Sophie Michell

My doctoral research is focused on the Victorian coroner's court in Peterborough, specifically examining the preliminary investigation of violent death. The verdicts of Victorian inquests could be used as criminal indictments, and it was very difficult to bring a criminal prosecution against an individual if the inquest jury found that a death had been natural or accidental. My project seeks to analyse the dynamics of the coroner's court, examining whether the community ties between the coroner, his jurors, the deceased and the witnesses affected inquest verdicts, and thus administration of effective justice. I am supervised by Professor Paul Lawrence and Dr Donna Loftus. I became interested in history of medicine while studying for a BSc in Health and Social Care with the Open University. I decided to pursue history with a Masters degree in Local and Regional History, again from the Open University, looking at the role of the coroner's court in investigating infant death in Victorian Peterborough, using original depositions from the inquests. The scope for further research using this excellent source material was immediately apparent, and I applied to do a PhD a few months after I completed my masters in 2019.