation at Lincoln project and the work we are undertaking, please contact us at decolonisation@lincoln.ac.uk.