Profile
Roles:
Biography:
Jack is a historian of economic life in early modern Britain and Europe. Before joining QMUL, he was Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Manchester. He holds a PhD from University College London and an MA from the University of Amsterdam. Jack’s research explores the long history of capitalist development, including through the business practices of merchants and retailers; the shifting role of state regulation in governing commercial enterprise; and the relationship between economic activity and the environment. He is particularly interested in histories of capitalism ‘from below’, which seek to understand how ordinary people experienced and influenced nascent capitalist social relations.
Research
Research Interests:
Research interests:
- Histories of capitalism and political economy
- Histories of guilds and market regulation
- Environmental history
- Early capitalism and maritime industry
- Urban geographies and industrial heritage
- The social and political history of early modern Britain and Europe
Jack is currently exploring these themes through a study of maritime industry in early modern Europe, and of the regulation of the fish trade at Billingsgate Market in East London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This involves extensive archival research, including in the records of the City of London corporation and the Fishmongers’ Company.
Centre and Group Membership:
Publications
- Sargeant, J. D., ‘Fishing, Freedom, and the Market in Early Modern London’, History Workshop Journal, 97 (2024), pp. 77–101.
- Sargeant, J. D., ‘Official communication and political innovation in the English Revolution’, in Enter the Crowd: Social Communication in Early Modern England, ed. M. Pennacchia and I. Plescia (Florence, 2023), pp. 48-59.
- Sargeant, J. D., ‘Publicity, authority and legal radicalism at John Lilburne’s treason trial, 1649’, Historical Research, 93:262 (2020), pp. 661-77.
- Sargeant, J. D., ‘Parliament and the crown jewels in the English Revolution, 1641–1644’, Historical Journal, 63:4 (2020), pp. 811-35.
Public Engagement
Jack has worked as a historical consultant to Historic Royal Palaces.
