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Accepted Paper:

Doing the field! Waterloo, 'histourism' and placemaking  
Pieter Francois (Ghent University)

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses how nineteenth-century British travellers attributed meaning to the battlefield of Waterloo. I will especially focus on how the field ceased to be the place of an important contemporary event and became instead a place of ‘histourism’ and became increasingly historicised.

Paper long abstract:

After Waterloo Europe opened up for an increasing number of British travellers and well-troden tourist trails developed. A visit of the battlefield became immediately a standard feature of most of these trails and 'doing the field' maintained its position of preeminence throughout the nineteenth century. This popularity was foremost a result of the 'meaning' the travellers ascribed to the battlefield. On the one hand Waterloo became a 'national shrine' of Britishness as it summed up for the travellers the reasons why Britain was successful and what made Britain special. On the other hand it provided the travellers with readymade access to the past and Waterloo can therefore be seen as a site of 'histourism'. The travellers' relation with the past was characterized by their desire for authenticity and their reliance but also frustration with the overt commercialization.

By analysing a wide range of nineteenth-century British travel accounts on Waterloo this paper will not only analyse the travellers' attitudes towards Waterloo as a place of commemoration, it will also explore how these travellers contributed to the place of Waterloo as a 'national shrine' in nineteenth-century British cultural memory. Furthermore, as the memory of the battle changed drastically during the nineteenth century from a contemporary event to an increasingly past event, the analysis of the travel accounts is also suited to focus on how Waterloo became gradually more 'historicized'. This paper is therefore relevant both for the study of general nineteenth-century attitudes towards the past and for the study of placemaking.

Panel P102
History and placemaking
  Session 1