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My work explores the social, political, and legal dimensions of economic change in Britain since the 1700s, focusing on the rise of big business in the nineteenth century. I have published on subjects ranging from the early history of corporate governance and the regulation and punishment of commercial fraud, to the history of financial reporting and literary representations of commerce.

PhD Supervision Interests

I am keen to hear from students researching the following areas - topics connecting economic, social and cultural history since 1800; history of financial fraud and crime; history of joint-stock companies and corporate governance; history of advertising and consumerism. Do contact me if you would like to discuss your research plans.

Current Teaching

Hist280: The Victorians and Before: Britain, 1783-1901

Hist281: Britain in the Twentieth Century

Hist343: Advertising and Consumerism in Britain, 1853-1960

Research Interests

My first monograph, Creating Capitalism, won the 2008 Economic History Society Prize for best first monograph in Economic and Social History; my second, Shareholder Democracies (co-authored with Mark Freeman and Robin Pearson), was published by University of Chicago Press in 2012; my third, Boardroom Scandal, is in press with Oxford University Press and will appear in early 2013.

You can read a review of my latest article, published in Historical Research in November 2012, on the Talking Biz News website.

From 1 February to 30 April 2012 I was Visiting Research Fellow at the Research Institute for History and Culture at the University of Utrecht.

In Press

Boardroom Scandal: The Criminalization of Company Fraud in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Taylor, J. 04/2013 Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Research output: Book/Report/ProceedingsBook

2013

Law, politics and the governance of English and Scottish joint-stock companies, 1600-1850

Freeman, M., Pearson, R. & Taylor, J. 2013 In: Business History. 17 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

2012

Review of Periodical Literature Published in 2010: 1850-1945

Taylor, J. & Bradley, K. 02/2012 In: Economic History Review. 65, 1, p. 354-367. 14 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalBook/Film/Article review

Shareholder Democracies?: Corporate Governance in Britain & Ireland before 1850

Freeman, M., Pearson, R. & Taylor, J. 2012 Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 360 p.

Research output: Book/Report/ProceedingsBook

'Watchdogs or Apologists? Financial Journalism and Company Fraud in Early Victorian Britain'

Taylor, J. 11/2012 In: Historical Research. 85, 230, p. 632-652. 21 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

2011

Review of Periodical Literature Published in 2009: 1850-1945

Bradley, K. & Taylor, J. 02/2011 In: Economic History Review. 64, 1, p. 289-298. 10 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalBook/Film/Article review

Numbers, Character and Trust in Early Victorian Britain: The Independent West Middlesex Fire and Life Assurance Company Fraud

Taylor, J. 2011 In: Statistics and the Public Sphere: Numbers and the People in Modern Britain, c. 1800-2000. Crook, T. & O'Hara, G. (eds.). Routledge, p. 185-202. 18 p. (Routledge Studies in Modern British History).

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/ProceedingsChapter (peer-reviewed)

Criminalising fraud: Victorian responses to company scandals

Taylor, J. 10/2011 In: Company Lawyer. 32, 10, p. 291-296. 6 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

2010

Review of Periodical Literature Published in 2008: 1850-1945

Bradley, K. & Taylor, J. 02/2010 In: Economic History Review. 63, 1, p. 219-227. 9 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalBook/Film/Article review

2009

Between Madam Bubble and Kitty Lorimer: women investors in British and Irish stock companies.

Taylor, J., Freeman, M. & Pearson, R. 2009 In: Women and their Money 1700-1950. Laurence, A., Maltby, J. & Rutterford, J. (eds.). Routledge, p. 95-114. 20 p.

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/ProceedingsChapter

2008

Politics.

Taylor, J. 2008 In: The Victorian Literature Handbook. Warwick, A. & Willis, M. (eds.). London: Continuum, p. 76-78. 3 p.

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/ProceedingsChapter

2007

'Different and better?' Scottish Joint-Stock Companies and the Law, c. 1720-1845.

Freeman, M., Pearson, R. & Taylor, J. 02/2007 In: English Historical Review. 122, 495, p. 61-81. 21 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

Technological change and the governance of joint-stock enterprise in the early nineteenth century: the case of Scottish coastal shipping

Freeman, M., Pearson, R. & Taylor, J. 09/2007 In: Business History. 49, 5, p. 573-594. 22 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

'Company fraud in Victorian Britain: the Royal British Bank scandal of 1856'.

Taylor, J. 1/06/2007 In: The English Historical Review. cxxii, 497, p. 700-724. 25 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

2006

History of the company: The development of the business corporation, 1700-1914, 8 vols

Taylor, J., Pearson, R. (ed.), Taylor, J. (ed.) & Freeman, M. (ed.) 2006 London: Pickering and Chatto. 1744 p.

Research output: Book/Report/ProceedingsBook

'A Doe in the City': Women Shareholders in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Britain.

Freeman, M., Pearson, R. & Taylor, J. 07/2006 In: Accounting, Business & Financial History. 16, 2, p. 265-291. 27 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

Creating Capitalism: Joint-Stock Enterprise in British Politics and Culture, 1800-1870.

Taylor, J. 2006 Woodbridge: Boydell Press. 256 p.

Research output: Book/Report/ProceedingsBook

2005

Commercial fraud and public men in Victorian Britain.

Taylor, J. 05/2005 In: Historical Research. 78, 200, p. 230-252. 23 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

Business in pictures: representations of railway enterprise in the satirical press in Britain 1845-1870.

Taylor, J. 1/11/2005 In: Past & Present. 189, p. 111-145. 35 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

2004

The Joint Stock Company in Politics.

Taylor, J. 2004 In: Reform and Reformers in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Turner, M. J. (ed.). Sunderland: University of Sunderland Press, p. 99-116. 18 p.

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/ProceedingsChapter

Public or private? The origins of the corporate economy.

Taylor, J. 2004 In: Journal of Liberal History. 44, p. 30-34. 5 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

‘Office Workers’ & ‘YMCA’.

Taylor, J. 2004 In: The Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era. Pendergast, T. & Pendergast, S. (eds.). Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Academic Press, Vol. 4 volu

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/ProceedingsChapter

2001

Private property, public interest, and the role of the state in nineteenth-century Britain: the case of the lighthouses.

Taylor, J. 1/09/2001 In: Historical Journal. 44, 3, p. 749-771. 23 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

Greed: The Way They Lived Then.

Taylor, J. 12/2001 In: BBC History Magazine. 2, p. 40-42. 3 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal article

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

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Department of History, Bowland College, Lancaster University, LA1 4YT, UK | Tel: +44 (0) 1524 593155 Fax: +44 (0) 1524 846102 E-mail: history@lancaster.ac.uk
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