A Sensory Experience of History

Five people, each exercising one of the five senses. Coloured lithograph after L. L. Boilly

By Lewis Goode, Year 3 History

As humans, we experience our lives and events through different sources of stimuli. They dominate our lives, from reading the news, hearing traffic, smelling coffee, tasting lunch, and touching our phones. We are bombarded with notifications, engine noises, alarms, and foul and pleasant smells. All these impact our daily lives; sensory historians have termed this bombardment the ‘modern sensorium.’[1] So what about the historical sensorium?

As sensory history continues to grow, it becomes increasingly possible to study the historical sensorium. Studying this can help us understand how perceptions and connotations of our senses have changed over time and gain a more well-rounded understanding of history. Simultaneously we can make history more accessible to those with sensory impairments by providing alternative forms of engagement for educational and entertainment purposes.

Traditionally, we have been taught that there are five senses, hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting, but some neurologists have counted up to 53 different senses.[2] Senses such as balance, heat, and pain contribute to this large number of senses. Humans have used these senses, regardless of how many there are, to navigate and experience history. As a result, history as a subject and as a recorded practice is formed by these senses. Vision and audition dominate our studies and resources. These experiences make up most of what we study today, politicians’ speeches, newspaper reports, satirical cartoons, and oral recordings, while historians largely overlook our other senses.

For example, historians do not study smell, but it plays a large part in our lives and history. The smells we encounter today are fundamental to our interaction with the city. We often picture what cities and towns looked like in the past but rarely think about how they must have smelt and how people perceived these smells. By today’s standards, a medieval street filled with animal and human excrement would not last a day without someone complaining to the local council. Yet, our medieval contemporaries perceived this to be the norm. Fast-forward to the Nineteenth Century, and these perceptions had changed altogether. Victorian standards and values strongly emphasised cleanliness and presentation, so when the Great Stink of 1858 occurred, contemporaries were keen to push for a more extensive network of sewer systems.

So, what would a medieval marketplace have smelt like? Or what would the food have tasted like before many of the foodstuffs and flavours we know today had arrived from the ‘New World’ or other places? These questions often require creative thinking to provide answers but provide an avenue of historical analysis.

I have looked at the experience of history with the senses, but what about when these senses are absent, or others are enhanced? The experience of history from the point of view who have sensory impairments is again not considered by most historians. Indeed, while the presence of our senses tells us information about the past, the absence of sensory stimulations also provides a fascinating outlook, highlighting the connotations of our senses when they are missing or impaired.

When we look at history through the lens of darkness and silence, something Dr Andrew Flack has looked at in his studies and his Year 3 unit ‘Dark Pasts: Modern Histories of the Night,’ not only can we understand the night better but also our reliance on light and the ability to see. Through these studies, we can better understand and look at the sensory experiences of those whose vision is impaired and acknowledge the connotations and experiences better. This allows for a more inclusive and nuanced approach to history.

Take, for example, the Blitz during the Second World War. For many, it was characterised as a predominantly visual event with fires, people huddling in shelters, and bombed-out buildings. I think we should also focus on the audible experience of the Blitz, if not more than the visual experience. Studying the literature of the Blitz, Rex Ferguson looks into the relationship between the audible and visual experience of the Blitz and poignantly states that ‘bombs are heard, not seen.’

This statement provides an opening to explore further the audible experience of the Blitz. It allows us to understand the Blitz from multiple perspectives, especially those with sensory impairments. The Blackout during the Blitz furthers this exploration as urban navigation was made difficult by the absence of light and invoked many to feel fear and anxiety. We might want to use this experience of a majority to understand those who have to navigate these spaces like this regardless of the historical and social settings.

The almost homogenising experience provides a discussion that allows different senses to come into our learning of history. Not only will providing a multi-sensory experience of history provide a more accessible form of education, but it will also provide people with a more well-rounded and realistic historical experience altogether.

Many museums have incorporated multi-sensory experiences. Museums include experiences from touching artefacts, audible experiences, and even having olfactory experiences, such as those on the SS Great Britain. Living museums, such as the Blists Hill Museum, Ironbridge, or the Black Country Living Museum, Dudley, provide this multi-sensory experience with the added historical experience of seeing people and activities happen in front of them rather than on a screen or behind glass. How can you know what it was like to work in a stable without smelling horse poo all day?

Museums like those I mentioned enhance the educational value because you can experience it as it historically would be rather than read a sanitised description of the place, object or event. By providing visitors with visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile experiences, you not only make it accessible to everyone by providing an exciting, informative, and multi-sensory experience, but you also give visitors a complete and accurate historical experience. The same can be said for studying history; we should continue to consider and explore new avenues of analysis so that we can fully understand history.

[1] Tim Edensor

[2] https://www.sensorytrust.org.uk/blog/how-many-senses-do-we-have