Thomas Webb

I am a cultural and environmental historian of modern Britain with particular interests in the history of human-animal relations and the history of weather.

My AHRC-funded doctoral research - which I submitted in December 2017 - explored human-animal relations and the British war effort during the Second World War. It investigated the cultural and material mobilisation of animals and humans for war through a focus on four animal-specific case studies in the areas of food production and fighting – pigs, cattle, pigeons and mules. This research intersects wider debates on gender, citizenship, emotion and the ‘People’s War’.

In January 2018 I was appointed as a Postdoctoral Research Associate within the Department of History under the direction of Prof. Georgina Endfield. I now support environmental humanities research within the Department, focusing on the development of specific research areas within the broad field of environmental history, climate history and medical humanities. In particular, I am conducting research on the history of extreme weather in Britain related to the TEMPEST database.