This conference, organised by the Centre for Metropolitan History, aims to explore the shifting experiences, representations and status of vagrancy in relation to the history of British settlement. How can exploring the images and realities of vagrancy sharpen our understanding of the histories of ‘settled’ communities, cities and parishes, which have otherwise been articulated from a sedentary perspective?

Plenary speakers are:

Professor Patricia Fumerton (University of California, Santa Barbara), Crossing the limits of the Shakespearean stage: roguery, mobility, and balladry in "The Winter's Tale";
Professor Nicholas Crowson (University of Birmingham), Vagrant life stories: rediscovering the tramp between the 1880s and 1930s;
Professor Tim Hitchcock (University of Sussex), Hard choices and bad laws: Navigating crime, vagrancy and poverty in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.