Dr Henry Miller
Lecturer in 19th Century British History, University of Manchester
N2.07 Samuel Alexander Building, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
University of Manchester
Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL
0161 27 3025
henry.miller[at]manchester.ac.uk
Period: 19th – century portraiture
Medium: Photography, Prints
Career summary
Ph. D. University of London (2009) – explored the role of printed images in Victorian politics.
2009-13 Research Fellow, History of Parliament Trust, 1832-1868 House of Commons Project.
2013- Lecturer in 19th Century British History, University of Manchester.
Areas of interest / research
I have just completed a monograph on the role of likenesses in Victorian politics. The book is based on a diverse range of visual material including engravings, prints, photographs, wood engraved periodicals, paintings, sculpture, statuary and likenesses in the form of material culture such as coins, tokens, banners and political ceramics. The book examines how portraits were crucial in shaping political identity and how they were exploited by politicians, parties and political movements to appeal to a broad public. It discusses the portraits of leading politicians such as Palmerston, Gladstone and Disraeli, but also locally-produced portraits of MPs and group portraiture.
I also have an interest in cartoons and caricature and my earlier research focused on Punch and its cartoons.
Details of books/publications relating to your work on British portraiture
Politics Personified: Portraiture, Caricature and Visual Culture in Britain, 1830-1880 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014).
‘John Leech and the Shaping of the Victorian Cartoon: The Context of Respectability’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 42 (2009), 267-91.