I was awarded a BA (Hons) in History by the University of Cambridge in 1983 and obtained my PhD (also in History) from Birkbeck College, London, in 1989.

I held a Temporary Lectureship in the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Bristol from 1987 to 1991, when I joined the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Southampton.  I joined the School of Applied Social Sciences (now the School of Social Work and Social Policy) at the University of Strathclyde in September 2013.

My research is concerned with various aspects of the social history of health and welfare since circa 1700.  I have worked on a wide range of topics within this field, including work on the history of height, morbidity and mortality; unemployment and poverty; the relationship between statutory and voluntary welfare provision; and the origins and development of the British welfare state.

I am currently working on a number of different topics, including the following:

• Various issues associated with the use of anthropometric indicators to study the health and wellbeing of past populations
• The history of sickness and morbidity
• The impact of sanitary intervention on mortality decline (with Andrew Hinde, University of Southampton)
• The comparative history of social policy in the different parts of the UK and the English-speaking world