Dr Joe Cozens
- Role
- Author
19th Century Social and Political Records Researcher at The National Archives
About
Part of the Modern Britain team, Joe works across legal, military, and financial records to explore histories of crime, protest, ‘disorder’ and the law in 18th and 19th-century Britain. His current research focuses on challenges to public order and the ways the British state sought to control smuggling gangs and protesting crowds.
More broadly, he is a proponent of ‘history from below’ and is interested in reading official records ‘against the grain’ to foreground and better understand the lives of disadvantaged and marginalised groups in the past.
Articles
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Focus on
Blood in the Wear: The Sunderland Sailors' Strike and the North Sands Massacre of August 1825
NewRecords of a coroner’s inquest on the body of the sailor Thomas Aird reveal details of a little-known seamen’s strike that was brutally suppressed.
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Focus on
Smuggling gangs and coastal policing in 19th-century England
Following the Napoleonic Wars, smuggling became a major concern for the British government.