Dr Joe Cozens
- Roles
- Author
- Researcher
Records Specialist – 19th century Parliament
About
Joe is a social and political historian who works across parliamentary, legal, and official records, to explore the themes of political reform and public order in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. He is interested in the ways that diverse groups of people participated in politics and laid claims on Parliament.
Research activity
Before joining The National Archives, Dr Cozens taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Modern British History at University College London (2018-2024) and the University of Essex (2016-18), where he took his PhD in history. His doctoral research examined civil-military relations in Britain during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
In the lead up to the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre (1819-2019), Dr Cozens participated in several public engagement projects, and published work on the evolving memory of Peterloo up to the present.
Joe’s current research consists of a book project exploring the militarisation of tax enforcement and riot-control in England and Wales from the Riot Act (1715) to the Reform Act (1832). This work draws on records held at The National Archives to investigate the role of the British Army and the Royal Navy in the suppression of smuggling gangs and street protests (i.e. food riots, trade union unrest, and political meetings).
Publications
- J. Cozens, ‘The Temple Bar Token: A Portal to London’s Radical Past’ in Sarah Lloyd and Timothy Millett (eds), Tokens of Love, Loss and Disrespect, 1700-1850 (London: Paul Holberton, 2022), 143-49.
- J. Cozens, ‘A Usable Past: The First Centennial of Peterloo (1919)’, History Today, 69:8 (2019), 12-15.
- J. Cozens, ‘The Making of the Peterloo Martyrs, 1819 to the Present’, in Keith Laybourn and Quentin Outram (eds), Secular Martyrdom in Britain and Ireland: From Peterloo to the Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 31-58.
- J. Cozens, ‘‘The Blackest Perjury’: Desertion, Military Justice, and Popular Politics in England, 1803–1805’, Labour History Review, Vol. 79, No. 3 (2014), pp. 255-280.
Articles
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Focus on
Blood in the Wear: The Sunderland Sailors' Strike and the North Sands Massacre of August 1825
Records 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.