Research Fellow, 1640-1660 House of Lords

The History of Parliament has a vacancy for a research fellow on its 1640-1660 House of Lords project. The successful candidate will have a PhD in British political history in the seventeenth century. They will join a small team of professional historians researching and writing the biographies of peers who sat in the Lords in the 1640-60 period. They will also contribute to the project’s academic and public engagement activities and the development of new digital resources. It is expected that the successful applicant will start in Autumn 2024.

The History of Parliament

The History of Parliament Trust has been promoting research on the UK’s political history for over 60 years. Its publications include 65 volumes examining the House of Commons and House of Lords in periods from the 14^th century onwards, alongside a series of books aimed at wider audiences. The History’s related website provides detailed biographies of those who served in Parliament and in-depth studies of constituency politics. There are also survey volumes collating the findings of the research and examining the operation of Parliament as an institution.

The Trust undertakes a variety of engagement and outreach activities to promote interest in the history of the UK Parliament. This includes partnerships on AHRC, Leverhulme and British Academy funded projects, supervising PhDs, collaborations with History and Public History degree programmes, student internships, dissertation competitions, and running conferences and seminars, including the ‘Parliaments, Politics and People’ seminar at the Institute of Historical Research. It also develops historical resources, collaborating with organisations like the British Library, British History Online, the House of Commons Library and Parliamentary Digital Service on oral history and digitisation projects and the creation of open-access, web-based datasets. The Trust is funded by both Houses of Parliament with offices in central London. It is one of the most widely cited and regularly accessed historical resources in the UK, regularly attracting over one million annual visitors to its website and around 200,000 views of its related blog sites covering current research projects.

The 1640-1660 House of Lords project

The work of the recently established House of Lords 1640-1660 section builds upon the research of the Trust’s nine-volume House of Commons, 1640-1660 which was published in May 2023. In writing the biographies of the 255 peers and bishops eligible to sit during the period, the section will explore the shifting nature and perceptions of aristocratic power during the mid-seventeenth century and the impact upon the Lords and the peerage of civil war, party strife and new ideological commitments to king and ‘commonwealth’. Addressing these and related themes will take the new section to the heart of popular as well as parliamentary politics in the English Revolution. A survey volume, interpreting the discoveries of the research and exploring the institutional operation of the Lords is also being prepared. The section’s work will provide a key resource for political and local historians of the seventeenth century and all those interested in the causes, course and outcomes of the British Civil Wars.

Alongside research and writing, staff are expected to give papers and to attend and help organise academic conferences and seminars, collaborate on related research programmes and exhibitions, and respond to public and media inquiries. Further information and shorter articles drawing on the section’s research can be found on our blogpost Revolutionary Stuart Parliaments

For further particulars about the post and how to apply please click on the ‘Apply’ button above.