Department

Department of Philosophy, History and Law

Biography

After a first degree in the social sciences from Swansea, Anne Borsay held an ESRC studentship at Oxford where she worked on community care for physically disabled people. In 1978 she moved to the University of Wales, Lampeter where she was a lecturer, senior lecturer and reader within the Department of History.

Anne’s teaching and research initially concentrated on contemporary social policy. From the late 1980s, however, her work focused on the historical development of health and social care, and in 1999 she published a social history of the Bath General Infirmary. Her most recent single-authored book examined social policies for disabled people post-1750.

Since coming to Swansea in 2002, Anne has been closely involved with the emerging interdisciplinary field of medical humanities. She is currently engaging this approach in a book, which applies insights from the humanities to cultural representations of physical disability in Britain between 1600 and 2000.

External Activity

Editorial Boards

• Disability and Society
  
• Neo-Victorian Studies

Committee Membership

• Arts Council of Wales, Working party on Arts and Health
• Association for Medical Humanities, Council
• MIND, Expert Policy Group, Mental Health and Disability
• UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery, Advisory Board
• Wellcome Trust Research Resources in Medical History Funding Committee

Research Grants

2007-10. Royal College of Nursing Wales, Full-time PhD studentship to investigate nursing and political influence in Wales since 1948. £54,054.

2007. Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust, Listing of medical records in Swansea Central Library and the West Glamorgan Archive Service. £3,000.

2005. Nuffield Trust, Promotion of medical humanities in Wales. £3,000.

2004-05. Wellcome Trust Research Resources in Medical History, Identification of medical records in the South Wales Coalfield Collection. £53,426.

2004. Arts and Humanities Research Board, Arts, Humanities and Medicine Initiative, Narratives and Histories Workshop. £8,000.

2001. Arts and Humanities Research Board, Research Leave Scheme. £9,981.

Selected Publications

Books

Borsay, A., Knight, S. (2007) Medical Records for the South Wales Coalfield: An Annotated Guide to the South Wales Coalfield Collection, c.1890-1948. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Borsay, A., Shapely, P. (eds) (2007) Medicine, Charity and Mutual Aid: The Consumption of Health and Welfare, c.1550-1950. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Borsay, A. (2005) Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750: A History of Exclusion. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Borsay, A. (ed.) (2003) Medicine in Wales, c.1800-2000: Public Service or Private Commodity? Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Borsay, A. (1999) Medicine and Charity in Georgian Bath: A Social History of the General Infirmary, 1739-1830. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Borsay, A. (1986) Disabled People in the Community: A Study of Housing, Health and Welfare Services. London: Bedford Square Press.

Borsay, A. (1978) Welfare Rights: The Local Authorities’ Role. London: Bedford Square Press.

Chapters in Books

Borsay, A. (2007) Deaf children and charitable education in Britain, c.1790-1944. In: Borsay, A., Shapely, P. (eds) Medicine, Charity and Mutual Aid: The Consumption of Health and Welfare, c.1550-1950. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 71-90.

Borsay, A. (2006) Disciplining disabled bodies: the development of orthopaedic medicine in Britain, c.1800-1939. In: Turner, D.M., Stagg, K. (eds) Social Histories of Disability and Deformity. London: Routledge, pp. 97-116.

Borsay, A. (2003) ‘Fit to Work’: representing rehabilitation on the South Wales Coalfield during the Second World War. In: Borsay, A. (ed) Medicine in Wales, c.1800-2000: Public Service or Private Commodity? Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 128-53.

Borsay, A. (2002) History, power and identity. In: Barnes, C., Barton, L., Oliver, M. (eds) Disability Theory Today. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 98-119.

Borsay, A. (2001) Medical records as catalogues of experience. In: Evans, M., Finlay, I. (eds) Medical Humanities. London: BMJ Books, pp. 50-72.

Journal Articles

Borsay, A. (2009) Nursing history: an irrelevance for nursing practice? Nursing History Review, 17: 14-27.

Borsay, A. (2007) Humanidades medicas: origenes y destinos [Medical humanities: origins and destinations]. Ars Medica Revista de Humanidades, 6(1): 138-48.

Borsay, A. (2001) The role of history in medical humanities. Medical Humanities, 27(2): 94-5.