About
‘Making Maidstone’ is a three-year project funded by The William and Edith Oldham Trust to develop a Victoria County History publication which will explore the history of Maidstone from 1549 to 1660.
As such, the book will cover the incorporation of the town under Edward VI in 1549 to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. This encompasses shifts in town governance, Wyatt’s Rebellion against the crown, the impact of the Reformation, the Battle of Maidstone in 1648, and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
Primarily, the book will be a collaborative venture with as much contributed by volunteers as possible. This will include training to find, read, and understand historic documents as well as the opportunity to write portions of the book and online publications. Therefore, a central goal is to build and support a community interested in the history of Maidstone and the publication of the book.
Additionally, the project will support an immersive exhibition which will explore the history of the town through visual methods.
The Team
Jack Newman - Project Lead
Jack completed his PhD at the University of Kent in 2021, spent two years developing machine learning models for transcribing medieval records at the Antwerp Centre for Digital Humanities and Literary Criticism, and took up his current role in early 2025. Previously, he was a painter and decorator and the Royal Historical Society’s Centenary Fellow (2019-20) at the Institute of Historical Research.
Ryan Bateman - Wills Lead
Ryan is a recent graduate from London School of Economics where he studied Law. He is currently helping us to refine our project documentation which relates to the wills we are studying, their transcription, annotation, and analysis. Ryan has been invaluable in getting this aspect of our project off the ground.
Get in Touch
If you wish to get in touch with us about anything then please email us.