Dr Simon Morgan

Head of Subject
School of Cultural Studies & Humanities
0113 81 25567 S.J.Morgan@leedsbeckett.ac.ukAbout Dr Simon Morgan
Dr Morgan graduated with a PhD in History from the University of York in 2000. His thesis, "Middle-Class Women, Civic Virtue and Identity in Leeds and the West Riding of Yorkshire, c.1830 - c.1860" was the basis of his 2007 monograph A Victorian Woman's Place: Public Culture in the Nineteenth Century. London: I B Tauris. In 2002 he joined the Letters of Richard Cobden Project at the London School of Economics (since relocated to the University of East Anglia) as its first Research Officer, under the leadership of Anthony Howe. Having been assistant editor on volumes I and II, published by Oxford University Press (2006, 2010), Simon has since co-edited volumes III and IV with Professor Howe.
Dr Morgan is now working on a book-length study of Personality and Popular Politics, 1815-1867. This project emerged from his research into Richard Cobden's emergence as a celebrity politician in the period 1834-1846. In the process he has become interested in the history of celebrity, an emerging field in which he is something of a pioneer.
Dr Morgan would welcome interest from potential research students in the fields of nineteenth-century public and political culture, with particular reference to the public role and experience of women; political pressure groups; and Victorian celebrity culture.
Current Teaching
BA (Hons) History, and BA (Hons) English & History
- Britishness: Nation and Identity, 1707-1999
- British Political Cultures, 1832-1939
- Landscapes of History
- The Emergence of Modern Europe
- Twentieth-Century Europe
- Society and Culture in Modern Britain
- The Public and the Past
MA Social History
- Fame, hero-worship and celebrity culture, c.1750 - c.1880
Selected Publications
Journal articles (9)
- Morgan SJ (2019) Heroes in the age of celebrity: Lafayette, Kossuth and John Bright in nineteenth-century America
https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.suppl.32.2019.165-185
View Repository Record - Morgan SJ (2018) John Deakin Heaton and the 'elusive civic pride of the Victorian middle class'
https://doi.org/10.1017/S096392681700058X
View Repository Record - Morgan SJ (2012) Material Culture and the Politics of Personality in Early Victorian England
https://doi.org/10.1080/13555502.2012.673298 - Morgan SJ (2011) Celebrity: Academic "Pseudo-Event" or a Useful Category for Historians.
https://doi.org/10.2752/147800411X12858412044474 - Morgan SJ (2009) The Anti-Corn Law League and British Anti-Slavery in Transatlantic Perspective
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X08007322 - Morgan SJ (2007) The reward of public service: nineteenth-century testimonials in context
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2006.00374.x - Morgan SJ (2004) Cobden and Manchester
- Morgan SJ (2004) 'A sort of land debatable': female influence, civic virtue and middle-class identity, c 1830-c 1860[1]
https://doi.org/10.1080/09612020400200389 - Morgan SJ (2002) Seen but Not Heard? Women's Platforms, Respectability, and Female Publics in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Books (4)
- Howe A; Morgan S ed. (2015) The Letters of Richard Cobden: Volume IV: 1860-1865. Oxford University Press.
- Howe A; Morgan S (2012) The Letters of Richard Cobden. III, 1854-1859. OUP Oxford.
- Morgan S (2007) A Victorian woman's place. I. B. Tauris & Company.
- Howe A; Morgan S (2006) Rethinking Nineteenth-century Liberalism. Ashgate Publishing.
Chapters (4)
- Morgan SJ (2013) The Political as Personal: Transatlantic Abolitionism. In: Mulligan W; Bric M A Global History of Anti-Slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century. : Palgrave Macmillan, pp. .
- Morgan SJ (2013) America, Protectionism and Democracy in British Free Trade Debates 1815-1861. In: The American Experiment and the Idea of Democracy i-n British Culture, 1776-1914. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. .
- Morgan SJ (2006) From Warehouse Clerk to Corn Law Celebrity: The Making of a National Hero. In: Howe A; Morgan S Rethinking Nineteenth-century Liberalism. : Ashgate Publishing, pp. .
- Morgan SJ (2000) Domestic Economy and Political Agitation: Women and the Anti-Corn Law League. In: Gleadle K; Richardson S Women in British Politics, 1760-1860: The Power of the Petticoat. : Palgrave Macmillan, pp. .