Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Leggett CV Oct 2014 No Refs
Leggett CV Oct 2014 No Refs
Citizenship
Date of birth
British
27 April 1984
Academic Positions
2014
2014
2010
Research associate in the history of science & technology, School of History, University of
Kent, UK (2010-2014).
2006
2005
Research assistant, Ocean steamship project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council, University of Kent, UK (2005).
Education
2010
2006
2005
Young Scholar Prize, International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, Division of
History of Science and Technology.
Outstanding PhD dissertation prize, awarded every four years.
2012
Velde visiting scholar, Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Illinois, USA.
2010
2009
2008
British Council research fellowship, John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, USA.
Areas of Specialisation
History of science and technology; British history 1700-1950; naval and maritime history; expertise
and the state; science, technology and war; cultural history.
Publications
Books
Scientific governance in Britain, 1914-1979, ed. with Charlotte Sleigh (contracted to
Manchester University Press, manuscript undergoing peer review).
2015
Shaping the Royal Navy: technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830-1906
(Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2015), pp. xii+320.
2012
Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800-1918, ed. with Richard
Dunn (Ashgate: Farnham, 2012), pp. xvi+224.
Reviews featured in Isis; Technology and Culture; Victorian Studies; Journal for Maritime
Research; The Northern Mariner; International Journal of Maritime History; ICON; Journal of
Transport History.
Expertise and authority in the Royal Navy, 1800-1945, guest editor [with James Davey],
Journal for Maritime Research 16 (2014).
Introduction: expertise and authority in the Royal Navy [with James Davey], Journal for
Maritime Research 16 (2014): 1-13.
2014
Naval architecture, expertise and navigating authority in the British Admiralty, c.1885-1906,
Journal for Maritime Research 16 (2014): 73-88.
2013
William Froude, John Henry Newman and scientific practice in the culture of Victorian
doubt, English Historical Review 128 (2013): 571-595.
2013
2012
Neptunes new clothes: actors, iron and the identity of the mid-Victorian warship, in Don
Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime
world, 1800-1918 (Ashgate: Farnham, 2012): 71-92.
2012
Introduction: science, technology and the ship, [with Richard Dunn], in Don Leggett &
Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 18001918 (Ashgate: Farnham, 2012): 1-7.
2011
Spectacle and witnessing: constructing readings of Parsons marine turbine, Technology &
Culture 52 (2011): 287-309.
Challenging contexts in the history of physics, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 45
(2015): 501-510.
2011
Navy, nation and identity in the long nineteenth century, Journal for Maritime Research 13
(2011): 151-163.
Book Reviews
Robert J. Blyth, Jan Rger & Andrew Lambert, The Dreadnought and the Edwardian Age
(Farnham, 2011), Journal for Maritime Research (forthcoming).
2012
The making of the modern Admiralty: British naval policy-making, 1805-1927. C.I. Hamilton
(Cambridge, 2011), Journal of British Studies 51 (2012): 496-498.
2012
A floating commonwealth: politics, culture and technology on Britains Atlantic coast, 18601930. Christopher Harvie (Oxford, 2008), Journal for Maritime Research 14 (2012): 131-133.
Presented Papers
Conference and invited papers presented in Cambridge, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, Lisbon, London,
Manchester, Oxford, Pittsburgh, Washington DC.
2015
'Composed engineers: Frank Aydelotte, composition training and the liberal education of
engineers in early twentieth-century America', British Society for the History of Science
annual conference, Swansea, UK.
2015
Constructing progress and improvement: science, religion and culture on the Clyde, Science
and engineering in cultural context, University of Kent, UK.
2015
Reward, credibility and the amateur inventor in the Great War, Physics and the Great War,
Oxford University, UK.
2015
Shaping the Royal Navy: technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830-1906, School of
Humanities and Social Sciences seminar program, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan.
2014
Restoring Victory: naval commemoration, heritage and identity in post-Great War Britain,
War, Society and Culture Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, UK.
2013
Give me a laboratory and I will win you a war: governing invention and research in the
British Admiralty, 1914-1919, Legacies of War seminar series, University of Leeds, UK.
2013
[T]he hash and muddle and quackery of our technical side is appalling: H.G. Wells and the
representation of science and invention in war, Putting Knowledge to War symposium,
International Congress for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Manchester,
UK.
2013
Architects into managers: extending the boundaries of expertise in the naval dockyards,
Naval expertise and the making of the modern world, Oxford University, UK.
2013
The new Allahs most puissant prophet: H.G. Wells, science and invention, School of
History seminar programme, University of Kent, UK.
Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 3
2012
Model ships, model science and test tank replication, Understanding Technology Lecture at
National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.
Highlighted in the Independent newspapers top ten talks for Autumn 2012.
2012
Judging expertise: the case of naval architecture, c.1830-1850, British sea power: expertise
and the state, 1800-1914, National Maritime Museum, UK.
2012
Modernity, nostalgia and the ship in the long-nineteenth century, British Maritime History
Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, UK.
2011
[T]heir mathematics and navigation may be well enough but they have not had the
opportunity of becoming seamen: sailors and tacit knowledge in early nineteenth-century
naval architecture, British Society for the History of Science annual conference, Exeter, UK.
2010
Parsons patents and partnerships: networks of authorship, cost and credibility in the steam
turbine, Managing knowledge in the techno-sciences, 1850-2000, University of Leeds, UK.
2010
Love of innovation for its own sake: science and the construction of naval power in
Edwardian and Great War Britain, National Maritime Museum seminar, London, UK.
2009
Shaping the Victorian navy: experience, experiment and the culture of expertise, Steam, sail
and science: making the Victorian and Edwardian maritime world conference, London, UK.
2009
Naval traditions and the politics of technological change, Past versus present: British
Association for Victorian Studies/North American Victorian Studies Association, Cambridge
University, UK.
2009
Test tanks and travelling technicians: comparative contexts and experimental sites of naval
science, 1872-1911, British Society for the History of Science annual conference, Leicester, UK.
Panel co-organiser, What comparative history can offer to the history of science.
2009
2009
Scientists and sailors: fighting to shape the Victorian navy, Departmental research seminar,
University of Kent, UK.
2008
Shaping the Victorian navy: experiment, experience and expertise in mid-Victorian naval
architecture, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA.
2008
What shapes a ship? The cultural construction of U.S. naval science and technology, 18801914, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA.
2008
Our doubts in fact appear to me as sacred: William Froude, test tanks and Victorian
doubt, History of Science Society Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, USA.
2008
2008
The authority of tradition: memory, testimony and technological change in the Victorian
Navy, Cultural memory: forgetting to remember/remembering to forget, University of Kent,
UK.
2008
Our doubts in fact appear to me as sacred: William Froude, test tanks and Victorian
doubt, The British Association for Victorian Studies ninth annual conference: Victorian
feeling, Leicester University, UK.
2008
Our doubts in fact appear to me as sacred: following religion and morality through
scientific practice, New perspectives: second annual conference of the religious history
society, York University, UK.
2008
The reverend lunatic and the catastrophic captain: disconnecting disciplines from
shipbuilding, Connecting disciplines: British Society of the History of Science three societies
meeting, Oxford, UK.
Panel organiser Naval science and technology in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
2008
William Froude, mechanical thought and the culture of Victorian doubt: a case-study in the
cultural history of science and shipbuilding, AHRC South-East Hub for History postgraduate
conference 2008, University of Reading, UK.
2008
The very principle of thinking and concluding: William Froude, John Henry Newman and
the cultures of Victorian naval science, Departmental research seminar, University of Kent,
UK.
2008
Marine performance, marine pageant, British Society of the History of Science postgraduate
conference, Leeds, UK.
2007
Contexts of knowledge and trust in Edwardian naval architecture and marine engineering,
AHRC South-East Hub for History postgraduate conference 2007, University of Kent, UK.
2014
2013
2012
2012
Velde visiting scholar, Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Illinois, USA,
2,000.
2011
2011
2009
2008
British Council research fellowship, John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, USA, 3,500.
2007
Doctoral research award, Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, 25,000.
2007
2007
2014
2013
Putting Knowledge to War: Place, Practice and Production in the Great War.
Symposium organiser (with Roy MacLeod), International Congress for the History of Science,
Technology and Medicine, Manchester, UK.
2012
2011
2010
2010
2009
Steam, sail and science: making the Victorian and Edwardian maritime world.
Conference organiser (with Richard Dunn), University of Kent, UK.
2008
Teaching
Nazarbayev University
2015 Science, politics and the state in comparative context, c.1850-1980 (2015)
400 level, convenor and seminar leader.
2015
2014
2014
University of Kent
2014 Geographies of knowledge, c.1750-1950 (2014)
Master level module, convenor and seminar leader.
2013
2011
2010
2010
2010
Cultural history of the Great War: Britain, Germany and France in comparison (2010, 2014).
Second and third year module, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.
2009
2006
Professional Service
For the academy
2015
British Journal for the History of Science, book reviews editor (2015-).
2014
2012
2014
2011
2010
History postgraduate reading group, University of Kent, founder and convenor (2010-2012).
References
Available on request