Dr Simon Morgan

About 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

Blog Articles

• Historian explores the life of forgotten British antislavery orator buried in Leeds