Project Staff

Catherine Hall

Principal investigator

Catherine Hall is Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History.

My research centres on rethinking the relation between Britain and Empire in the early/mid-nineteenth century. It reflects on the ways in which metropolitan ideas and practices have been shaped by the colonial experience. In the recent past I have had a particular interest in the relation between England and Jamaica (Civilising Subjects). My current project focuses on history writing and explores how home, nation and empire came to be configured together in the life and work of Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Catherine's Full Profile

Nick Draper

Research associate, Legacies of British Slave-ownership

Co-director, Structure and significance of British Caribbean Slave-ownership 1763-1833

Prior to joining UCL as a doctoral candidate and then a Teaching Fellow, Nick worked in the City for 25 years. His foundational analysis of the Slave Compensation records was published by Cambridge University Press in 2009 as The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery.

The book was awarded the 2009 Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize and was short-listed for the 2011 Frederick Douglass Book Prize.

In 2008-9, Nick acted as historical consultant to the Slavers of Harley Street exhibit at the Museum in Docklands.

His other publications include:

'Capitalism and slave ownership', Small Axe 37 (March 2012).

'The rise of a new planter class? Some countercurrents from British Guiana and Trinidad 1807-1833', Atlantic Studies, 9:1 (March 2012), pp. 65-83.

'The City of London and slavery: evidence from the first dock companies 1795-1800', Economic History Review, 61 (2) (May 2008) pp. 432-66, jointly awarded the 2009 T. S. Ashton Prize by the Economic History Society.

'"Possessing slaves": ownership, compensation and metropolitan society in Britain at the time of Emancipation 1834-40', History Workshop Journal , 64 (Autumn 2007), pp. 74-102.

'Slave-owners compensation to Sketches of Character subscribers' in Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester and Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz (eds.) Art and Emancipation in Jamaica. Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 542-55.

Keith McClelland

Research associate, Legacies of British Slave-ownership

Co-director, Structure and significance of British Caribbean Slave-ownership 1763-1833

After many years teaching in other universities, Keith joined the UCL History Department in 2006.

He has researched and published particularly on the history of gender, work and politics among the 19^th century British working class and, more recently, co-edited, with Catherine Hall, Race, Nation and Empire: making histories 1750 to the present (2010). He also co-wrote, with Catherine Hall and Jane Rendall, Defining the Victorian Nation (2000) and, with Sonya Rose, 'Citizenship and Empire, 1867-1928' in At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World, ed. Catherine Hall and Sonya O. Rose (2006).

Rachel Lang

Project administrator

Rachel, project administrator on both the first and second projects, graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an MA (Hons) in Economic and Social History in 1994. Her previous work includes sub-editing texts for publication and genealogical research.

Ben Mechen

Project administrator

Ben acted as project administrator on Legacies of British Slave-ownership for a year. He is a PhD student in the UCL History Department, working on sex and sexuality in postwar Britain.

Kate Donington

PhD student, Legacies of British Slave-ownership

Post-doctoral researcher, Structure and significance of British Caribbean Slave-ownership 1763-1833

Kate was a PhD student on the first project and is a post-doctoral researcher on the second, whose thesis is on George Hibbert, a major figure among the West Indian merchants. After graduating from Leeds University, Kate worked for the Imperial War Museum and has a long-standing interest in both history and how it is presented in museums and exhibitions.

Kristy Warren

Post-doctoral researcher, Structure and significance of British Caribbean Slave-ownership 1763-1833

Kristy Warren, one of the Research Associates on the project, completed her PhD at the University of Warwick in 2012. Her thesis investigates the extent to which the positions taken by Bermudian politicians and social commentators, concerning the question of independence in the British Overseas Territory, are informed by their lived experiences and understandings of the island’s past. Prior to starting the PhD, she worked at The National Archives in Kew on a Heritage Lottery Funded cataloguing and outreach project entitled Your Caribbean Heritage. She is interested in the ways in which people remember, interpret, and value the past.

Eric Graham

Research Affiliate, Structure and significance of British Caribbean Slave-ownership 1763-1833

Dr Eric Graham is working with the team on Scottish records of estate ownership in the Caribbean. He has worked extensively on Scottish maritime history and Scotland's involvement with the slave trade and slavery and has written on these subjects as well as acting as researcher and adviser to a number of historical projects in these fields. You can find out more by going to his website, Eric J. Graham.

James Dawkins

PhD student, Structure and significance of British Caribbean Slave-ownership 1763-1833

James's PhD is investigating the slave-owning presence of the Dawkins family in Jamaica between 1763-1833. James graduated in History & Politics from De Montfort University (2006) and in Social Science Research Methods from Cardiff University (2010). He has undertaken a series of research based internships in between periods of study working at institutions including the British Youth Council, the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, and the Education and Employers Taskforce.

Hannah Young