Lecturer in Modern British History

Contact Details

Biography

I studied History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge before spending two years teaching Chemistry at Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa in Swaziland.  After returning to the UK I completed a PhD in the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM) at the University of Manchester, where my research focused on scientists and food manufacturing in Britain before World War II and on industrial research and development in general.  After a year in the Department of History at Lancaster University I joined the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Leicester. I have been book reviews editor of Economic History Review and have held a number of offices within the British Society for the History of Science  of which I am currently  President.  I was recently appointed as senior academic advisor to the Oral History of British Science, a National Life Stories project  in partnership with the British Library.

British Society for the History of Science (BSHS)

Oral History of British Science (OHBS)  

OHBS Blog

Research

• Research Interests
• Publications 

PhD Supervision

Gender history, particularly in relation to gender and work; British science and technology in the 20th century;20th century British social and economic history, particularly of the English midlands;  topics that use moving image sources.

Teaching

• HS1100 People and Places: Los Alamos
• HS2001 Group Project: University College, Leicester During WWII
• HS7005 MA Historical Research Methods (Co-ordinator)

I am happy to supervise undergraduate dissertations in most areas of 20th century British economic and social history as well as the topics listed above.

Administrative Responsibilities

Director of MA and MRes History

Chair External Relations Committee

Member of the Postgraduate Committee 

Most Recent Publications

1. 'World War II, Post-war Reconstruction and British Women Chemists', Ambix, 58 (2011), pp. 150-70.
2. 'The Royal Society, its Fellows and Industrial R&D in the mid-Twentieth Century', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 64 (2010), S31-41
3. 'Industrial Research and the employment of scientists in British industry before the 1970s' in Richard Coopey and Peter Lyth, eds., Business in Britain in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 252-270.
4. 'Defence research and private industry in Britain: finding capacity for research in the electronics industry, 1940s-1960s', Yearbook of European Administrative History, 20 (2008), pp. 165-185
5. 'The internationalization of science in a commercial context: research and development by overseas multinationals in Britain before the mid-1970s', British Journal for the History of Science 40 (2007), pp. 227-250