Petitions, Parliament, and People in the Long Nineteenth Century: Petitions from Women.

The PhD studentship is available as part of the 'Re-thinking Petitions, Parliament, and People in the Long Nineteenth Century' project generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2016-097). This new initiative, led by Dr. Richard Huzzey (Durham) and Dr. Henry Miller (Durham), explores the powerful role of parliamentary petitioning in the development of modern Britain and exploits the under-used records of the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Petitions.

Applicants are encouraged to pursue their own research interests within the broad research areas we have identified for an achievable PhD project. The student will work collaboratively with the rest of the project team on our broader contextualisation of parliamentary petitioning, receiving due credit as co-authors for the project's published articles. The project's advisory team includes Dr. Sarah Richardson who will supervise this studentship at the University of Warwick.

Project Details

This studentship will be based at the University of Warwick exploring petitions to the House of Commons from women within the period 1787-1918. There is considerable scope for the student to shape the dissertation focus, which might include - but is not limited to - topics such as:

• When and where women signed petitions alongside men, and whether this varied according to the subject;

• To what extent petitions included exclusively female signatures;

• The extra-parliamentary role of petitioning alongside other forms of female political engagement; or,

• The role of petitioning in female-led campaigns, either through a case study or comparison.

The successful candidate will be supervised by Dr. Sarah Richardson (Warwick) with Dr. Richard Huzzey (Durham) and Dr. Henry Miller (Durham) as external supervisors. The studentship will begin on October 1st 2016 or as soon as possible thereafter.

For informal enquiries about the scope and details of the project applicants are encouraged to email Dr. Sarah Richardson or, Dr. Richard Huzzey.

Eligibility

Eligible candidates ought to have a first- or upper-second-class honours degree or equivalent and they should have completed a masters-level qualification achieving Merit or above, or be expecting to complete this by the PhD start date.

This studentship is open to applications from home, EU and international students. The funding details are subject to final confirmation but the award will cover tuition fees at Home/EU rates and a standard postgraduate grant (stipend) towards living expenses for three years (full-time study) which is likely to be £14,057.Please note:- international students will be required to fund the difference in fees themselves.

How to Apply

Applicants should submit the following documents to Robert Horton (r.s.horton@warwick.ac.uk) no later than 5pm on Monday 12th September 2016:

• A curriculum vitae (no more than 2 pages)

• A research proposal

• A brief letter outlining their qualification for the studentship

• The names and contact details of two academic referees

All documents should be submitted in either MS Word or PDF format. Shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete an application for the PhD in History at Warwick University. The interview date for shortlisted candidates is yet to be confirmed.

Acknowledgement of Funding

The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925 the Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education. Today, it is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing approximately £80m a year. For more information about the Trust, please visit www.leverhulme.ac.uk.