Ralph Thompson

About

Ralph is an early modern historian specialising in the Jacobites 1688-1759, North American colonial history, and The Civil War and Interregnum.

Research activity

Ralph holds a BA (Hons) in Modern History and Renaissance Studies (Kingston University), and has completed an MA dissertation in Early Modern European Societies at Birkbeck University (London), which focused on English foreign policy in the Baltic during the 1650s. His research interests have also included Scotland and the War of the Three Kingdoms, Surrey and the Civil War, and the later Stuart and early Georgian armed forces.

Having worked in the Medieval and Early Modern records team since 2012, Ralph has catalogued the SP 41 ‘State Papers Military’, SP 42 ‘State Papers Naval’, and the SP 55 ‘State Papers Scotland’ for the 2015 Jacobite anniversary project.

Project managing the volunteering cataloguing of the PRO 30/55 American Revolutionary War ’Carleton Papers’; Ralph has recently managed the cataloguing of both the SP 35 and SP 36 Hanoverian ‘State Papers Domestic’, of George I and George II. In addition to the SP 32 ‘State Papers Domestic, William and Mary’, the SP 37 ‘State Papers Domestic’, George III, and more recently a joint project to catalogue the SP 31 ‘State Papers Domestic, James II’, and SP 8 ‘King William’s Chest’.

Ralph is currently researching Ireland at the time of the American Revolutionary War for his latest State Papers SP 63 cataloguing project, which includes in-letters and papers assembled by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1775-1782 relating to troop dispositions, matters of trade, the threat of American privateering, and rural unrest for example.

Ralph has written numerous blog posts, has given talks at The National Archives and presented papers at both the Institute of Historical Research, and for local history societies.