I am delighted to FINALLY be able to announce that I am starting a PhD in history in October 2020 with the Open University. I have been fortunate enough to win full funding and a studentship through the AHRC Oxford-Open-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership, which I am SO excited about.
My thesis will be based on the preliminary investigation of Victorian suspicious death. I am obsessed with the Victorian coroner’s court, and its role in justice, as well as the personal stories of the families that came through the inquest system. I’m hoping to learn about the interpersonal dynamics as well as the structural dynamics of the court and how it worked in parallel with the police and criminal courts. I’ll be looking at cases across the Victorian era in Peterborough and Cambridge… so hopefully the archives reopen soon or I’ll be a bit stuck…
This will, obviously, take me a while, and that is why I have closed my books to full family trees for the duration, while I work out the right balance. I’ll let you know when that changes.
Sophie Michell 