Dr Rachel Johnson
MusB (Hons), MMus, PhD, AFHEA
School of Education
University Tutor (Humanities)
+44 114 2227000
Full contact details
School of Education
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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I have been employed by the University of Sheffield since 2022, initially leading Introduction to the Humanities before branching out to contribute to a wide range of modules and activities.
My research is eclectic! It often focuses on the cultural history of music in Britain, with particular specialisms in nineteenth-century industrial history and contemporary military history, plus flute research, prison history and a strong interest in historical recordings.
I started teaching in Higher Education in 2016, while studying for my PhD at the Royal Northern College of Music. I have subsequently taught cross-disciplinary modules for City University of London and for the Open University. I continue to lecture at the RNCM and the OU alongside my work for Sheffield.
I completed my PhD in 2021, prior to that gaining a Master's in Performance from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and an undergraduate degree in Music from the University of Manchester.
- Qualifications
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MusB (Hons) Music, MMus (Performance), PhD
- Research interests
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I am currently researching the history of music in English prisons, and the deployment of (British) military music in modern conflict. I have recently completed a research residency on the Royal Northern College of Music's recording archive (Share our Sounds Residency: British Library / RNCM / Manchester Archives+).
My PhD, completed at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2021, investigated musical life in Manchester in the nineteenth century. It demonstrated how music contributed to the formation of identity, community and new models of citizenship in the word's first industrial city. It is in the process of becoming a book, under contract with Routledge, titled Music and the Creation of Social Identity during the Industrial Revolution: Manchester, 1819-1857.
I am also continuing to develop Master's research into nineteenth-century British flute culture - there are three boxes of very old music in my loft, which I am exploring and sharing in recitals.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Aftershocks of Peterloo: Manchester Mechanics’ Institution and Mutual Improvement. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 100(2), 33-52.
- The Agency of Music in Industrial Society: A Comparative Study of the Royal Manchester Institution, Manchester Athenaeum and Manchester Mechanics’ Institution, 1834-1860. Journal of Victorian Culture, 27(1), 97-119.
- Reading Between the Lines: Sir George Smart's Annotated Programmes for Manchester's 1836 Musical Festival. electronic British Library Journal.
- Music, Propaganda, Recruitment and the Press: Manchester’s Military Bands during the First World War. Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 1-14.
Book chapters
- ‘So Wide is the Field’, The Routledge Companion to Applied Musicology (pp. 130-140). Routledge
Theses
- Aftershocks of Peterloo: Manchester Mechanics’ Institution and Mutual Improvement. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 100(2), 33-52.
- Grants
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Royal Historical Society Early Career Fellowship Grant (2025)
NABMSA Linda Shaver-Gleason Award (2025)
AHRC PhD Studentship, North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (2014–21)
RNCM PhD Studentship (2012–14)
RMA Oldman Research Grant (2015)
Small grants from the Solti Foundation; EMI Music Sound Foundation; Laura Ashley Foundation; South Square Trust; and Women's Career's Foundation
- Teaching interests
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For Lifelong Learning, I am module lead for Introduction to the Humanities and I teach on modules including Culture, Language & Meaning, Extended Project, and Academic Literacy & Communication Skills.
In the wider School of Education, I am currently teaching on the iPGCE course, and I have previously taught on the Education MA programme (the module Practice of Research, and dissertation supervision).