I am currently carrying out academic research into the Blount family of Shropshire. The family, which was of gentry status with some court connections, was prominent in the area between the mid-fifteenth century and early seventeenth. Their main seat was Kinlet in Shropshire, with more junior branches settling in Astley and Kidderminster.
My study of the family will focus on their reactions and involvement with some of the major events of the period, for example the Reformation. I am also interested in their kinship and patronage connections with more prominent figures.
Famous family members obviously included Bessie Blount and her son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset. My work will however focus on some of the lesser known figures in an attempt to add to our knowledge of the gentry in the period and their responses to the changes presented to society.
I am based at King's College, London, where I am studying for a PhD under the supervision of Dr Lucy Kostyanovsky (Dr Lucy Wooding). I gave a paper at the 22nd European Reformation Research Group Conference on 4 September 2013 at Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire on 'Catholic Identity in Elizabethan England: The Example of the Blount Family'. This looked at the responses of the various branches of the family to governmental pressures during the period, as well as the ways in which their faith was carried out and manifested.
Fellowships and Awards
2014 Study Fellowship - The Society of Renaissance Studies
2014 Small Research Grant - King's College London
2003 Scholarship from New Hall, Cambridge for academic excellence
2001 Scholarship from New Hall, Cambridge for academic excellence
Journal Articles
The Reeds of Oatlands: A Tudor Marriage Settlement (Surrey History, vol XII, 2013)
The Depiction of Children on the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Tombs in Kinlet Church (Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society, LXXXVII, 2012)
Elizabeth Blount of Kinlet: A New Image of Henry VIII's Mistress Identified (Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society, LXXXIV, 2009)
Anne of Cleves and Richmond Palace (Surrey History, vol VIII, 2009)
Scandinavian Influences in the Late Anglo-Saxon Sculpture of Sussex (Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol 147, 2009)
Papers
Transmitting Belief in Stone: Elizabethan Cadaver Tombs as a Demonstration of Traditional Faith (European Reformation Research Group Conference, 2015)
Elizabethan Catholics and Continuity: The Example of the Blount Family (Ecclesiastical History Society Postgraduate Colloquium, 2015)
The Blounts of the West Midlands: A Gentry Family's Religion in the Reformation Period' (European Reformation Research Group Conference, 2014)
Catholic Identity in Elizabethan England: The Example of the Blount Family' (European Reformation Research Group, 22nd Annual Meeting, 2013)
Conferences Attended
'History Outside the Box' Postgraduate Conference, King's College London 17 June 2015
Ecclesiastical History Society Postgraduate Colloquium, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 6 March 2015
Reformation Studies Colloquium, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge 10-12 September 2014
European Reformation Research Group Conference, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge 9-10 September 2014
The Historians' Toolkit, Postgraduate Conference, King's College London 18 June 2014
'Parish Soundscapes' Parish Studies Symposium, University of Warwick 10 May 2014
West Midlands History Conference, Keele University 16 November 2013
Textual Cultures in Early Modern Europe Symposium, Keble College, Oxford 28 September 2013
European Reformation Research Group Conference, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden September 2013
