Joshua Rhodes

Joshua Rhodes is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at Durham University. His research focuses on long-run agrarian change in England from 1550–1850, digitized census data analysis, and historical GIS applications. He holds a PhD from the University of Exeter (2019) and has held research positions at the University of Cambridge, University of Hull, and The Alan Turing Institute (London) on projects like the Living with Machines initiative.

Education: PhD in History, University of Exeter (2019); ESRC-funded MRes & PhD studies (2013–2019).

Research interests include the agrarian roots of capitalism, gender roles in land management, and geo-coding historic census data. His work combines quantitative methods with historical analysis to explore topics like handloom weavers' fates post-1850 and the bicycle industry's emergence in the 1880s–1900s. He has developed open methodologies for analyzing digitized census records, emphasizing spatial and temporal linkages.

His publications highlight methodological advances in historical data analysis and shed light on under-researched topics like women’s land management strategies in rural England. Awards include a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (£303,138.30) and the EHS Tawney Fellowship (2019).

Grants and collaborations include work with the Economic History Society and the Cambridge-based Campop project. He contributes to interdisciplinary teams, such as the Living with Machines project at the Alan Turing Institute, which integrates historical data with modern computational methods.