Deborah has propped up bars for six years!

IT’S often joked that students like to spend most of their time at the bar.

Now Deborah Woodman has gone one better — by spending six years studying pubs for a PhD at Leeds Metropolitan University.

But it is not quite the dream task that it seems because the 42-year-old, of Hollins Road, Hathershaw, was looking at the political role of the public house in Manchester and Salford from 1815 to 1880.

Only a handful of the drinking dens remain from that time and Deborah joked: “I did not have to visit the pubs — I only went when I got a bit fed up!”

The former Hathershaw School pupil did a history degree at Manchester Polytechnic before completing an ME at Manchester Metropolitan University.

That’s where she first got her teeth into the subject of pubs and explained: “I did a dissertation on radical politics and the role of the pub in Manchester. That was from 1815 to 1850, then I decided to expand it into a bigger project.

“Obviously, 19th century Manchester is hugely associated with the cotton industry and industrialisation, and I was quite interested in how the pub fitted into that.

“Particularly before 1850 was quite a radical period. People were meeting in pubs for political reasons and you have also got a lot of commercial travellers coming to Oldham.

“You see a very diverse range of activities taking place in the pub. As the community changes you see the pub adapt to that.”

Pubs which remain from the period include the Wellington Inn, Manchester’s oldest pub which was damaged by the 1996 IRA bomb, and neighbouring Sinclairs Oysters Bar in Shambles Square. There is also The Castle, Oldham Street and The Circus Tavern, Portland Street.

“You saw a real class division between inns, public houses and beer houses,” explained Deborah.

“There was quite a lot of criminal activity and criminal underworld in beerhouses. A lot of working-class people went into beer houses and they were associated with things like dog fighting.”

Deborah is a part-time lecturer at University Campus Oldham and works in research administration at Salford University.

She added: “I am hoping to find an academic appointment and I would like to do more research on pubs and expand the research to look at the history of Manchester and the North-West.

“I’m certainly rare in the sense that I haven’t met many other female historians doing this kind of work — I do not know why! But, to be fair, there is not a huge amount of female historians out there.”