About

I am an historian of twentieth century British Christianity, with interests in four interlocking areas:

(i) the position of the Church of England in national life, and the question of faith, politics and the law more generally. My 2015 book on Michael Ramsey, archbishop of Canterbury, dealt with this theme, amongst others.
(ii) the history of evangelical Christianity, particularly in the UK;
(iii) the relationship between the Christian churches and the arts. My most recent book is on Walter Hussey, Anglican patron of the arts;
(iv) the digital turn in contemporary history, with a very particular interest in the archived Web as a new kind of historical source.

I am based in the south of England, where my day job is being managing director of Webster Research and Consulting, which works with libraries, archives and universities to help understand what users need from digital resources, and working with technologists to meet those needs.

Other Publications

Books

2020: The Edited Collection: Pasts, Present and Futures (Cambridge University Press). [Read a summary].

2017: Church and Patronage in 20th Century Britain. Walter Hussey and the arts (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan) [See a summary.]

2015: Archbishop Ramsey: the shape of the church [one of Ashgate’s series on the archbishops of Canterbury. See a summary]

Articles and book chapters

2022 (forthcoming): ‘”Poet of church and state”: C. H. Sisson and the Church of England’ in Victoria Moul and John Talbot (eds), C. H. Sisson Reconsidered (Palgrave Macmillan)

2021: ‘Theology, providence and Anglican-Methodist reunion: the case of Michael Ramsey and E. L. Mascall’, in Jane Platt and Martin Wellings (eds), Anglican-Methodist Ecumenism: The Search for Church Unity, 1920-2020 (Routledge), pp.102-17.

2021: ‘Eric Mascall and the responsibility of the theologian in England, 1962-1977’, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church. Read the version of record (£) at DOI: 10.1080/1474225X.2022.2014243, or an Open Access PDF.

2021: ‘Digital archaeology in the web of links: reconstructing a late-90s web sphere’ in Gomes, Demidova, Winters and Risse (eds), The past Web: exploring Web archives (Springer), pp.155-64. [ Open Access PDF, publisher’s version of record (£) ]

2020: ‘Parliament and the law of the Church of England, 1945-74’ in Rodger, Williamson and Grimley (eds), The Church of England and British Politics since 1900 (Boydell and Brewer), pp.181-98. Read an abbreviated version.

2017: ‘Religious discourse in the archived web: Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, and the sharia law controversy of 2008’ in The Web as History: the first two decades (edited by Niels Brügger and Ralph Schroeder, UCL Press). See this post or the free PDF download.

2013: (with John Maiden) ‘Parliament, the Church of England and the last gasp of political Protestantism, 1961-4’, Parliamentary History, 32:2, 361-377 
[Read it here. (DOI: 10.1111/1750-0206.12020) ]

2012: ‘The archbishops of Canterbury, the Lord Chamberlain and the censorship of the theatre, 1909-49’, Studies in Church History 48, pp.437-448. Read it here

2012: ‘ George Bell, John Masefield and The Coming of Christ: context and significance’ in Andrew Chandler (ed.), The Church and Humanity. The Life and Work of George Bell, 1883-1958, Ashgate, pp.47-57 (ISBN: 978-1-40942-556-4). This is a revised version of the article first published in Humanitas (see 2009 below).

2010:  ‘Archbishop Temple’s offer of a Lambeth degree to Dorothy L. Sayers’ (edition and introduction) in Barber, Taylor and Sewell (eds), From the Reformation to the Permissive Society (Church of England Record Society, 2010) pp.565-82.  [Read it here] (ISBN: 978-1-84383-558-5)

2009:  ‘George Bell, John Masefield and ‘The Coming of Christ’: context and significance’, Humanitas. The Journal of the George Bell Institute 10:2 (2009) [Full text in SAS-Space ]

2009: (with Ian Jones), “New Music and the ‘Evangelical Style’ in the Church of England 1958-1990” in Mark Smith (ed.), British Evangelical Identities (Carlisle, Paternoster Press, 2009), pp.167-79. [Full text in SAS-Space ] (ISBN: 978-1-84227-390-6)

2008: “The “revival” of the visual arts in the Church of England, c.1935-c.1956″, in Studies in Church History 44 (2008), 297-306. [Full text in SAS-Space.]

2008: “‘Beauty, utility and “Christian civilisation”: the Church of England and war memorials, 1940-47’, in Forum for Modern Language Studies, 44;2 (2008) 199-211. Version of record online for subscribing institutions; read the final version in proof here.]

2007: (co-authored with Ian Jones, Director of the St Peter’s Saltley Trust), “Expressions of Authenticity: Music for Worship” in Jane Garnett, Matthew Grimley, Alana Harris, William Whyte, Sarah Williams (eds), Redefining Christian Britain: Post-1945 perspectives (SCM Press, 2007) [Full text on SAS-Space]

2006: (with Ian Jones), ‘Anglican “Establishment” Reactions to “Pop” Church Music in England, c.1956-1991’ in Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (eds), Elite and Popular Religion (Studies in Church History 42, 2006) pp.429-441. [Full text available on SAS-Space.]

2006: (with Ian Jones), ‘The theological problem of popular music for worship in contemporary Christianity’, Crucible. The journal of Christian social ethics (July-Sept). [Full text available in SAS-Space.]

 

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