Professor Antony Taylor
Professor of Modern British History
Summary
I am a Professor of Modern British History at Sheffield Hallam University. I am primarily a historian of nineteenth-century Britain. My areas of expertise are in nineteenth-century popular politics, republicanism, anti-monarchism and monarchism, the history of ideas, and metropolitan history. I have written widely in the areas of post-Chartist politics, radical historical memory, the uses of the past by politicians operating on the British political platform and in regard to the print culture of the radical underworld. I have also examined the connections between thriller writers, sensation fiction, and popular politics in a number of articles and in a recent monograph. In more current work I have begun to explore transnational exchanges between progressives in Britain, the Nordic countries and in New Zealand.
About
Antony Taylor is a modern British historian working in the field of popular politics, historical memory and commemoration, and the history of platform radicalism in Britain and the broader empire. He has written widely on the themes of British republicanism, opposition to aristocracy, and the debates surrounding the expansion of the franchise in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His most recent book ‘London’s Burning’: Pulp Fiction, the Politics of Terrorism and the Destruction of the Capital in British Popular Culture, 1840-2005 (Bloomsbury, 2012), locates moral panics about terrorism and its impact in a historical context and considers the role of popular fiction in disseminating fears about political violence and state subversion. Antony Taylor has wide interests in transnationalism, migration, and comparative models of political activity. He is currently engaged in a research project on transnationalism and welfare reform that draws on collaborations with colleagues in Australia. Tony has proved instrumental in the opening up of the field of Australian Studies as an area for teaching and research in British universities. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
British political history, metropolitan history, history of ideas, thriller writing
Teaching
College of Social Sciences and Arts
History
BA History and BA English and History
Level 5: ‘The Cold War Era’ and ‘London: Literary and Historical Perspectives, 1728-1914’; Level 6: ‘Australia: Penal Settlement to Nation, 1788-2000’ and ‘Community Engagement and Civic Activism’.
Research
Transnational exchanges between Britain, the Nordic countries and New Zealand
Radical historical memory and the uses of the national past
utopian communities in Britain and the wider world in the late nineteenth-century
Publications
Journal articles
Taylor, T., & Enderby, J. (2021). From ‘flame’ to embers? Whatever happened to the English radical tradition c.1880-2020? Cultural and Social History, 1-22. http://doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2021.1893922
Taylor, A.D. (2020). 'At the Mercy of the German Eagle': images of London in dissolution in the novels of William Le Queux. Critical Survey, 32 (1/2), 59. https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/critical-survey/32/1-2/cs32010203.xml
Taylor, A. (2018). "The Pioneers of the Great Army of Democrats": The Mythology and Popular History of the British Labour Party, 1890-1931. Historical Research, 91 (254), 723-743. http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.12235
Taylor, T. (2018). "The Local in the Global": memories of northern industrial protest in a transnational context, 1880-1930. International Journal of Regional and Local History, 13 (2), 118-133. http://doi.org/10.1080/20514530.2018.1523322
Taylor, A. (2016). The Transnational Turn in British Labour History. Labour history review, 81 (1), 77-87. http://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2016.4
Taylor, A. (2016). The Whiteway Anarchists in the Twentieth Century: a transnational community in the Cotswolds. History, 101 (344), 62-83. http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.12142
Taylor, A. (2013). Chinese Emigration to Australia around 1900: A Re‐examination of Australia’s ‘Great White Walls’. History Compass, 11 (2), 104-116. http://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12032
Taylor, T. (2012). 'We dream our dream still' ruralism, empire and the debate about New Australia in Britain. Labour history review, 77 (2), 163-187. http://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2012.11
TAYLOR, A. (2010). ‘The Old Chartist’: Radical Veterans on the Late Nineteenth‐ and Early Twentieth‐Century Political Platform. History, 95 (320), 458-476. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-229x.2010.00495.x
Taylor, A. (2005). 'A melancholy odyssey among London public houses': radical club life and the unrespectable in mid-nineteenth-century London. Historical Research, 78 (199), 74-95. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2005.00229.x
TAYLOR, A. (2002). SHAKESPEARE AND RADICALISM: THE USES AND ABUSES OF SHAKESPEARE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY POPULAR POLITICS. The Historical Journal, 45 (2), 357-379. http://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x0200242x
TAYLOR, A. (2001). SHORTER NOTICES. The English Historical Review, CXVI (468), 976-977. http://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cxvi.468.976
Taylor, A., & Trainor, L. (1999). Monarchism and anti‐monarchism: Anglo—Australian comparisonsc.1870–1901. Social History, 24 (2), 158-173. http://doi.org/10.1080/03071029908568060
TAYLOR, A. (1997). ‘The Best Way to Get What He Wantedrsquo;: Ernest Jones and the Boundaries of Liberalism in the Manchester Election of 1868. Parliamentary History, 16 (2), 185-204. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-0206.1997.tb00225.x
Taylor, A. (1995). “Commons-Stealers”, “Land-Grabbers” and “Jerry-Builders”: Space, Popular Radicalism and the Politics of Public Access in London, 1848–1880. International Review of Social History, 40 (3), 383-407. http://doi.org/10.1017/s0020859000113392
(1995). Notes on Contributors. International Review of Social History, 40 (3), 521. http://doi.org/10.1017/s0020859000113550
TAYLOR, A. (1995). Reynolds's Newspaper, Opposition to Monarchy and the Radical Anti-Jubilee: Britain's Anti-Monarchist Tradition Reconsidered. Historical Research, 68 (167), 318-337. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.1995.tb02120.x
Taylor, A. (1995). New Views of an Old Moral World: An Appraisal of Robert Owen. Labor History, 36 (1), 88-94. http://doi.org/10.1080/00236569512331385382
Taylor, A. (1994). Palmerston and Radicalism, 1847–1865. Journal of British Studies, 33 (2), 157-179. http://doi.org/10.1086/386049
Conference papers
Taylor, A. (2022). “Urban Dreaming”Memories of the City in Migrant Discourses of Separation and Exodus to Australia and New Zealand, 1850–1930. In Cornelissen, C., Kümin, B., & Rospocher, M. (Eds.) Migrationa nd the European City, Trento, Italy, 18 September 2019 - 20 September 2019 (pp. 233-250). De Gruyter Oldenbourg: http://doi.org/10.1515/9783110778687-013
Book chapters
Taylor, A. (2023). ‘Whatever happened to all the heroes?’: The monumental failure of British plebeian radicalism, c.1850–1920. In Memory and Modern British Politics: Commemoration, Tradition, Legacy. (pp. 193-216).
Taylor, T. (2018). 'Sectarian Secret Wisdom' and Nineteenth-Century Radicalism: The IWMA in London and New York. In Bensimon, F., Deluermoz, Q., & Jeanne, M. (Eds.) "Arise Ye Wretched of the Earth": the first international in a global perspective. (pp. 282-296). Leiden: Brill: https://brill.com/view/title/33815
Taylor, A. (2015). 'Godless Edens': surveillance, eroticised anarchy and 'depraved' communities in Britain and the wider world, 1890-1930. In Pliley, J., Kramm-Masaoka, R., & Fischer-Tine, H. (Eds.) Global Anti-Vice Activism 1890-1950: Fighting Drink, Drugs and 'Immorality'. (pp. 29-58). New York: Cambridge University Press: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/global-history/global-anti-vice-activism-18901950-fighting-drinks-drugs-and-immorality?format=HB&isbn=9781107102668
Taylor, T. (2013). 'The glamour of independence': by-elections and radicalism during the Liberal Meridian, 1869-83. In Otte, T., & Readman, P. (Eds.) By-elections in British Politics. (pp. 99-120). Woodbridge: Boydell and brewer
(2011). Evil, Barbarism and Empire. Palgrave Macmillan UK: http://doi.org/10.1057/9780230319325
Taylor, T. (2010). Richard Cobden, J.E. Thorold Rogers and Henry George. In Cragoe, M., & Readman, P. (Eds.) The land question in Britain, 1750-1950. (pp. 146-166). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Taylor, T. (2008). Some little or contemptible war upon her hands : Reynolds's newspaper and empire. In Humpherys, A., & James, L. (Eds.) G.W.M. Reynolds: nineteenth-century fiction, politics and the press. (pp. 99-119). Aldershot: Ashgate
(2005). London Politics, 1760–1914. Palgrave Macmillan UK: http://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522794
Books
Taylor, T. (2012). London's burning : pulp fiction, the politics of terrorism and the destruction of the capital in British popular culture, 1840-2005. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Taylor, A. (2004). Lords of Misrule. Palgrave Macmillan UK. http://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514003
Other activities
2016: Chair of the Open University Revalidation Panel, BA History, the American College of Greece, Athens.
2010-16. External Adviser, Management Committee, Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, Trinity and All Saints University, Leeds.
2013: External panel adviser for the Periodic Programme Review of all current Arts provision at the Open University at the Walton Hall Campus.
2013: Internal Process Panel Member and Adviser, Open University Revalidation Panel, BA History with Combined Studies, the American International University in London, Richmond.
2010-13: External Examiner, BA History, Anglia-Ruskin University, Cambridge.
2009: External Panel Member, Programme Review and Revalidation Panel, BA History, Manchester Metropolitan University
Postgraduate supervision
‘A Willing Herbivore? The BBC and the Festival of Britain, 1951’. Director of Studies.
‘Popular Culture, Literature and Empire in the Inter-War Period’. Director of Studies.
‘Creating and Depicting the ‘Hong Konger’ between 1898 and 1997’. Director of Studies.
‘The Popular Front and the British Radical Tradition’. Director of Studies.
‘The Employment of POWs in Britain, 1944-1948’, 2nd Supervisor.
‘Transnational British Fascism’ (co-supervisor with The University of Middlesborough)
‘From Sheffield to Raleigh: International Publishing Networks in the Long Eighteenth Century' (Ph.D, 2011). Director of Studies
‘ Local Authority Healthcare in Sheffield, 1918-1948’ (Ph.D, 2009). Director of Studies
‘Wilfred Lawson: Attitudes to British Imperial and Foreign Policy’ (Ph.D, 2008). 2nd supervisor
‘Holberry: The Making of a Screenplay Placed in a Theoretical Context’ (M.Phil, 2003). 2nd supervisor
Media
I have written for the national press and appeared on both national television and radio discussing a range of subjects, notably opposition to the monarchy, the origins of the Labour Party reform of parliamentary institutions and militant environmental politics. .