History

Astor Professor of British History

Office: 303, 23 Gordon Square
Office hour: on leave 2012/13
External phone: 020 7679 3603
Internal phone: 33603
E-mail: j.hoppit@ucl.ac.uk

My broad area of interest is British history between 1660 and 1850. In recent years I have helped to teach a general course on British history 1688-1860, a one-term course 'The remaking of the English ruling class, 1660-1785' and 'Concepts, categories and the practice of history'.

I have supervised doctoral research students working on a wide range of topics in British history, including the economic and social history of London in the eighteenth century, Hannah More (the 'conservative' late-eighteenth century philanthropist and author), and Charles Babbage, an early enthusiast for computers. I am a convenor of the 'Economic and social history of the pre-modern world' graduate seminar at the Institute of Historical Research and edited the Historical Journal from 2009 to 2012.

My research and writing concentrates on the period 1660-1800, especially the histories of economic change and parliamentary legislation. I like to take a long-run view of developments, often by employing simple counting and focusing upon the ways in which interest groups and patterns of information affected policy making.

Areas of Research Supervision: I can supervise a wide range of topics in British history between 1660 and 1830, especially in economic history, the history of the state and the history of economic thought.

Theses Currently Supervised:

 -The Crime of Deception ar the Old Bailey, 1750-1834

 -The impact of religion on the political mind of Sir Henry Vane

 -Ideas of taxation in England, 1660-1702

Theses Previously Supervised:

-Grub Street Culture: the newspapers of Nathaniel Mist, 1716-1738

Select Publications

- Risk and failure in English business, 1700-1800 (1987)
- 'Counting the industrial revolution', Economic History Review, 43 (1990)
- 'The contexts and contours of British economic literature, 1660 - 1760', Historical Journal, 49 (2006)
- A land of liberty? England 1689-1727, New Oxford History of England (2000)
- 'The myths of the South Sea Bubble', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 12 (2002)
- ed. Parliaments, nations and identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660-1850 (2003)
- 'Compulsion, compensation and property rights in Britain, 1660-1833', Past and Present, 210 (2011)

I am currently working on a book to be called Britain's political economies, 1660-1800 which will explore the interrelationships between developments in the state, economic thinking and early industrialization in the first industrial nation.

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