Don Leggett

BA, MPhil (Cantab), PhD

Address
Telephone
Email
Web

8.115, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, 53 Kabanbay Batyr Ave.,

Astana, Kazakhstan, 010000
(+7) 7711 659 054
Donald.Leggett@nu.edu.kz
http://donleggett.weebly.com

Citizenship
Date of birth

British
27 April 1984

Academic Positions
2014

Assistant professor in the history of science and technology, Department of History,

Philosophy and Religion, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan (2014-).

2014

Honorary research fellow, School of History, University of Kent, UK (2014-).

2010

Research associate in the history of science & technology, School of History, University of
Kent, UK (2010-2014).

2006

Assistant lecturer, School of History, University of Kent, UK (2006-2010).

2005

Research assistant, Ocean steamship project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council, University of Kent, UK (2005).

Education
2010

PhD, History, University of Kent, UK (2006-2010).

Shaping the Victorian Navy: experiment, experience and the culture of expertise in naval
architecture (thesis supervisor Professor Crosbie Smith).

2006

MPhil, History, University of Cambridge, UK (2005-6).

Distinguished performance. Scholar of Selwyn College.

2005

BA, History, University of Kent, UK (2002-5).

Top marks in single-honours history cohort.

Fellowships and Prizes

2013

Young Scholar Prize, International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, Division of
History of Science and Technology.
Outstanding PhD dissertation prize, awarded every four years.

2012

Velde visiting scholar, Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Illinois, USA.

2010

Singer prize, British Society for the History of Science.

Outstanding article submission from an early career researcher, awarded every two years.

2009

Junior Caird fellowship, National Maritime Museum, UK.

2008

British Council research fellowship, John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, USA.

Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 1

Areas of Specialisation
History of science and technology; British history 1700-1950; naval and maritime history; expertise
and the state; science, technology and war; cultural history.

Publications
Books
Scientific governance in Britain, 1914-1979, ed. with Charlotte Sleigh (contracted to
Manchester University Press, manuscript undergoing peer review).
2015

Shaping the Royal Navy: technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830-1906
(Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2015), pp. xii+320.

2012

Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 1800-1918, ed. with Richard
Dunn (Ashgate: Farnham, 2012), pp. xvi+224.
Reviews featured in Isis; Technology and Culture; Victorian Studies; Journal for Maritime
Research; The Northern Mariner; International Journal of Maritime History; ICON; Journal of
Transport History.

Special Journal Issues

2014

Expertise and authority in the Royal Navy, 1800-1945, guest editor [with James Davey],
Journal for Maritime Research 16 (2014).

Journal Articles and Chapters in Books

Give me a laboratory and I will win you the war: governing invention and research in the
British Admiralty, 1914-1919, in Don Leggett & Charlotte Sleigh (eds.), Scientific governance
in Britain, 1914-1979 (under contract with Manchester University Press).
Introduction [with Charlotte Sleigh], in Don Leggett & Charlotte Sleigh (eds.), Scientific
governance in Britain, 1914-1979 (under contract with Manchester University Press).
2014

Introduction: expertise and authority in the Royal Navy [with James Davey], Journal for
Maritime Research 16 (2014): 1-13.

2014

Naval architecture, expertise and navigating authority in the British Admiralty, c.1885-1906,
Journal for Maritime Research 16 (2014): 73-88.

2013

William Froude, John Henry Newman and scientific practice in the culture of Victorian
doubt, English Historical Review 128 (2013): 571-595.

2013

Replication, re-placing and naval science in comparative context, c. 1868-1904, British

Journal for the History of Science 46 (2013): 1-21.

2012

Neptunes new clothes: actors, iron and the identity of the mid-Victorian warship, in Don
Leggett & Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime
world, 1800-1918 (Ashgate: Farnham, 2012): 71-92.

2012

Introduction: science, technology and the ship, [with Richard Dunn], in Don Leggett &
Richard Dunn (eds.), Re-inventing the ship: science, technology and the maritime world, 18001918 (Ashgate: Farnham, 2012): 1-7.

Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 2

2011

Spectacle and witnessing: constructing readings of Parsons marine turbine, Technology &
Culture 52 (2011): 287-309.

Book Review Articles

2015

Challenging contexts in the history of physics, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 45
(2015): 501-510.

2011

Navy, nation and identity in the long nineteenth century, Journal for Maritime Research 13
(2011): 151-163.

Book Reviews
Robert J. Blyth, Jan Rger & Andrew Lambert, The Dreadnought and the Edwardian Age
(Farnham, 2011), Journal for Maritime Research (forthcoming).
2012

The making of the modern Admiralty: British naval policy-making, 1805-1927. C.I. Hamilton
(Cambridge, 2011), Journal of British Studies 51 (2012): 496-498.

2012

A floating commonwealth: politics, culture and technology on Britains Atlantic coast, 18601930. Christopher Harvie (Oxford, 2008), Journal for Maritime Research 14 (2012): 131-133.

Presented Papers
Conference and invited papers presented in Cambridge, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, Lisbon, London,
Manchester, Oxford, Pittsburgh, Washington DC.
2015

'Composed engineers: Frank Aydelotte, composition training and the liberal education of
engineers in early twentieth-century America', British Society for the History of Science
annual conference, Swansea, UK.

2015

Constructing progress and improvement: science, religion and culture on the Clyde, Science
and engineering in cultural context, University of Kent, UK.

2015

Reward, credibility and the amateur inventor in the Great War, Physics and the Great War,
Oxford University, UK.

2015

Shaping the Royal Navy: technology, authority and naval architecture, c.1830-1906, School of
Humanities and Social Sciences seminar program, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan.

2014

Restoring Victory: naval commemoration, heritage and identity in post-Great War Britain,
War, Society and Culture Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, UK.

2013

Give me a laboratory and I will win you a war: governing invention and research in the
British Admiralty, 1914-1919, Legacies of War seminar series, University of Leeds, UK.

2013

[T]he hash and muddle and quackery of our technical side is appalling: H.G. Wells and the
representation of science and invention in war, Putting Knowledge to War symposium,
International Congress for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Manchester,
UK.

2013

Architects into managers: extending the boundaries of expertise in the naval dockyards,
Naval expertise and the making of the modern world, Oxford University, UK.

2013

The new Allahs most puissant prophet: H.G. Wells, science and invention, School of
History seminar programme, University of Kent, UK.
Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 3

2012

Model ships, model science and test tank replication, Understanding Technology Lecture at
National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.
Highlighted in the Independent newspapers top ten talks for Autumn 2012.

2012

Judging expertise: the case of naval architecture, c.1830-1850, British sea power: expertise
and the state, 1800-1914, National Maritime Museum, UK.

2012

Modernity, nostalgia and the ship in the long-nineteenth century, British Maritime History
Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, UK.

2011

[T]heir mathematics and navigation may be well enough but they have not had the
opportunity of becoming seamen: sailors and tacit knowledge in early nineteenth-century
naval architecture, British Society for the History of Science annual conference, Exeter, UK.

2010

Parsons patents and partnerships: networks of authorship, cost and credibility in the steam
turbine, Managing knowledge in the techno-sciences, 1850-2000, University of Leeds, UK.

2010

Love of innovation for its own sake: science and the construction of naval power in
Edwardian and Great War Britain, National Maritime Museum seminar, London, UK.

2009

Shaping the Victorian navy: experience, experiment and the culture of expertise, Steam, sail
and science: making the Victorian and Edwardian maritime world conference, London, UK.

2009

Naval traditions and the politics of technological change, Past versus present: British
Association for Victorian Studies/North American Victorian Studies Association, Cambridge
University, UK.

2009

Test tanks and travelling technicians: comparative contexts and experimental sites of naval
science, 1872-1911, British Society for the History of Science annual conference, Leicester, UK.
Panel co-organiser, What comparative history can offer to the history of science.

2009

Placeless laboratories or (re)placing the local? a comparative study of the late-nineteenth

century science-industry nexus, AHRC South-East Hub for History postgraduate conference
2009, University of Kent, UK.

2009

Scientists and sailors: fighting to shape the Victorian navy, Departmental research seminar,
University of Kent, UK.

2008

Shaping the Victorian navy: experiment, experience and expertise in mid-Victorian naval
architecture, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA.

2008

What shapes a ship? The cultural construction of U.S. naval science and technology, 18801914, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA.

2008

Our doubts in fact appear to me as sacred: William Froude, test tanks and Victorian
doubt, History of Science Society Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, USA.

2008

Experimental test tanks, Carlylean historians and Victorian doubt: a nineteenth-century

comparison of science, technology and history, Looking beyond: 2008 annual conference of
the Society for the History of Technology, Lisbon, Portugal.

2008

The authority of tradition: memory, testimony and technological change in the Victorian
Navy, Cultural memory: forgetting to remember/remembering to forget, University of Kent,
UK.

2008

Our doubts in fact appear to me as sacred: William Froude, test tanks and Victorian
doubt, The British Association for Victorian Studies ninth annual conference: Victorian
feeling, Leicester University, UK.

Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 4

2008

Our doubts in fact appear to me as sacred: following religion and morality through
scientific practice, New perspectives: second annual conference of the religious history
society, York University, UK.

2008

The reverend lunatic and the catastrophic captain: disconnecting disciplines from
shipbuilding, Connecting disciplines: British Society of the History of Science three societies
meeting, Oxford, UK.
Panel organiser Naval science and technology in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

2008

William Froude, mechanical thought and the culture of Victorian doubt: a case-study in the
cultural history of science and shipbuilding, AHRC South-East Hub for History postgraduate
conference 2008, University of Reading, UK.

2008

The very principle of thinking and concluding: William Froude, John Henry Newman and
the cultures of Victorian naval science, Departmental research seminar, University of Kent,
UK.

2008

Marine performance, marine pageant, British Society of the History of Science postgraduate
conference, Leeds, UK.

2007

Contexts of knowledge and trust in Edwardian naval architecture and marine engineering,
AHRC South-East Hub for History postgraduate conference 2007, University of Kent, UK.

Grants and Awards

2015 Social policy research grant, Nazarbayev University, School of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Kazakhstan, $10,000.
2014

Faculty exchange program with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Nazarbayev

University, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kazakhstan.

2014

Small project grant, University of Kent, Faculty of Humanities, UK, 2,000.

2013

Small project grant, University of Kent, Faculty of Humanities, UK, 2,000.

2012

Small project grant, University of Kent, Faculty of Humanities, UK, 1,600.

2012

Velde visiting scholar, Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Illinois, USA,
2,000.

2011

Conference grant, British Society for the History of Science, 250.

2011

Small project grant, University of Kent, Faculty of Humanities, UK, 2,200.

2009

Junior Caird fellowship, National Maritime Museum, UK, 4,800.

2008

British Council research fellowship, John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, USA, 3,500.

2007

Doctoral research award, Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, 25,000.

2007

Coyler-Fergusson research grant, University of Kent, Faculty of Humanities, UK, 550.

2007

Maurice Crosland history of science studentship, University of Kent, UK, 9,000.

Conference, Symposium and Workshop Organisation

2015

Science and engineering in cultural context.

Conference organiser, University of Kent, UK.

2014

Situating science and technology in the Great War.

Conference organiser, University of Kent, UK.
Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 5

2013

Putting Knowledge to War: Place, Practice and Production in the Great War.
Symposium organiser (with Roy MacLeod), International Congress for the History of Science,
Technology and Medicine, Manchester, UK.

2012

British sea power: expertise and the state, 1800-1918.

Workshop organiser (with James Davey), National Maritime Museum, UK.

2011

Scientific governance in Britain, 1914-1979.

Conference organiser (with Charlotte Sleigh), University of Kent, UK.

2010

Expertises in modernity (2010-11).

Interdisciplinary workshop series convener, University of Kent, UK.

2010

The spatial turn (2010-11).

Interdisciplinary workshop series convener, University of Kent, UK.

2009

Steam, sail and science: making the Victorian and Edwardian maritime world.
Conference organiser (with Richard Dunn), University of Kent, UK.

2008

AHRC South East Hub for History Postgraduate Conference.

Conference organiser (with Nathan Williams), University of Reading, UK.

Teaching
Nazarbayev University
2015 Science, politics and the state in comparative context, c.1850-1980 (2015)
400 level, convenor and seminar leader.
2015

Modern Britain: culture, politics and society since 1750 (2015)

200 level, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.

2014

Introduction to the history of science and technology (2014)

100 level, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.

2014

The Atlantic world (2014)

200 level, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.

University of Kent
2014 Geographies of knowledge, c.1750-1950 (2014)
Master level module, convenor and seminar leader.
2013

An island people? Britons, navy and the sea, 1750-1950.

Second and third year module, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.

2011

Navy, nation and identity from Trafalgar to Jutland (2011-12).

Third year special subject module, convenor and seminar leader.

2010

Tools of empire, 1760-1920 (2010).

Second and third year module, seminar leader.

2010

History of science and communication (2010).

Master level module, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.

2010

Cultural history of the Great War: Britain, Germany and France in comparison (2010, 2014).
Second and third year module, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.

2009

Victorian Britain: politics, culture and society (2009, 2011-13).

First year module, convenor, lecturer and seminar leader.

Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 6

2006

Introduction to literature and science (2006-7).

First year module, seminar leader.

Professional Service
For the academy
2015

British Journal for the History of Science, book reviews editor (2015-).

2014

Journal of Maritime Research, guest editor.

2012

British Society for the History of Science, publicity officer (2012-2014).

Book manuscripts reviewed for Longman.
Article manuscripts reviewed for Journal of British Studies; Technology & Culture; British
Journal for the History of Science; ICON.

For Nazarbayev University

2014

Department representative to School of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Committee

(2014-).

2014

Institutional Research Ethics Committee (2014-).

For University of Kent

2013

Postgraduate article writing workshop, University of Kent, convenor (2013).

2011

Wunderkammer history of science and technology reading group, University of Kent,

founder and convenor (2011-2013).

2010

History postgraduate reading group, University of Kent, founder and convenor (2010-2012).

References
Available on request

Don Leggett Curriculum Vitae 7