Leo Shipp is a Fellow in Early Modern International History at LSE. He takes an interdisciplinary, transnational approach to the history of early-modern Britain. His main interests are cultural institutions, and relations between Britain and the wider world, in the long eighteenth century. Other areas of interest include the digital humanities; early-modern usage of the past; urban history; and London tradespeople.

His current research is on the usage of Spanish and Italian in early-modern Britain. He has two main research questions. First, how did the languages function as social tools, by which networks formed and individuals distinguished themselves? Second, what does language usage reveal about how Britons viewed themselves vis-à-vis the wider world? His research thus spans a range of social contexts, from Oxford and Cambridge, to Bluestocking gatherings, to discussions printed in periodicals, to mercantile businesses. But it also spans the imaginary elsewheres to which the languages related: British concepts of Spain, Italy, the Spanish-speaking new world of the Atlantic, and the Italian-speaking old world of the Mediterranean.  

Leo’s doctoral research was at Exeter, fully-funded by the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. It led to a monograph, The Poets Laureate of the Long Eighteenth Century, 1668-1813: Courting the Public (2022) and an article in The English Historical Review. These publications argue that the British court retained a significant cultural role throughout the long eighteenth century, and show that the poet laureateship was an important node in the court’s relationship with the public. The book also advances the idea of ‘the conceptual geography of culture’, analysing how Britons used spatial concepts to understand culture, and how their concepts changed over time. While at Exeter, he taught multiple seminar groups across three BA History modules: ‘Making History’, ‘Approaches to History’, and ‘Understanding the Medieval and Early Modern World’.

Leo’s work on one of the laureates, William Whitehead, also led by a circuitous route to a 33,000-word manuscript, entitled Views of Roman History: William Whitehead’s The Roman Father and Historical Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain. This work is under contract with the Cambridge Elements series. It investigates how Roman history was portrayed and received in the theatre; the relationships between drama and prose history texts; and the links between British and European historical culture.

Following his PhD, Leo worked as Postdoctoral Researcher on ‘Theatronomics: The Business of Theatre, 1732-1809’, an ERC-funded project at the University of Galway. The project explores the finances of two London theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. As well as working on the project's database, Leo published an article in Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and is co-editing a volume based on the project’s conference, which will include a chapter of his own on the theatres’ relationships with tradespeople. While at Galway, he designed and taught two BA History modules: ‘Bombast, Politeness and Smut: British Cultural History, 1660-1815’, and ‘The Tudors: Religion, State and Society’.