The Belcher Visiting Fellowship in Victorian Studies
The Belcher Visiting Fellowship in Victorian Studies was established through a legacy left to the College by the renowned Pugin scholar, Dr Margaret Belcher, who read English at St Hugh’s in the late 1950s. It is open to academics from any discipline who have obtained their doctorate, and are working in the broad field of Victorian Studies. Previous holders of the Visiting Fellowship include distinguished historians, art historians, and literary scholars. The position is fixed-term, and is offered for a period of no longer than 12 months. It is awarded annually by open competition.
The Fellowship carries no salary and Belcher Fellows are not employees of the College, although they have full dining rights and office space at St Hugh’s, as well as generous expense allowances. The Fellowship is therefore usually held by an academic on paid research leave from another institution. It is sometimes possible to help with the costs of a teaching buyout for the successful candidate.
We anticipate opening applications for the 2026/27 Belcher Fellowship in November 2025.
Dr Margaret Belcher (Credit: The Pugin Society/Michael Fisher)
Belcher Fellow 2024/25
Dr Robert Saunders
Robert Saunders is Reader in Modern British History at Queen Mary University of London. He specialises in political and intellectual history from 1830 to the present day, ranging from sermons preached against the Great Reform Act to the political thought of Boris Johnson. He is the author of Yes to Europe! The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain, which won the American Historical Association’s Morris D. Forkosch Prize in 2019, and Democracy and the Vote in British Politics, and has featured as a political commentator in the New Statesman, the Economist, The Times, Channel 4 News, BBC Newsnight and many other outlets. While at St Hugh’s, he will be working on a history of British democracy, ahead of the centenary of universal male and female suffrage in 2028.
Previous Belcher Fellows
Professor Ruth Livesey (2024)
Ruth Livesey is Professor of 19th Century Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway University of London. For more information please click here.
Dr Joanna Hofer-Robinson (2024)
Joanna Hofer-Robinson is a Lecturer in the English and Comparative Literary Studies Department at the University of Warwick. For more information please click here.
Dr Kate Nichols (2023/24)
Kate Nichols is Associate Professor in Art History at the University of Birmingham. For more information please click here.
Professor Pamela K. Gilbert (2023)
Pamela K. Gilbert is the Albert Brick Professor of English at the University of Florida. For more information please click here.
Dr Oindrila Ghosh (2022/23)
Oindrila Ghosh is Associate Professor of English at Diamond Harbour Women’s University. For more information please click here.
Professor Sharon Aronofsky Weltman (2022/23)
Sharon Aronofsky Weltman is Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Texas Christian University. For more information please click here.
Professor Jessica R. Valdez (2022).
Jessica R. Valdez is Assistant Professor of Nineteenth-Century British Literature at Louisiana State University. For more information please click here.
Professor Mark Turner (2021)
Mark Turner is Professor of Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Literature at King’s College London. For more information please click here.
Professor Martin Hewitt (2020/23)
Martin Hewitt, the inaugural Belcher Fellow, is a historian of Britain and its culture in the nineteenth century. For more information please click here.
