Dr Evan Jones

Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History, Director of Teaching

Office: 1.42, 13 Woodland Road

Phone: +44 (0)117 928 8971

Research interests

Specialises in late medieval -early modern maritime history, particularly in relation to Bristol. His current research interests lie in three main areas:

The illicit trade of early modern England. He has recently completed a book on this subject, with his work also featuring in a number of popular publications, including programmes on Radio 4 and an article in BBC History Magazine (July 2012).

Bristol's fifteenth-sixteenth century voyages of discovery. He has written four articles in this field and is now running a research project, entitled The Cabot Project, that is pushing forward the research.

Irish overseas trade and economic development in the sixteenth century. This research is connected to his former ESRC-funded project Ireland-Bristol Trade in the Sixteenth Century (2006-2008). He is currently preparing two articles, which are outputs of this project.

Research supervision

He welcomes proposals on the social or economic aspects of Bristol's medieval or early modern past. He would also be happy to supervise work on the maritime history of these periods, or on other aspects of Britain's pre-modern transport history. He has supervised co-supervised five research students to completion and is currently involved in supervising five others:

David Sivier, 'The development of Bridgwater in the medieval and early modern period' (PhD), co-supervisor with Mark Horton
John Reeks, 'Rebuilding the parishes: revolutions and restorations in the diocese of Bath and Wells, 1625-1662' ' (MLitt/PhD), second supervisor to Ronald Hutton
Rachel Granville, 'Channel counties and seabourne trade during England’s commercial expansion, 1660-80. A study of amateur journalists’ reports from the English Channel coastline' (MLitt/PhD), lead supervisor with Ronald Hutton
Alex Higgins, 'The establishment of the Port of Gloucester, 1576-84' (MPhil)
Claire Tremlett, 'The rise of sartorial consumerism in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century England’ (MPhil), lead supervisor with Ronald Hutton

Completed theses:

Richard Stone, 'The overseas trade of Bristol in the seventeenth century' (PhD, 2012).
Chris Heal, 'The hatting industry of Bristol & South Gloucestershire, 1540-1900' (PhD, 2012)
Susan Flavin, 'Consumption and Material Culture in Sixteenth-Century Ireland' (PhD, 2011)
Duncan Taylor, 'Sixteenth-century maritime trade of the smaller ports of the Bristol Channel' (PhD, 2010)
David Jones, ‘John Whitson (c.1557-1629): ‘the best type of merchant’?’ (MPhil, 2006)

Teaching

Special Field: 'The Smugglers' City'
Reflective History unit: 'Discovering America'
MA Option: 'Bristol, c.1000-1542'

Selected publications

Inside the Illicit Economy: Reconstructing the Smugglers' Trade of Sixteenth Century Bristol (Ashgate, June 2012)
'Henry VII and the Bristol expeditions to North America: the Condon documents', Historical Research, 83 (August, 2010), 444-455. First published in 'Early View', August 2009. Copies of this article are available for free from the journal.
Susan Flavin & Evan T. Jones (eds.), Bristol’s Trade with Ireland and the Continent: The Evidence of the Exchequer Customs Accounts (Dublin, 2009), c.1,106 pp.
'The Journal of the Voyage of the Marigold to Iceland, 1654' in S. Rose (ed.), The Naval Miscellany, Vol. VII, Navy Records Society, Vol. 153 (2008).
'Alwyn Ruddock: "John Cabot and the Discovery of America "', Historical Research, 81, (May, 2008), 224-254. Copies of this article are available for free from the journal. This article was first published online in April 2007.
'The Matthew of Bristol and the financiers of John Cabot's 1497 voyage to North America', English Historical Review, 121 (2006), 778-95. An Abstract, HTML version and PDF copy are all freely available from the journal.
'Charting the world of English fishermen in early modern Iceland', Mariner's Mirror, 90 (2004). An electronic pre-print of this preface is available on ROSE.
'Illicit business: accounting for smuggling in mid-sixteenth century Bristol', Economic History Review, 54 (2001). Winner of the Economic History Society's "T.S. Ashton Prize" in 2001. It is available as an E-Print on ROSE.
'River navigation in medieval England', Journal of Historical Geography, 26 (2000).
'England's Icelandic fishery in the early modern period' in D. J. Starkey et al. (eds.), England's Sea Fisheries: The Commercial Sea Fisheries of England and Wales since 1300 (Chatham Press, 2000). An E-Print of this chapter is available on ROSE.

Electronic publications

He has published a number his annotated document transcriptions through the Bristol Repository of Scholarly Eprints (ROSE) for the use of both his students and other researchers. Examples include:

His unpublished thesis is also available online:

'The Bristol shipping industry in the sixteenth century' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh, 1998)

Full publications

Full list of Dr Jones's publications as held in the University's IRIS publications database

Note: some of the documents on this page are in PDF format. In order to view a PDF you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader

Department of History

Prospective students

Current students

About the department

Research

Lifelong Learning