Meet Project Team
ANGUS CRAWFORD is a third-year AHRC Midlands4Cities funded PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Warwick. His research into the early history of the Lord Leycester from its foundation in 1571 until 1700 forms the underpinning research for this exhibition. He has published two open-access articles connected to this project: 'Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his Hospital: Military Identity, Veterans and the Elizabethan Church, 1571-1603', Studies in Church History, 62 (2026) and ‘Theologian and Locality: Cartwright, Puritanism and the Lord Leycester Hospital in Tudor Warwick’, Midland History, 50/1 (2025), 3-24.
DR NAOMI PULLIN is Associate Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of Warwick and has been the research and academic lead on this exhibition project. She has published widely on many aspects of the social, religious and political life of Britain and its North American colonies. She is the author of Female Friends and the Making of Transatlantic Quakerism, 1650-1750 (2018) and Negotiating Exclusion in Early Modern England, 1550-1800 (2021). Her current project, A Social History of Solitude in Early Modern Britain explores how time spent alone was understood and experienced in early modern Britain. In 2025-26 she received the Ann Bodley Ball Fellowship in Women’s History from the University of Oxford.
DR ANGELA NICHOLLS is a historian and former social worker who studies welfare provision in the early modern period and is an expert on English almshouses. She completed her PhD at the University of Warwick in 2014. Her book Almshouses in Early Modern England was published in 2017. While working as a volunteer at the Lord Leycester, she was involved in researching and writing 'Masters and Brethren: the 450 year history of the Lord Leycester Hospital Warwick told through the stories of its people'. This was published in 2021 to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the founding of the Lord Leycester.
PROFESSOR BEAT KÜMIN is a Professor of History at the University of Warwick, with specialisms in the cultural history of German-speaking Europe and England (c.1400-1800). He also has particular interests in the political, religious, social life, food and drink consumption, and memory of local communities over the early modern period. Having co-founded the Drinking Studies Network, he now co-ordinates the Warwick Network for Parish Research. Publications include the monograph Drinking Matters: Public Houses and Social Exchange in Early Modern Central Europe (2007) and the essay collection A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age (2012). He has also edited the textbook The European World 1500-1800: An Introduction to Early Modern History (4th edn, 2023).
HARRY MCNEILE is a third-year History & Politics student at the University of Warwick. His research interests centre on public history, memory and heritage. Through Warwick’s Undergraduate Research Support Scheme, he authored ‘Archives to Airways: Translating History for Public Audiences’. His dissertation focuses on the National Trust and its connections to legacies of enslavement. At Rewind, a student-run public history initiative, he co-produced and presented a national award-winning documentary. While working as a Junior Researcher at History Hit, he contributed to the production of over ten documentaries and podcasts for platforms including Channel 5.
HOPE ROBINSON is a third year History student at the University of Warwick. Her research interests centre around early modern social and religious history, particularly looking at non-elite individuals and groups. Her dissertation utilises petition documents to assess the relationship between communities and punishment in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. Outside of university, Hope has demonstrated a passion for education, undertaking work experience placements across both primary and sixth form institutions. Additionally, she helped to establish a charity hub within her local community, aiming to provide clothing and household goods for vulnerable families across Leicestershire.