I am an economic historian and historian of capitalism in Britain, Ireland and the British empire over the past two centuries. My research focuses on the political economy of the causes and consequences of economic slumps, financial crises and famines, as well as the contributions made by British religious non-conformity to economic thought.

My most recent books include The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain’s Financial Crisis (2022) and Calming the Storms: The Carry Trade, the Banking School and British Financial Crises since 1825 (2023). My next monograph, Gentlemanly Capitalism, the 1847 Financial Crisis and the British Empire, is under contract with Oxford University Press. My research has won four major academic prizes: the International Economic History Association’s prize for the best dissertation in nineteenth-century economic history, as well as the Thirsk-Feinstein PhD Dissertation Prize, the T.S. Ashton Prize for the best Economic History Review article and the New Researcher Prize of the Economic History Society.

Prior to joining Regent’s, I was based at the University of Cambridge where I was Junior Proctor of the University, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and an Affiliated Lecturer in both the Faculty of History and the Faculty of Economics. I was also a Fellow, Director of Studies and Tutor at Corpus Christi College, where I was the Master’s deputy and chair of the Education Committee. I was also the founding director of the Corpus Bridging Course, the college’s flagship widening-participation scheme that quadrupled the share of student body from the most educationally under-served backgrounds. It was the first scheme of its type launched in Cambridge and has since been adopted by many other colleges. Before Corpus, I was based in Oxford as the Irish Government Senior Scholar in the History and Culture of Ireland at Hertford College.

My role in College

As Senior Tutor, I have oversight of academic matters throughout the College. I am also the Director of Studies in History and the Organising Tutor for Economics. I teach a variety of courses for the History degrees and the PPE degree in Oxford, focussing on papers in modern political history and economic history.

  • Selected Publications