Dr Simon Skinner

MA MPhil DPhil Oxf, FRHistS
Associate Professor, Keen Fellow and Tutor in History

Academic subject(s):

History
  • Core subject area: History (and its Joint Schools). 
  • Teaching: British history since 1685, principally the three modern British history papers, which span the periods 16851830, 18151924, and since 1900; the ‘Making and Unmaking of the British Isles’ theme paper; and miscellaneous historiography (esp. Macaulay and Weber) and methods papers. University lectures on ‘Politics and Religion in Britain, c.18151914’. Past and present supervision topics include Spencer Perceval and post-Pittite politics, early 19th-century church reform, liberal Toryism and the press, George Canning and party, the campaign for the repeal of the Test and Corporations Acts, Sir James Graham and party, Protestantism and Conservatism in the 1830s, anti-Peel sentiment in the 1840, Pusey and the revival of sisterhoods, Gladstone’s historical imagination, British intellectuals and the Eastern Question, Disraeli’s religious thought, and sport and the American presidency. I have received teaching awards from both the College (the JCR’s inaugural Teaching Excellence Award) and the University (University Teaching Award).
  • Research interests: The political, religious, and intellectual history of 19th-century Britain. Current research explores Peel, party, and Protestantism in the 1840s. I am a convenor of the Oxford British History 16851850 graduate seminar, have reviewed for the English Historical Review and the London Review of Books, and broadcast on subjects ranging from Queen Victoria (BBC’s Timewatch) and the Oxford Movement (In Our Time) to speedway racing.

Departmental web page