Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor

Professor of Economic History
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Dr Leigh Shaw Taylor

I first went to University to study Physics at Oxford but soon realised this was not for me.  I subsequently did an undergraduate degree at the Open University in social sciences and history.  I began graduate work with the M.Sc. in economic and social history at Oxford and undertook my Ph.D, at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, supervised by Professor Richard Smith.  After a research fellowship at Jesus College Cambridge, I held grants in the Department of Geography at Cambridge.  I was appointed to a University lectureship in the Faculty of History in 2006.  I have been director of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure since 2013.

My primary  research interests are in (i) long-run economic developments in England from the late medieval period down to the late nineteenth centuries with a particular focus on occupational structure; (ii) comparative work in the same field (iii) tthe development of agrarian capitalism and (iv) the contribution of transport improvements to the Industrial Revolution.

I am director of an ongoing program of research: The occupational structure of Britain c.1379-1911. This was  a British Academy research project from 2007 to 2018 and has been generously funded by the ESRC, The Leverhulme Trust, The British Academy, the Isaac Newton Trust (Cambridge) and the Keynes Fund (Cambridge). The project is a collaboration with Professor E.A. Wrigley, Amy Erickson and others, aimed at improving our understanding of the long run process of economic development, which culminated in the Industrial Revolution, through a quantitative reconstruction of the occupational structure of the economy over as long a period, and in as much detail, as the sources will allow. The project is based in the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.


In conjunction with Professor Osamu Saito of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo I am co-ordinating a network of historians working on the International Comparative History of Occupational Structure (INCHOS). The first phase of this project will be a volume. edited by myself and Professor Saito: Occupational Structure and Industrialization in Comparative Perspective.  This will contain three thematic chapters and eighteen country chapters (and associated online datasets) covering the experience of Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, England and Wales, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Russia/Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, the United States.

With Professor Gareth Austin I co-ordinate another international network AFCHOS, African Comparative History of Occupational Structure, focused on sub-Saharan Africa. 

With Dr Alexis Litvine I cordinate the European Network for the Comparative History of Occupational Structure (ENCHPOPGOS)

I would welcome enquiries from prospective students in most fields of British economic and social history c.1600-1900 but would be especially keen to supervise graduate students who wish to undertake work relating to the The Occupational Structure of Britain c.1379-1911 research program. I would welcome enquries from potential students wshing to work on occupational structure elsewhere.  My current research students are working on: the occupational structure of China 1736-1899; the occupational structure of the Lower Yangzi River Region, 1736-2010; and male and female time-use 1851-1911. I have previously supervised research students working on: the male occupational structure of England 1550-1820; Female employment 1851-1911;an occupational study of the worsted industry 1700-1851; the development of agrarian capitalism and the growth of large farms; patents and the institutional pre-conditions for British Industrialization; and the history of urban back gardens in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I would strongly advise prospective students to contact me before making a formal application. 

I lecture for two part I papers, paper 10, British economic and social history 1700-1914 and paper 9: British economic and social history c.1500-1700 and also contribute to the lecture series Understanding Quantitative History. I teach on the part I themes and sources  paper, Earning a Living 1381-1911 which uses material derived from the Occupational Structure of Britain project.   I also supervise part II dissertations on British economic and social history 1600-1900. My research project on occupational structure provides a range of opportunities for undergraduates both to make use of existing large-scale datasets and to undertake archival research and I would particularly welcome enquiries in this area. Some successful dissertations can be found online athttp://www.hpss.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/occupations/abstracts/ 

I teach an advanced paper on British Industrialization for the M.Phil in economic and Social History. I am one of the convenors for four research seminars: Early Modern Economic and Social History Seminar, the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure Seminar, the Quantitative History Seminar and the Core Seminar in Economic and Social History.

I am a member of the Economic and Social Research Council's peer review panel.

Contact

Tags & Themes

Address
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
Cambridge

Office Phone: 01223 3 33190

Email
lmws2@cam.ac.uk

Key publications

  • Sugden, K., Keibek, S., Wells, J., and Shaw-Taylor, L., ‘Adam Smith revisited: the relationship between the English woollen manufacture and the availability of coal before the use of steam power, Continuity and Change, 38 (2023), pp.163-191.
  • Bogart, D., You, X., Alvarez-Palau, E.J., Satchell, M., Shaw-Taylor, L., ‘Railways, divergence and structural change in C19th England and Wales’, Journal of Urban Economics, 128 (2022). Link to article
  • Bogart, D., Buxton Dunn, O., Alvarez-Palau, E., Shaw-Taylor, L., ‘Organizations and efficiency in public services: The case of English lighthouses revisited’, Economic Inquiry, 60, 2 (2022), p.975-994. Link to article
  • Jaadla, H. and Shaw-Taylor, L., Davenport, R., ‘Height and health in late eighteenth-century England.’ Population Studies: A Journal of Demography. 75:3  (2021), pp. 381-401. Link to article
  • Rosevear, A., Bogart, D., and Shaw-Taylor, L., 'The Spatial Patterns of Coaching in England and Wales from 1681 to 1836: A Geographic Information Systems Approach', Journal of Transport History, 40 (2019), pp. 418–44. Link to article
  • Shaw-Taylor, L. and Wrigley, E. A., 'Occupational Structure and Population Change', in R. Floud, J. Humphries, and P. Johnson, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 1: Industrialisation, 1700–1870 (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 53–88. Link to chapter 
  • Shaw-Taylor, L. and Keibek, S., 'Early Modern Rural By-employments: A Re-examination of the Probate Evidence', Agricultural History Review, 61 (2013), pp. 244–81. PDF
  • Kitson, P. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Davies, R. S., Newton, G., and Satchell, A. E. M., 'The Creation of a 'Census' of Adult Male Employment for England and Wales for 1817', Cambridge Working Papers in Economic and Social History, no. 4, 2012&2013. PDF
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., 'The Rise of Agrarian Capitalism and the Decline of Family Farming in England', Economic History Review, 65 (2012), pp. 26–60. Link to article
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., 'Diverse Experiences: The Geography of Adult Female Employment and the 1851 Census', in N. Goose, ed., Women's Work in Industrial England: Regional and Local Perspectives (Hatfield, 2007), pp. 29–50.
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., 'Family Farms and Capitalist Farms in Mid Nineteenth Century England', Agricultural History Review, 53 (2005), pp. 158–91. Link to article
  • Moor, M. d., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Warde, P., eds., The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, c.1500–1850, Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area (CORN) series, no. 8 (Turnhout, 2002). Link to publication
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., 'The Management of Common Land in the Lowlands of Southern England, circa 1500 to circa 1850' in M. De Moor, L. Shaw-Taylor, and P. Warde, eds., The Management of Common Land in North West Europe (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 59–86. Link to chapter
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., 'Labourers, Cows, Common Rights and Parliamentary Enclosure: The Evidence of Contemporary Comment c.1760–1810', Past and Present, 171 (2001), pp. 95–126. Link to article
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., 'Parliamentary Enclosure and the Emergence of an English Agricultural Proletariat', Journal of Economic History, 61 (2001), pp. 640–62. Link to article

Other publications

  • Rosevear, A., Bogart, D., Shaw-Taylor, L., ‘Governments, trusts and the making of better roads in early nineteenth century England and Wales’, European Review of Economic History, online early (2023), https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/head030
  • Bogart, D, Dunn, O., Alvarez-Palau, E., Shaw-Taylor, L., 'Speedier delivery: coastal shipping times and speeds during the age of sail', Economic History Review 74 (1) (2021), pp.87-114. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13004

  • Shaw-Taylor, L., An introduction to the history of infectious diseases, epidemics and the early phases of the long-run decline in mortality, Economic History Review, 73 (3) (2020), pp. E1-19. Link to article. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13019

  • Davenport, R. J., Satchell, M., and Shaw-Taylor, L., 'Cholera as a Sanitary Test of British Cities, 1831–66', History of the Family, Special Issue on Water and Sanitation, 24 (2019), pp. 404–38. Link to article
  • Obschonka, M., Stuetzer, M., Rentfrow, P. J., Shaw-Taylor, L., Satchell, A. E. M., Silbereisen, R. K., Potter, J., and Gosling, S. D., 'In the Shadow of Coal: How Large-Scale Industries Contributed to Present-Day Regional Differences in Personality and Well-Being', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115 (online early view 2017, print 2018), pp. 903–27. Link to article
  • Stuetzer, M., Obschonka, M., Audretsch, D. B., Wyrwich, M., Rentfrow, P. J., Coombes, M., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Satchell, A. E. M., 'Industry Structure, Entrepreneurship, and Culture: An Empirical Analysis Using Historical Coalfields', European Economic Review, 86 (2016), pp. 52–72. Link to article
  • Casson, M., Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 'Railways and Local Population Growth: Northamptonshire and Rutland, 1801–91', in M. Casson and N. Hashimzade, eds., Large databases in Economic History: Research Methods and Case Studies (Abingdon, 2013), pp. 165–199.
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., 'Access to Land by Labourers and Tradesmen in 18th-century England', in B. J. P. van Bavel and P. C. M. Hoppenbrouwers, eds., Land Holding and Land Transfer in North-West Europe: Late Middle Ages – 19th Century, Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area (CORN) series, no. 9 (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 265–81. Link to chapter
  • Satchell, M., Bennett, R. J., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Bogart, D., 'Constructing Parish-level Data and RSD-level Data on Transport Infrastructure in England and Wales 1851–1911', Working Paper 16: ESRC project ES/M010953: 'Drivers of Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses', University of Cambridge, 2019. Link to article
  • Davenport, R. J., Satchell, M., and Shaw-Taylor, L., 'The Geography of Smallpox in England before Vaccination: A Conundrum Resolved', Social Science and Medicine, 206 (2018), pp. 75–85. Link to article
  • Shaw-Taylor, L. and You, X., 'The Development of the Railway Network in Britain 1825–1911', in L. Shaw-Taylor, D. Bogart and M. Satchell, eds., The Online Historical Atlas of Transport, Urbanization and Economic Development in England and Wales c.1680–1911, 2018. PDF

Published reports

  • Shaw-Taylor, L. and Wrigley, E. A., ‘The Occupational Structure of Nineteenth Century Britain: ESRC End of Award Report’, Economic and Social Research Council, 2010, RES-000-23-1579. Link to report
  • Shaw-Taylor, L. and Wrigley, E. A., ‘Male Occupational Change and Economic Growth 1750-1851: ESRC End of Award Report’, Economic and Social Research Council, 2006, RES-00023-01231. Link to report

Published Datasets

All available from the UK Data Service at: https://www.ukdataservice.ac.uk/

  • Alvarez-Palau, E., Dunn, O., Bogart, D., Satchell, A. E. M., and Shaw-Taylor, L., Historic Ports and Coastal Sailing Routes in England and Wales, 1540–1914 (2019), UK Data Service, SN853711. Link to dataset
  • Henneberg, J., Satchell, A. E. M., You, X., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., and Cobb, M., 1861 England, Wales and Scotland Railway Stations (2018), UK Data Service, SN852995 Link to dataset
  • Henneberg, J., Satchell, A. E. M., You, X., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., and Cobb, M., 1881 England, Wales and Scotland Railway Stations (2018), UK Data Service, SN852996. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Wrigley, E. A., Shaw-Taylor, L., You, X., and Henneberg, J., 1851 England, Wales and Scotland Rail Lines (2018), UK Data Service, SN852991. Link to dataset
  • Marti-Henneberg, J., Satchell, A. E. M., You, X., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 1861 England, Wales and Scotland Rail Lines (2018), UK Data Service, SN852992. Link to dataset
  • Marti-Henneberg, J., Satchell, A. E. M., You, X., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 1881 England, Wales and Scotland Rail Lines (2018), UK Data Service, SN852993. Link to dataset
  • Marti-Henneberg, J., Satchell, A. E. M., You, X., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 1851 England, Wales and Scotland Railway Stations (2018), UK Data Service, SN852994. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M. and Shaw-Taylor, L., 1820 England and Wales Navigable Waterways (2018), UK Data Service, SN852997. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M. and Shaw-Taylor, L., 1851 England and Wales Navigable Waterways (2018), UK Data Service, SN852998. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 1861 England and Wales Navigable Waterways (2018), UK Data Service, SN852999. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 1881 England and Wales Navigable Waterways (2018), UK Data Service, SN853000. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Kitson, P., Newton, G., and Stanning, G., 1831 England and Wales Census Hundreds and Wapentakes (2018), UK Data Service, SN852938. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Kitson, P., Newton, G., and Stanning, G., 1831 England and Wales Ancient Counties (2018), UK Data Service, SN852939. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Kitson, P., and Newton, G., 1851 England and Wales Ancient Counties (2018) UK Data Service, SN852942. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Anderson, M., Roughley, C., and Stickler, P., 1851 Scotland Ancient Counties (2018), UK Data Service, SN852943. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Kitson, P., and Newton, G., 1851 England and Wales Census Registration Subdistricts (2018), UK Data Service, SN852945. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Kitson, P., and Newton, G., 1851 England and Wales Census Registration Districts (2018), UK Data Service, SN852948. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., Kitson, P., and Newton, G., 1851 England and Wales Census Registration Counties (2018), UK Data Service, SN852949. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Kitson, P., Newton, G., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 1851 England and Wales Census Parishes, Townships and Places (2017), UK Data Service, SN852816. Link to dataset
  • Satchell, A. E. M., Kitson, P., Newton, G., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Wrigley, E. A., 1851 England and Wales Census Parishes, Townships and Places (2016), UK Data Service, SN852232. Link to dataset
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., Kitson, P., and Wrigley, E. A., 1851 Census Report Registration District Occupational Data (2007), UK Data Service, SN5433. Link to dataset
  • Wrigley, E. A., Kitson, P., and Shaw-Taylor, L., 1851 Census Principal Towns Occupational Data (2007), UK Data Service, SN5432. Link to dataset
  • Wrigley, E. A., Shaw-Taylor, L., and Kitson, P., Primary, Secondary and Tertiary (PST) Occupational Codes for the 1851 Census Report (2006), UK Data Service, SN5434. Link to dataset
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., Wrigley, E. A., and Kitson, P., 1851 Census Report: County Occupational Data (2006), UK Data Service, SN5431. Link to dataset
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., Kitson, P., and Wrigley, E. A., Male Occupational Data from English Parish Registers (raw data), c. 1700–1820 (2006), UK Data Service, SN5397. Link to dataset
  • Shaw-Taylor, L., Kitson, P., and Wrigley, E. A., Male Occupational Data from English Parish Registers (processed summary data), c. 1700–1820 (2006), UK Data Service, SN5398. Link to dataset