Miles Oglethorpe was elected onto the Board of the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) in Russia in 2003, and at its last congress in Santiago, Chile in 2018, became TICCIH President. He is also Head of Industrial Heritage at Historic Environment Scotland, the national body responsible for the built heritage in Scotland.
A graduate of Durham University, he completed his PhD in Geography at the University of Glasgow, subsequently moving to Strathclyde University’s Scottish Industrial Archaeology Survey Unit in 1983. In 1985 he joined the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland in Edinburgh, from where he moved to the Scottish Government heritage agency, Historic Scotland, in 2007. He has since fulfilled a number of key roles there, including Head of Education, Outreach and Publications, Deputy Chief Inspector, and Head of Policy.
Further afield, he has worked with international partners on industrial heritage, notably in Norway and Japan, and most recently led the team responsible for preparing the successful World Heritage nomination for the Forth Bridge (inscribed in 2015). In addition, he works with UNESCO advisors, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) on World Heritage issues, and is assisting with the development of a new tourism destination in Scotland, focused on the Forth Bridges.
He has edited, authored and co-authored a number of books and papers relating to industrial heritage, and energy in particular. Of these, his book, Scottish Collieries: An Inventory of the Scottish Coal Industry in the Nationalised Era (2006) is the most significant, containing the fruits of many years’ work on Scotland’s coal industry. He also jointly founded Capturing the Energy, an initiative established by the University of Aberdeen, Oil & Gas UK, TOTAL and other partners which is emulating the work of Norwegian colleagues in attempting to ensure the achievements of the UK’s offshore oil and gas industries are properly recorded and recognised. In addition, he contributes to post-graduate programmes in the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Sessions in which Dr Miles Oglethorpe participates
Monday 29 August, 2022
During the Industrial Revolution coal was the most important energy source for both homes and industries. At the time, coal mining created strong regional industrial identities and mentalities, as well as industrial images and imaginaries in the eyes and minds of external observers. Such identities and ideas of coal would go on to shape industrial landscapes and communities.The papers presented in this session investigate the social and economic changes that were triggered by ...
During the Industrial Revolution coal was the most important energy source for both homes and industries. At the time, coal mining created strong regional industrial identities and mentalities, as well as industrial images and imaginaries in the eyes and minds of external observers. Such identities and ideas of coal would go on to shape industrial landscapes and communities.The papers presented in this session investigate the social and economic changes that were triggered by ...
During the Industrial Revolution coal was the most important energy source for both homes and industries. At the time, coal mining created strong regional industrial identities and mentalities, as well as industrial images and imaginaries in the eyes and minds of external observers. Such identities and ideas of coal would go on to shape industrial landscapes and communities.The papers presented in this session investigate the social and economic changes that were triggered by ...
Tuesday 30 August, 2022
During the Industrial Revolution coal was the most important energy source for both homes and industries. At the time, coal mining created strong regional industrial identities and mentalities, as well as industrial images and imaginaries in the eyes and minds of external observers. Such identities and ideas of coal would go on to shape industrial landscapes and communities.The papers presented in this session investigate the s...
During the Industrial Revolution coal was the most important energy source for both homes and industries. At the time, coal mining created strong regional industrial identities and mentalities, as well as industrial images and imaginaries in the eyes and minds of external observers. Such identities and ideas of coal would go on to shape industrial landscapes and communities.The papers presented in this session investigate the s...
Thursday 1 September, 2022
This session will bring together four specialists in the history of the production of oil and petroleum, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, to debate the distinct as well as shared issues around the study and protection of their industrial heritage. The history of energy production is characterized by groundbreaking technological advances and achievements, enormous technological, social and environmental consequences, and the evolution of distinctive landscapes and communiti...
Friday 2 September, 2022
Sessions in which Dr Miles Oglethorpe attends
Sunday 28 August, 2022
A one-day itinerary on the opening day of the conference will allow visitors to discover Exporail in Saint-Constant, the Beauharnois hydroelectric plant and the Cotea...
Join the conference organisers and TICCIH board members for a welcome cocktail and some festive words of introduction, in the former forge of the École technique de Montréal, founded in 1909, now part of the Université du Québec à Montréal campus.
Monday 29 August, 2022
Si la vallée du canal de Lachine a été le berceau de l’industrialisation canadienne, la géographie industrielle métropolitaine ne s’y est pas confinée, peu s’en faut, Outre les grandes concentrations d’entreprises des quartiers centraux, elle est constituée des réseaux infrastructuraux, d’une douzaine de centrales hydroélectriques et des ensembles manufacturiers disséminés dans une quinzaine de petites villes aujourd’hui intégrées dans l’aire métropolitaine. La conférence proposera un surv...
Tuesday 30 August, 2022
Efforts to preserve industrial heritage occurs in a socio-economic and political context. But what is being preserved and for whom? And, relatedly, what is the relationship between industrial heritage sites and the deindustrialized working-class communities that often adjoin them? The keynote will consider the ways that the preservation of Montreal’s Lachine Canal, Canada’s premier industrial heritage site, has enabled gentrification processes that have forc...
Wednesday 31 August, 2022
In this lecture, I would like to talk about deindustrialised communities, heritage and memory in the context of right-wing populism. Drawing on studies of memory and heritage, I argue that right-wing populists have cornered the market on talking about the past of deindustrialised communities. They have successfully misrepresented this rich and complex history to fuel rage, resentment, fear and reactionary nostalgia. Indeed, ‘the past’, and in particular the industr...
Thursday 1 September, 2022
The use of industrial heritage is a profoundly important factor in the process of creating a sustainable economic, social, and political future for many communities occupying industrial heritage landscapes. More than ever we recognize the need for such communities to be capable of shaping and expressing their heritage in different forms in the context of current events and issues, and in doing so to inform both contemporary decision-making as well as the way their industrial heritage is re...
This lecture will argue that the landscapes of industrial heritage that can be found in different parts of the world are directly related to the place-specific trajectories of deindustrialization. In other words: the different ways in which deindustrialization impacts on local communities has a direct bearing on the emergence of forms of industrial heritage. I will differentialte between deindustrialization paths and related industrial heritage regimes in a) Anglo-...
Friday 2 September, 2022
In the refusal of people in communities abandoned by industrial capital to abandon their own places, we can read an implicit critique of the mobility and unaccountability of capital, raised by those who were once inside (however tenuously or uncomfortably) and now find themselves marginalized, “left behind.” The desire to catch up again, whether through attracting new investment or transvaluing abandoned sites as tourist attractions, makes this an essentially conservative critique that is ...
Come and share the good times of the congress and celebrate your scientific and professional discoveries in a former fruit jam factory, Usine C, built in 1913 and transformed at the end of the 1970s into a place for creation and dissemination.Discover Montreal's gastronomy thanks to an exceptional caterer. Learn about Montreal's musical heritage and the history of the industrial district that brought it to life. Then hear and experience Quebec's musical tradition as you are carried ...