Dr Valerie Wallace
Lecturer in the History of Scotland and the Wider World, c.1600-c.1914
Biography
I joined the School of History at St Andrews in 2022 after teaching for ten years at Victoria University of Wellingon in New Zealand where I was a Senior Lecturer in History and where I continue to hold a research fellowship. Before my New Zealand era I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Bentham Project in the Faculty of Laws at UCL (2010-2012) and the inaugural Fulbright Scottish Studies visiting scholar at the Center for History and Economics at Harvard University (2011-2012). In 2023 I was the Daiches-Manning Memorial Fellow in 18th-century Scottish Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
Research areas
I am primarily interested in the influence of Scottish ideas, particularly those associated with Scotland's distinctive religious and legal institutions, in the settler colonies of Britain's nineteenth-century empire. My first book, Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics: Empire of Dissent (2018), which won the Frank Watson prize for best first book in Scottish history, examined the subversive politics of Scottish religious dissenters in the Anglophone world during the age of revolution and reform. Current research, funded by a major grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand, considers the role of Scots law in the British empire. In addition, I manage People of Parliament, a digital resource on New Zealand’s parliamentary history for researchers, students and the public, which includes the first searchable database of New Zealand’s politicians, past and present. I also co-edit the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies.
PhD supervision
- Maggie Blackburn
Selected publications
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Covenanting and Enlightenment in nineteenth-century reformed presbytarian political theory
Wallace, V., 21 May 2023, Beyond the Enlightenment: Scottish intellectual life, 1790-1914. Fyfe, A. & Kidd, C. C. (eds.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 187-204 18 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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Open access
'Not Proven' and building a better Britain
Wallace, V. & Boyd, T., 5 Dec 2022, History Workshop Online.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
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Selling Scotland: the power of myth to promote an ancient nation
Wallace, V., 28 Oct 2022, TLS - The Times Literary Supplement, 6239, p. 12-12 1 p.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
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Polly Plum, A Firm and Earnest Woman's Advocate: Mary Ann Colclough, 1836–1885 by Jenny Coleman (review)
Wallace, V., Apr 2021, In: New Zealand Journal of History. 55, 1, p. 127-128 2 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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The Chair of Verity: Political Preaching and Pulpit Censure in Eighteenth-century Scotland
Wallace, V., 2020, In: Northern Scotland.Research output: Contribution to journal › Literature review
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Sectarianism and Separatism in Colonial Port Phillip
Wallace, V., 2019, In: Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 20, 3Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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The Scottish Diaspora
Wallace, V., Apr 2019, In: Scottish Historical Review. 98, 1, p. 153-155 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Literature review › peer-review
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Victorian Christianity and emigrant voyages to British colonies, c. 1840-c. 1914
Wallace, V., Apr 2019, In: Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 70, 2, p. 421-423 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Literature review › peer-review
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Between Nationhood and Nonconformity: the Scottish Whig-Presbyterian Novel and the Denominational Press
Wallace, V. & Kidd, C. C., 2018, Literature and Union: Scottish Texts, British Contexts. Oxford University PressResearch output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics: Empire of Dissent
Wallace, V., 2018, Palgrave Macmillan.Research output: Book/Report › Book