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Personal History

After completing my undergraduate degree at Monash, I worked for a decade in (Victorian State) politics and other administrative and policy roles before returning to History study to complete a M.A. at the University of Melbourne and a doctorate at the University of Oxford.

Current Research

I am working on an Australian Research Council funded study of the influence of local conditions on the transformation of traditional ideas into modern political cultures and attitudes, particularly comparing late 18th/early 19th century Britain and colonial Australia. I am particularly interested in the role of social distrust in the development of political cultures.

Major Publications

Books
The Politics of the Poor: The East End of London 1885-1914, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004
Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia, Monash University ePress, Melbourne 2005 [Edited, with Graeme Davison]

Chapters in books
'Late Victorian and Edwardian Slum Conservatism: how different were the politics of the London Poor', in M. Cragoe and A. Taylor (eds.), London Politics 1760-1914, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2005
'The politics of rural nostalgia between the wars', in G.Davison and M.Brodie (eds.), Struggle Country: the rural ideal in twentieth century Australia, Monash University ePress, Melbourne 2005

Major journal articles
'Voting in the Victorian and Edwardian East End of London',Parliamentary History, Vol.23, Part 2, 2004, pp. 225-248
' "A valuable but minority section": The Country Townspeople's League and responses to farmer politics in 1920s Victorian country towns', History Australia, Vol.1, No.1, Dec. 2003, pp. 58-72
'Free trade and cheap theatre: sources of politics for the nineteenth-century London poor', Social History, Vol.28, No.3, Oct. 2003, pp. 346-361

Refereed Journal Articles
'Friendship, trust and political influence in poor-working class Britain', History Australia, Monash University ePress, 2006, pp. 41.1-41.11

Areas of Research & Supervision

British nineteenth century urban and working-class history; Australian regional political history; popular conservatism.

Teaching

INT1010 - Contemporary Worlds 1
INT1020 - Contemporary Worlds 2
HSY2/3055 - Murder and Mayhem: The London Underworld from the 18th to the 20th Centuries
HYM4640 - The World Since 1900
GLM4000 - Globalising research methods
GLM5000 - Global Research Project
GLM5001 - Global Workplace Project