Staff profile

About me

I am a historian of nineteenth-century Britain, with an especial interest in political language, behaviour and culture in the age of ‘mass democracy’. 

My new Leverhulme-funded project, Meeting the challenge of mass politics in Britain: the Liberal caucus, 1875-1914 explores whether British politics became less participatory as it became more democratic. The project focuses on the British Liberal party, which, to appeal to and organise expanding electorates in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pioneered new mechanisms for collective action. The party democratised its practices and established ‘popular’ associations that aimed to capture, represent, and shape public opinion, producing the first modern party programmes. I am investigating how successfully Liberals seized opportunities to marry mass membership party structures to a mass electorate.

I am also working on my first monograph, entitled Scotland and the First Home Rule Movement: National Identity, Political Culture and the Liberal Party, 1886-1914, to be published by Edinburgh University Press. A history of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Scottish nationalism, it examines the first campaign for devolution and the relationship between nationalism and the Liberal party. It argues that modern Scottish nationalism was a product of multi-nation mass politics and made the challenges of democratisation harder to meet, providing the long-view on major constitutional issues.

I completed my PhD at King's College London in 2019, where I also taught on modern British History. In 2020, I won a King's Doctoral Studies prize for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis. Prior to joining Durham, I was College Lecturer in History at Hertford College, University of Oxford, between 2017 and 2021, and Retained Lecturer in History at Exeter College, Oxford, between 2020 and 2021. I taught on modern British and European history, historical methods, and historiography.

• Modern Britain
• Four nations history
• Political culture
• National identity

• 2022: Parliamentary History Essay Prize: Proxime Accessit in the 2022 Parliamentary History Essay Prize
• 2020: Outstanding Thesis Award: Winner of ;King's College London-Elsevier Doctoral Studies Prize for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis
• 2015: RHS Essay Prize: Winner of the 2015 Royal Historical Society David Berry Prize for best essay on Scottish history ;

Available for media contact about:

• Modern History: Britain & Ireland:

Authored book

• (Forthcoming). Scotland and the First Home Rule Movement: National Identity, Political Culture and the Liberal Party, 1886-1914. Edinburgh University Press.

Book review

• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2023). Luke Blaxill, War of Words: The Language of British Elections, 1880-1914 (London, 2020). English Historical Review
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2022). '"Age of Promises. Electoral Politics in Twentieth Century Britain". By D. Thackeray and R. Toye. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021. xi, 236 pp. £65.00. ISBN 9780198843030.'. Parliamentary History 41(3): 514-517.
• Lloyd‐Jones, Naomi (2022). Electoral Pledges in Britain since 1918: The Politics of Promises. Edited by DavidThackeray and RichardToye. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2020. xiii, 327 pp. £99.99. ISBN 97830304666633. Parliamentary History 41(2): 385.
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2021). Pat Thane. Divided Kingdom: A History of Britain, 1900 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. 502. $32.99 (paper). Journal of British Studies 60(1): 251.
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2020). ‘Standing up for Scotland’ Nationalist Unionism and Scottish Party Politics, 1884-2014. By David Torrance. Twentieth Century British History 32(3): 467.

Chapter in book

• Lloyd-Jones, N. (2024). Beyond Westminster: Politics in Scotland and Wales. In Routledge Historical Resources. Crook, T., Gaunt, R. & Rix, K. Routledge.
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi & Scull, Margaret M. (2018). ‘A new plea for an old subject? Four nations history for the modern period'. In Four Nations Approaches to Modern ‘British’ History: A (Dis)United Kingdom?. Lloyd-Jones, Naomi & Scull, Margaret M. Palgrave Macmillan. 3-31

Edited book

• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi & Scull, Margaret M. (2018). Four Nations Approaches to Modern ‘British’ History: A (Dis)United Kingdom?. Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal Article

• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2023). “Liberal disaffection such as has not been seen in Scotland” Home Rule, political organisation and the Liberal party in 1886. Scottish Historical Review 102(1).
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2023). '"Sit Down! Shut Up!": The Politics of Disruption and the 1886 Home Rule Crisis in England'. Parliamentary History (proxime accessit Essay Prize)
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2020). The 1892 general election in England: Home Rule, the Newcastle programme and positive Unionism. Historical Research 93(259): 73–104.
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2015). Liberal Unionism and political representation in Wales, c.1886–1893. Historical Research 88(241): 482–507.
• Lloyd-Jones, Naomi (2014). Liberalism, Scottish Nationalism and the Home Rule Crisis, c.1886–93. English Historical Review 129(539): 862-887.