Dr Rachel Dickinson has been elected Master of the Guild of St George

Photo by Jack Haddon

Rachel Dickinson will be joining the Department of English in Manchester from our Crewe campus this Summer.

More information on this prestigious appointment and on the work of the Guild can be found here.

About Dr Rachel Dickinson

Dr Rachel Dickinson is Principal Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies/English at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Director for Education of Ruskin’s Guild of St George.

Born in Canada, she moved to the UK in 1999 to doctoral work at Lancaster University (2005). This gave rise to an edited collection: John Ruskin’s Correspondence with Joan Severn: Sense and Nonsense Letters (Legenda 2008). She has been interviewed about Ruskin for BBC Radio, and curated exhibitions: Journeys of a Lifetime: Ruskin’s Continental Tours(2008 with Keith Hanley) and “Teaching Silkworms to Spin”: John Ruskin and the Ethics of Textiles (2013) at The Ruskin, Lancaster University, as well as Ruskin’s Manchester: ‘Devil’s Darkness’ to Beacon City at Manchester Metropolitan University’ Special Collections (20 May to 9 August, 2019). Her most recent publications have been on Ruskin and textiles in E-rea: Revue électronique d’études sur le monde Anglophone 16.1 (2018) and John Ruskin and Nineteenth-Century Education (edited by Valerie Purton, Anthem 2018). More broadly, her research interests relate to Ruskin’s vision for sustainable living during the nineteenth century and how this can be reinterpreted for the twenty-first century in areas such as art, business management, crafts, education, ethical consumerism, museum curation, and even farming and land management.  She is co-ordinating the Festival of Ruskin in Manchester 2019, is a selection panel member for the John Ruskin Prize for Art 2019 and serves on editorial boards, including the Journal of Victorian Culture.

She is also a craftsperson. Inspired by Ruskin, she learned to spin yarn while working on her doctorate and this remains her main source of relaxation. Her textile-related expertise spans a lifetime, and a range of other crafts, including embroidery, knitting, dressmaking and bobbin lace (she made her own wedding veil). When time permits, she loves digging in her postage-stamp sized garden, growing herbs and other plants chosen to attract bees, birds and butterflies.

A passionate public speaker, she serves as a University Orator at Manchester Metropolitan University and has been an invited speaker, giving lectures on Ruskin in the UK, as well as Canada, France, Italy and the USA. In Ruskin’s bicentenary year, she has been invited to give a number of lectures and talks, including at:

• ‘Next Steps with Ruskin’ at Bewdley on 16th March
• The Mary Frith Lecture at the Hallamshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, Sheffield on 11th May 
• ‘Why Craft Matters: A Symposium’ at Harewood House, Leeds on 17th May 
• ‘Goodness, Truth, and Beauty in the work of John Ruskin and his Contemporaries‘ at Anglia Ruskin University on 6th September 
• ‘John Ruskin: Nineteenth-Century Visionary, Twenty-first Century Inspiration’ at the Huntington Library, San Marino California on 13-14 December