Mr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull
BA, Mst, DPhil
Expertise
Current positions
Senior Research Associate
Department of English
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
I am a literary historian of the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries. My research focuses on women’s writing, book history, politics, race, colonialism, enslavement, and material culture from c.1500-1830. My articles and book chapters on these topics have appeared in The Review of English Studies (2020), Women’s Writing (2024), The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing (2026), for which I was also a section editor, and Jonathan Swift in Context (CUP 2024). I am also currently engaged in several editorial projects, including The Cambridge Works of Jonathan Swift, The Complete Works of Margaret Cavendish, and The Collected Letters of Hannah More. Through my previous work as a research associate at UCL on the AHRC-funded ‘Shaping Scholarship: Early Donors to the Bodleian Library’, I am also the co-author of a database of early donations to the Bodleian Library. At present I am developing my doctoral thesis into my first monograph, The Materiality of Women’s Texts in the Longue Durée.
Building on my editorial work as an MHRA Research Fellow on the Bristolian writer and abolitionist Hannah More, at Bristol I am leading an AHRC/YMCA‑funded knowledge‑exchange project. In addition to establishing an onsite heritage-hub and exhibition for the manuscripts I discovered in the property’s basement, ‘The Remarkable History of Barley Wood’ will see me work with the YMCA to communicate and curate the rich history of the property — built by More and later expanded by Bristol’s ‘founding family’ the Wills family of colonial tobacco merchants — for the local community through a program of public engagement events.
Outside of my role at Bristol, at Royal Holloway I am the early modern post-doctoral research associate in history on Dr Matthew Smith's AHRC-funded research and schools engagement project 'Inclusive Histories’. In this role I am working in partnership with the London Archives to explore the role marginalised groups played in the Pilgrimage of Grace, the English Civil War, and the American Revolution. This archival research will be used to generate a teacher-facing resource that promotes a more inclusive approach GCSE History. I am also a Teaching Associate in English on the University of Oxford’s Astrophoria Foundation Year. Prior to joining Bristol, I was a Lecturer in English for several colleges at the University of Oxford, and an Access Officer at UCL.
I am passionate about disseminating my research through public and community engagement work. I have spoken about my research on BBC radio/TV, and have produced taster talks, heritage walking tours, archival open days, outreach summer schools, exhibitions, family days, blog posts, and training sessions for heritage professionals. For recent examples, see the BBC coverage of my work on More, and my blog post on Early Women Donors, Colonialism, and Early Chinese Books in The Bodleian Conveyor.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
'The Remarkable History of Barley Wood'
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of EnglishDates
31/01/2026 to 27/01/2027
Publications
Recent publications
01/01/2024Women Writers
Jonathan Swift in Context
The Reading, Reception, and Collecting of Isabella Whitney’s A Sweet Nosgay, c.1573–1871
Women's Writing
Originality, Plagiarism, and Posthumous Publication
Review of English Studies