Mr Steph Gillett

Professional Career

I am a retired museum professional, with over twenty-five years' experience in senior roles within heritage, cultural and community organisations in the statutory and voluntary sectors, in a variety of local, regional and national settings, and as a freelance consultant. My work has included community engagement, public & stakeholder consultation, and service development. I was previously a youth, community and children's play worker.

Experience

I have considerable experience of undertaking feasibility studies, forward planning, and strategy development (clients have included Avon Valley Railway, British Waterways, and regional museum, library & archive agencies). I have been instrumental in successful funding applications for special projects and capital developments, including the two million GBP refurbishment of West Berkshire Museum in Newbury, for which I was museum manager.

Interests

My museum subject specialisms are industrial & transport heritage; science, technology & engineering; and social history collections. I have undertaken curatorial, exhibition development, and collection management work with many museums and heritage organisations including the Association of British Transport & Engineering Museums (ABTEM), Bristol Aero Collection, Dean Forest Railway Museum, and the Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust.

Research

After an unsuccessful first attempt with the History Department at the University of Bristol (curtailed in 2020 during the Covid pandemic), I am now pursuing a PhD with The Open University's Geography & Environmental Studies Department, supervised by Prof. George Revill and Dr. Carry van Lisehout. My research concerns decision-making processes during nineteenth-century railway development, focussing on cross-country lines in southern England.

My study will explore the decisions made concerning development of a large infrastructure project of the nineteenth century - the British railway network. It aims to go beyond the traditional approach of railway historians, (who have tended to consider only economic and political factors and record what happened), by considering why and how the system developed and, using a range of socio-material concepts, whether (and how) things might have been different. It will seek to understand the decision-making processes and other factors that determined the outcome of railways proposed during the third-quarter of the nineteenth century. This is important because these decisions helped to establish the foundations of Britain’s modern rail network.

I welcome opportunities for collaborative and cross-disciplinary research, and community engagement activities.

Publications

"Agents of Change? The Significance of Social Networks in the Fortunes of the Wilts & Gloucestershire Railway." In Shaping Modernity: The Railway Journey across Two Centuries, edited by Radu Mârza, 235-53. Cluj-Napoca, Romania: Editura MEGA, 2022.

Bristol and Gloucestershire Aerospace Industry. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2018.

and three 'popular' railway histories:

Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway through Time. Stroud: Amberley, 2019.

Midland & South Western Junction Railway through Time. Stroud: Amberley, 2018.

The Somerset and Dorset Railway through Time. Stroud: Amberley, 2016.