My project is a Collaborative Doctoral Award between the University of Warwick and the Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick. I am supervised by Dr Naomi Pullin and Professor Beat Kümin at Warwick and Dr Angela Nicholls, who is representing the Lord Leycester. The Lord Leycester Hospital was founded in 1571 by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, one of the key figures at Elizabeth I’s court, and by 1585, the ordinances stated that the almshouse would house twelve poor, aged or maimed soldiers under the supervision of a master. The Lord Leycester still functions as an almshouse for ex-soldiers to this day, and it has undergone significant renovation in recent months.

I plan on looking at the Lord Leycester as a prism to study broader issues concerning elite and popular culture in early modern England. I am particularly interested in notions of disability, materiality, military identity, philanthropy, popular politics, and town relations.