Dr Alex Windscheffel - Senior Lecturer in Modern British History

I am a specialist in the history of modern Britain, from the early nineteenth century through to the present. I am particularly interested in the ways in which politics and culture interact and collide.

My first book was a study of late Victorian London Conservatism - a time when the Conservative Party was actually the dominant force in London politics. I still am primarily an historian of the Victorian period, and teach widely on this period at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. My current research is a study of Victorian bankrupts and bankruptcy. I’m especially fascinated by how the nineteenth-century legal process was driven by ideas of manliness, morality, risk and failure. My interest in Conservativism has extended in a more contemporary direction since publishing my first book, and I am particularly fascinated by popular Conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s. I teach a final-year module on Margaret Thatcher which covers political and cultural life in this period , but also asks students to think about the challenges of contemporary history. This teaching is backed by new research directions – for example, into the approach of the Thatcher governments towards Eastern Europe. I would particularly welcome applications from doctoral candidates looking to work with me in this developing and exciting area of recent British political and cultural history.

I am an experienced supervisor with a growing number of successful supervisees on a wide range of topics in modern British history, and am always keen to talk to new potential supervisees to work with me at Royal Holloway in all areas of my education and research interests. 

Email - a.windscheffel@rhul.ac.uk