Dr Mark Smith

Biography

Mark Smith was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, BA (1982), D.Phil. (1987). He was formerly Lecturer in the Modern History of Christianity at King’s College London and is now Associate Professor in History at OUDCE.

Teaching

Dr Smith directs the part-time D.Phil programme in Local History and supervises seven D. Phil. Students. He teaches a MSc module on religion and community in the nineteenth century. Mark also provides teaching for the Diploma in English Local history, the Postgraduate Certificate in Historical Studies and supervises for other Programmes in the department.

Research interests

Mark’s research interests are focussed mainly on the history of religion from the eighteenth to the twentieth century with a particular emphasis on the history of the Church of England and of Anglophone evangelical movements. His current research projects include, a history of Evangelical parish ministry 1780-1980 and a local study of the impact of the First World war on the Church of England in the diocese of Oxford. He is also a lead editor on the Wilberforce Diaries project which is producing the first ever scholarly edition of the diaries of William Wilberforce a text of over a million words.

Publications

Books

Religion in Industrial Society: Oldham and Saddleworth 1740-1865. (Clarendon Press, 1994), pp xi + 311.

Doing the Duty of the Parish: Surveys of the Church in Hampshire 1810. (Hampshire Record Series, 2004), pp. lxvii + 202.

M. Smith and S. Taylor (eds.) Evangelicalism in the Church of England c.1790- c.1900 (Boydell, 2004), pp. xii + 339.

M. Smith (ed.) British Evangelical Identities Past and Present: Aspects of the History and Sociology of Evangelicalism in Britain and Ireland (Paternoster Press, 2008), pp. xv + 283.

Mark Smith (ed.) The Parish in Wartime: Bishop Gore’s Visitations of Oxfordshire 1914 and 1918 (Boydell: Oxfordshire Record Series, 2019) pp xiii + 596.

P. S. Barnwell and M. Smith (eds.), Places of Worship in Britain and Ireland 1689-1829 (Shaun Tyas, 2021)

P. S. Barnwell and M. Smith, (eds.) Places of Worship in Britain and Ireland 1829-1929 (Shaun Tyas, 2022)

Chapters in books and articles

‘The Reception of Richard Podmore: Anglicanism in Saddleworth 1700-1830’, in J. Walsh, C. Haydon, S. Taylor (eds), The Church of England c.1689- c.1833 (Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 110-123.

‘A foundation of influence: The Oxford Pastorate and elite recruitment in early twentieth-century Anglican Evangelicalism’, in D. W. Lovegrove, (ed.), The Rise of the Laity in Evangelical Protestantism (Routledge, 2002), pp. 202-213.

‘St Paul’s and its Parishes c.1750-c.1870’ in D. Keene, A. Burns and A. Saint (eds.), St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London 604-2004 (Yale, 2004) pp. 372-380.

‘Religion’, in C. Williams (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth Century Britain (Blackwell, 2004) pp. 337-52.

‘Primary Visitation Charge of Henry Ryder to the Diocese of Gloucester’, in M. Smith and S. Taylor (eds.)  Evangelicalism in the Church of England c.1790- c.1900 (Boydell, 2004), pp. 51-107.

‘Thomas Burgess Churchman and Reformer’ in N. Yates (ed.) Bishop Burgess and his World (University of Wales Press, 2007) pp. 5-40.

‘William Wilberforce’, in A. Atherstone (ed.), The Heart of Faith (Lutterworth Press, 2008) pp. 71-80.

‘The Roots of Resurgence: Evangelical Parish ministry in the mid-Twentieth Century’, in Cooper and Gregory (eds) Studies in Church History 44 Revival and Resurgence in Christian History (Boydell, 2008) pp. 318-328.

‘The Missionary Statesman and the Missionary Saint: Henry Venn’s Life of Francis Xavier’, in M. Smith (ed.), British Evangelical Identities Past and Present: Aspects of the History and Sociology of Evangelicalism in Britain and Ireland (Paternoster Press, 2008), pp. 238-252.

‘The Mountain and the Flower: The Power and Potential of Nature in the World of Victorian Evangelicalism’, in P. Clarke and A. Claydon (eds.) Studies in Church History 46 Gods Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World (Boydell, 2010) pp. 318-328.

‘“No Longer the 1999 show”: the Sheerans, postmodernism and local history in the twenty-first century’, The Local Historian 40.2 (2010) pp. 151-156.

‘Henry Ryder and the Bath CMS, Evangelical and High Church Controversy in the Later Hanoverian Church’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 62.4 (2011) pp. 726-743.

‘The Hanoverian Parish: Towards a New Agenda’, Past & Present, 216 (2012) pp. 79-105.

‘The Pastor Chief and other stories: Waldensian Historical Fiction in the Nineteenth Century’, in P. Clarke and C. Methuen (eds.) Studies in Church History 48 The Church and Literature (Boydell, 2012) pp. 296-307.

‘Evangelical Parish Ministry in the Twentieth Century’, in A. Atherstone and J. Maiden (eds.) Evangelicalism and the Church of England in the Twentieth Century (Boydell, 2014) pp. 206-226.

‘The Anglican Churches 1783-1829’, in J. Gregory (ed) The Oxford History of Anglicanism II Establishment and Empire, 1662-1829 (OUP, 2017) pp. 68-87.

‘“War to the knife”: The Anglican Clergy and Education at the end of the First World War’, in M. Ludlow, C. Methuen and A. Spicer (eds.) Studies in Church History, 55 Churches and Education, (Boydell, 2019) pp. 530-544.

‘Revolution, Renewal and Reform: The British Churches 1689-1840’, in P. S. Barnwell and M. Smith (eds.), Places of Worship in Britain and Ireland 1689-1829 (Shaun Tyas, 2021) pp. 1-17.