Economic and Social History

My project provides the first historical analysis of death-row in India from colonial to contemporary eras. Death-row policy mandates security measures like solitary confinement and enhanced guarding ostensibly to prevent ‘dangerous’ prisoners from escaping and harming others/self. But it results in restricted mobility and prohibition on engagement opportunities contributing to deterioration of prisoner wellbeing. My project challenges the assumption of ‘dangerousness’ and contributes to the debates on penal humanitarianism by examining how security concerns undermine the principle of humane punishment, including on death-row.

My project examines three British elite girls’ schools—St Leonards in St Andrews (1877), Roedean (1885), and Wycombe Abbey (1896)—to assess the impact of elite schooling for girls on the development of British elites and the formation of female identities between 1870 and 1920. The schools were established in the late Victorian era and were modelled after elite boys’ schools like Eton. I will take an interdisciplinary approach, using social sciences methods—theories of sociology of education and sociology of elites, and social networks analysis tools such as statistical software—to analyse the schools’ archival sources.

My doctoral research examines how archaeological landscapes and Celtic symbols were used to shape Irish identity in Union Ireland (1801–1922). I focus on three areas: the agency of marginalised groups such as women, travellers, and the rural poor in influencing narratives through oral traditions; the roles of antiquarians, nationalists, and British travel writers in interpreting and appropriating archaeology; and the impact of modernisation and mobility on these interactions. By using archival sources, material culture along with feminist, postcolonial, and landscape theory, I aim to reveal how competing interpretations of heritage created a fractured and competing vision of Ireland’s past.

This study will look to examine how the impoverished conditions that were present within coastal communities of Devon and Cornwall 1750-1850, were influential in the participation of locals in the wrecking ships, opposing naval impressment and involvement in the smuggling trade. These acts can be deemed as a form of resistance, as they saw communities disobey economic, maritime, and naval legislation to gain personal liberty and financial rewards. The correlation of data that depicts localised poverty and the frequency of these acts of ‘resistance’ shall determine whether there was a tangible link between these acts within deprived coastal communities.

My research addresses the subject of labour surveillance after the Black Death focusing on urban communities of Late Medieval and Early Modern England. It introduces labour as a field of exploring premodern surveillance. It is also novel in bringing together medieval and early modern social history. The thesis will ask about the modus operandi of labour surveillance and its perception by various social groups. Exeter will serve as a case study.   Publications   ( https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/mhist/article/view/38752 )

My research identifies the paid and unpaid employment of women through the analysis of legal documents, probate records and inventories within the Devon and Cornwall archives. This study quantifies large collections of data to identify patterns of women’s agency dependent on male absence from the community, or their positions as maritime wives and daughters.   I hold a MA in Naval History from the University of Portsmouth where I worked as a student researcher on the Wellington Trust project, Women on the Waves which explored women’s sea and shore-based employment from 1860 to present day.

My research aims to understand how political protest affects popular ideas about an issue. It uses the British animal advocacy movement as a case study and uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to see whether protests and campaigns affect how an issue is talked about in the public space. It also hopes to understand whether these impacts are different according to which types of protest are used.   Walker, Robert. ‘Activism, Morality and the Law: The Case-Study of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’. Edited by Jessica Gröling. EASE Working Paper Series Volume 2 (2024): 185–92.

My PhD research combines the study of community with that of agriculture, rural life, and food to argue that food was integral to early modern society, not only for sustenance but in the way it created social bonds. Moving beyond the concept of commensality, it explores how the production, consumption and selling of food brought different individuals and groups of people into contact. Primarily using farm and household accounts, I demonstrate how food created social links between the wealthy and less-wealthy and how women were important agents in forming and maintaining these connections.  

My research replicates as far as possible a modern time-use study of England between 1700 and 1850. I am using data gathered from court records to explore how experiences of the industrial revolution differed by gender. Focusing on work and leisure, I am considering how specific activities were divided by gender, and how gender influenced the timing of these activities. I will compare my results to other available research in order to contribute to broader debates about how the impacts of industrialisation and economic development differ by gender.

My PhD research considers the eighteenth-century market through a socio-economic lens. I apply interdisciplinary ideas about ‘contested commodities’ and conflicting ideas of morality to early modern market attitudes, exploring and comparing varied instances in which the body was involved in transactions, such as in the sex trade, slavery, and the cadaver trade. My MRes dissertation explored changes to perceptions and practices of marriage within the context of the shifting eighteenth-century economy. Through the combined analysis of advice literature, parliamentary debates and satire, it explored the intertwined nature of the social and the economic.