PhD student profiles
Historic Royal Palaces co-supervises a number of PhD students working across a range of subjects and disciplines. Find out more about them and their research in their profiles below.
Ellis Huddart
Project Title: “Floating Palaces: Royal Yachts, Monarchy, and Britishness, 1897-1939”
Institutions: Birkbeck, University of London, Royal Museums Greenwich, and Historic Royal Palaces
Supervisors: Professor Jan Rueger (Birkbeck, University of London); Hilary Sapire (Royal Museums Greenwich); Professor John Davis (HRP)
Funder: AHRC REACH Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP)
About the project
Ellis’s thesis focuses on the material culture of British imperialism, and the modernisation of the monarchy. Prior to starting his doctoral studies, Ellis worked in a variety of roles in museums across his native Cumbria before taking up the position of Exhibitions Curator at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has also undertaken a placement at the National Maritime Museum with the Curator of World History and Cultures as part of his PhD.
Select publications
‘Exploding the Archive’, podcast series co-founder, host, and editor.
Gabrielle Fields
Project Title: “Queen Victoria’s Library: The Place of Reading and Writing in Victoria’s Political Education, Self-Improvement, and Self-Curation”
Institutions: University of Exeter, Historic Royal Palaces, and the University of Reading.
Supervisors: Professor John Plunkett (University of Exeter), Dr Joanna Marschner (HRP); Professor Kate Williams (University of Reading).
Funder: AHRC South, West and Wales (SWW) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP)
About the project
Gabrielle joined HRP to begin her PhD in 2021, after completing her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Archaeology at the University of Southampton. As an archaeologist, she worked on sites spanning Bronze Age fish traps and Iron Age barrows to a Roman villa and First World War trenches.
Her interest in Queen Victoria was incidental to accepting her PhD studentship, but her curiosity about historical self-curation (of monuments, structures, buildings and people) has been well-suited to a study of Victoria and her reading. Gabrielle’s research on Victoria’s childhood reading is included in the Victoria: A Royal Childhood exhibition at Kensington Palace, where she has worked intermittently as curatorial assistant for her PhD placement.
Select publications
Fields, G., ‘Queen Victoria’s Library’, HRP Inside Story, October 2023.
Fields, G., ‘The Revealing Tale of Queen Victoria’s Early Biography’, HRP Curators’ Blog, May 2024.
Camilla de Koning
Project Title: “Crown Engagement in Britain’s Emerging Empire 1660-1775”,
Institutions: University of Manchester and Historic Royal Palaces.
Supervisors: Dr Edmond Smith (University of Manchester); Dr Charles Farris (HRP); Dr Mishka Sinha (HRP).
Funder: AHRC REACH Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP)
About the project
Camilla’s project analyses the colonial connections of British monarchs from Charles II to George III. Central to this project is a personal approach: what did the monarchs themselves think about 'their empire,' and how did they interact with the colonies, and vice versa? Camilla previously worked on the Dutch Atlantic and continues her research on kinship, slavery, colonial networks, and life ways of the enslaved and freed in the British and Dutch Atlantic.
Select publications
de Koning, C., ‘The gift of life after slavery: close-kin ownership, slavery, and manumission in Suriname 1765-1795’, The History of the Family, 29 (2023), 1–24.
Fatah-Black, K., de Koning, C., et Negrón, R., ‘What is Manumission? A Manumittee-Centric Model of the Manumission Process in Eighteenth-Century Surinam’, Esclavages & Post-esclavages, 9 (2024), 1-21.
de Koning, C., ‘Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, by Nicholas Radburn’, Journal of Global Slavery, 9 (2024), 266–69.
Jamie Paterno Ostmann
Project Title: “Making Chocolate in the British Atlantic World: Foodways, Consumption, and Heritage”
Institutions: Durham University, Historic Royal Palaces, and the National Trust
Supervisors: Dr Amanda Herbert (University of Durham); Polly Putnam (HRP); Rupert Goulding (National Trust).
About the project
Jamie’s thesis focuses on the early modern history of chocolate. Her research on the women of the English Restoration Court was featured in the exhibition 'Permissible Beauty' at Hampton Court Palace. Jamie has undertaken placements working on the exhibition ‘Crown to Couture’ at Kensington Palace and assisting the curator of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection with research, collections management, acquisitions, and tours.
Jamie has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in Archaeology and History & Literature, with a focus on the early modern world. She has a master’s degree in Heritage Management from Queen Mary University of London and Historic Royal Palaces. When not researching, Jamie can be found experimenting with 17th and 18th century chocolate recipes or doing hand embroidery.
Select publications
Paterno Ostmann, J., ‘Frances Stuart and Barbara Villiers’, HRP Curators’ Blog, February 2023.
Paterno Ostmann, J., ‘Exploring the linguistic history of chocolate’, Durham University, July 2023.
Harry J. Wiggs
Project Title: "Courting Magnificence: The Materiality of the Late Medieval Queens’ Households"
Institutions: University of Lincoln and Historic Royal Palaces
Supervisors: Professor Louise Wilkinson (University of Lincoln), Dr Laura Tompkins (HRP), Professor Amy Livingstone (University of Lincoln), Dr Charles Farris (HRP)
Funder: AHRC REACH Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP)
About the project
Harry’s project seeks to comparatively analyse the households of three medieval queens of England, Eleanor of Castile, Margaret of France and Isabella of France, whose reigns stretch from 1272 – 1358. It is interested in how the identities, conspicuous consumption and materiality of their courtly lives were influenced by their gender, as well as their foreign backgrounds.
Prior to undertaking his doctoral studies, Harry completed a BA in Politics with Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, and an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Lincoln. He has also spent time working in the heritage sector at Lincoln Castle.
Honor Parish
Project Title: “Femininity, Race-Making and Gender in Queen Henrietta Maria’s Court Performances (1625-42)”
Institutions: Northumbria University, Royal Museums Greenwich, and Historic Royal Palaces
Supervisors: Professor Clare MacManus (Northumbria University), Dr Clare Elliot (Northumbria University), Victoria Lane (Royal Museums Greenwich), and Dr Jemima Hubberstey (HRP)
Funder: AHRC REACH Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP4)
About the project
Honor’s project analyses the masques and pastorals that Queen Henreitta Maria participated in, with a focus on critically examining the performance of race and gender in court entertainment. These themes are explored within the wider context of European colonialism, the performance of femininity within the court, and gender in early modern England. This project engages with the spaces of the Queen’s House, as Henrietta Maria’s ‘House of Delights’, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, where many of these performances were staged.
Honor has an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Sussex and a masters in history of art from the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Gemma Leader
Project Title: Material Networks: The Tower, London, and the World in the Late Medieval and Tudor Period
Institutions: Institute of Historical Research (IHR), University of London and Historic Royal Palaces
Supervisors: Dr Charles Farris (HRP), Alexandra Stevenson (HRP), Dr Justin Colson (School of Advanced Studies, University of London) and Dr Adam Chapman (School of Advanced Studies, University of London).
Funder: AHRC REACH Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP4)
About the project
Gemma’s project explores the interaction between London’s immigrant communities, the Crown, and the Tower of London in the Late Medieval and Tudor period. Combining archival study of expenditure of the royal household with analysis of existing databases of Londoners, the project shows the diversity of global goods and diverse craftspeople supplying them in London during this period.
Gemma previously worked in the museum sector for eleven years, undertaking a variety of roles encompassing collections management, outreach, and communications. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in History of Art at the University of East Anglia and Birkbeck, University of London, respectively.