Newcastle University

Introduction

I've been here since 2000, teaching, supervising, and researching post-1914 British history. With degrees in each, I straddle, more or less comfortably, the disciplines of history and politics, being particularly interested in promoting contemporary history and its applications.

I'm also closely involved in outreach, widening participation, and engagement activities. For the School I’m Senior Tutor (concerned with overseeing pastoral care), and Director of Undergraduate Studies (concerned with the learning environment); for History I’m responsible for schools, careers, and alumni matters; for the University, I work on Insights Public Lectures and student hardship.

My office hours are Tuesday 2-4, Thursday 12-2.

Background

Born and raised in north London, I proceeded via secondary education in the home counties, undergraduate study in the west country, doctoral research in east central Scotland, and varied, and increasingly desperate, short-term and hourly contracts and appointments in and around London, before I, gratefully, arrived in the North East.

Roles and Responsibilities

Senior Tutor, School of Historical Studies

Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Historical Studies

Schools Officer, History

Alumni Officer, History

Vice-Chair, Public Lectures

Deputy Chair, Student Discretionary Awards Forum

Programme Director, MA British History

Returning Officer, Union Society

Qualifications

B.A. (Politics), University of Exeter, 1993
Ph.D (History), University of Glasgow, 1998

Previous Positions

Lecturer, Workers’ Educational Association, 1999-
Tutor, Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford, 1999-2000
Archivist, Records Management Department, Public Record Office, Kew, 1999
Ghost-writer and researcher, The Lord Henniker, 1998-2000
Private tutor, history and politics, 1996-2000
Tutor, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, 1994-1997
Tutor, Department of History, University of Glasgow 1994-1997

Memberships

Royal Historical Society
Workers' Educational Association
Historical Association

Informal Interests

Cricket, football, music, books, travel, real ale, wine, spirits

Research Interests

Twentieth century and contemporary British politics
Biography
Political parties
Elections
Government
Media

Current Work

I've just finished an article on the 'December Crises' of 1916 and 1915, and I'm currently working on conference papers and articles concerning the 1918 General Election in South Wales, the Labour Party and strategic bombing in the Second World War, and post-war British mass tourism. I'm also co-editing two volumes on interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives on the ‘British Abroad’ based on a conference I co-organised last year: Travellers and Tourists, and Experiencing Imperialism.

Future Research

Liberals between the wars
Bridget Plowden and broadcasting policy
The Labour Party since 1964
The McKenna Papers, and the hotly-anticipated second volume of the biography. Still.

Research Roles

Associate Editor, British Scholar, britishscholar.com
Member History and Policy network, www.historyandpolicy.org

Postgraduate Supervision

Current:
Andi Ali (PhD), The British National Party, 1982-2010
Steven Bainbridge (MLitt), The Conservative Party and Thatcherism
Nick Cott (PhD), Liberal Recruits to the Conservative Party, 1918-1931
Simon Craig (PhD), R. A. Butler and Conservative Politics, 1939-1945
Stephen Dippnall (MLitt), The Labour Party and the U.S.A., 1945-2010
Stephen King (PhD), The Ministerial Career of Tony Crosland, 1964-1977
Barbara Martin (MPhil), Women and Ideology in Britain, 1918-1939
Melinda Sutton (PhD), The Labour Party and Northern Ireland, 1969-1997

Past:
David Thompson (MLitt), The Durham Light Infantry in the First World War
Gordon Beckwith (MLitt), British Defence Policy since 1945
Adam Gillett (MLitt), British Party Politics, 1910-1924
Gordon Leigh (MLitt), Newcastle Jewry, 1900-2000
Campbell Storey (PhD), Margaret Thatcher in Opposition, 1974-79
Dean Blackburn (MLitt), The centre-left of British party politics, 1972-1987
Gordon Kell (MLitt), Manpower, Empire and Warfare, 1890-1922
John Shackleton (MLitt), Trades Unions and the Labour Party, 1906-2009
Lisa Snoxell (MLitt), Women and British politics, 1901-1918
Andriana Georgiou (MLitt), Fascism in Britain, 1932-1940
David Linden (MLitt), The ‘New Right’ in Britain, 1970-1990

Esteem Indicators

Associate Editor, British Scholar Society
Reader for Routledge, Blackwell, Cambridge University Press, Labour History Review, Journal of Historical Biography
External Examiner, BA History, University of Wales, Newport

Industrial Relevance

Broadcasting:
-TV: BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC News, ITN, UKTV History, Tyne Tees TV, Dene Films, Border TV, More4, Press TV (Iran), Al Jazeera (London), Nippon Hoso Kyokai (Japan), FNN News (Japan).
-Radio: BBC World Service, BBC Radio Four, BBC Radio Five Live, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Newcastle, BBC Radio Gloucester, BBC Three Counties Radio, BBC Radio Sunderland, BBC Radio Leeds, Metro Radio (Newcastle), Talksport, Newstalk (Ireland), Newstalk 93 FM (Jamaica), HOT102 FM (TODAY with Beverley Manley) (Jamaica), Polskie Radio PR1 (Poland), VIP Radio, SPARK FM, CityTalk FM.

Journalism:
-Contributor: BBC History Magazine, The Times, The Guardian, The Journal, The Northern Echo, The Evening Chronicle.
-Interviewee: New York Times, New York Daily News, Toronto Star, Christian Science Monitor, Sunday Sun, CSN News, The Independent, Daily Mirror, The Sun, News of the World, Sunday Express, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Sunday Herald, Yorkshire Post, Harpers, O Globo (Brazil), Netherlands Press Association, Dziennik (Poland), Wprost (Poland), Pravda, Associated Press, Bloomberg, International Herald Tribune, Folha de S.Paulo (Brazil), Rzeczpospolita (Poland), Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan), Mainichi Shimbun (Japan).

Keywords

British, Britain, political history, politics, government, institutions, parties, media, foreign policy, monarchy

Undergraduate Teaching

POL1000 Theory and Method in Politics and History
HIS1029 Varieties of History
HIS1030 Evidence and Argument (Allied area bombing of Germany in Second World War)
HIS2124 A History of Contemporary Britain
HIS3082 British Politics in the First World War
HIS3088 Labour in Power 1974-79
HIS3010 Writing History
HIS3008 Reading History (Correlli Barnett, The Lost Victory; Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians)
HIS3120 British Foreign Policy since Suez

Postgraduate Teaching

ART8000 Faculty Research Training
HIS8000 Research Methods in History
HIS8011 Thatcherism
HIS8023 Dissertation
HIS8024 The Practice of History
HIS8025 Pathway in British History
HIS8098 Dissertation Training
M.Litt, M.Phil, Ph.D supervision

• Farr M. The Contemporary History of House of Lords Reform. London, UK: British Scholar Society, 2011. Available at: http://bit.ly/nhVSC9.
• Farr M, Guegan X, ed. The British Abroad. Experiencing Imperialism: interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives since the eighteenth century. :Palgrave,2012.
• Farr M. The Masses Abroad: Popular Tourism and the Age of Consensus. In: Farr, M., Guegan, X, ed. The British Abroad. Travellers and Tourists: interdisciplinary and transnationalperspectives since the eighteenth century. Palgrave, 2012. In Preparation.
• Farr M. 'A Study in Biography Target: Biography or Journal of Historical Biography. 2011.
• Farr M. Monmouthshire and the 1918 General Election. Llafur 2011. In Preparation.
• Farr M. The Party of Patriotism: The Conservative Party and the First World War, by Nigel Keohane. Journal of British Studies 2011. . In Press.
• Farr M. The People’s Party and Area Bombing, 1941-1945. Labour History Review 2011. In Preparation.
• Farr M. Winter and Discontent: the December Crises of the Asquith Coalition, 1915-1916. Britain and the World 2011, 4(1), 109-141.
• Farr M. A View from the Foothills: the Diaries of Chris Mullin, edited by Ruth Winstone. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK:M. Johnson, Ed. & Pub.,2010. Available at :http://globaldiscourse.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/farr.pdf.
• Farr M. Colonial Environments. British Scholar 2010. Edinburgh, UK:Edinburgh University Press,III 187-190.
• Farr M. David Lloyd George: the Great Outsider, by Roy Hattersley. BBC History 2010. .
• Farr M. Women of the Right Spirit: Paid Organisers of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) 1904-18, by Krista Cowman. Gender & History 2010. . In Press.
• Farr M. A Part of History: Aspects of the British Experience of the First World War, introduced by Michael Howard. British Scholar 2009. ,2 1 165-167.
• Farr M. Dear Prime Minister. BBC History Magazine 2006,7 10 .
• Farr M. Dutton, David, A History of the Liberal Party in the Twentieth Century. Contemporary British History 2006. ,20 2 285-286.
• Farr M. The NUM and British Politics, Volume 1: 1944-1968, by Andrew Taylor. Contemporary British History 2005. ,19 3 407-408.
• Farr M. Twentieth Century Britain, by William Rubinstein. Contemporary British History 2005. ,19 2 268-270.
• Farr M. Britain, France, and the Financing of the First World War, by Martin Horn. War in History 2004. ,11 4 461-463.
• Farr M. From Beveridge to Blair, edited by Rodney Lowe and Margaret Jones. Contemporary British History 2004. ,18 1 152-154.
• Farr M. British Social Movements Since 1945: Sex, Colour, Peace and Power, by Adam Lent. Contemporary British History 2002. ,152-154.
• Farr M. History in Practice, by Ludmilla Jordanova. Continuity and Change 2001. ,16 3 443-449.
• Farr M. Reginald McKenna: Financier Among Statesmen, 1863-1916. New York:Routledge,2007.
• Farr M. A compelling case for voluntarism: Britain's alternative strategy, 1915-1916. War in History 2002,9 3 279-306.
• Farr M. ‘Squiff', 'Lliar George', and 'The McKennae': The unpersuasive politics of personality in the Asquith coalition, 1915-1916. In:Toye, R., Gottlieb, J., ed. Making Reputations: Power, Persuasion and the Individual in Modern British Politics.London:I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd,2005, pp. 29-42.
• Farr M. Clann MacKenna’s Edwardian Exile. In:O'Neill, P., ed. Exile and Homecoming.University of Sydney:The Celtic Studies Foundation,2005, pp. 207-224.
• Farr M. Left, Right: December 1916: The Forward March of Liberals Halted. Journal of Liberal History 2005,47 30-35.
• Lord Henniker. Painful Extractions: Looking Back at a Personal Journey. Thornham:Thornham Books,2002.
• Martin Farr. ‘British Journalism in World War I’; ‘Reginald McKenna’;‘The Labour Party in World War I’; ‘The Liberal Party in World War I’;‘British Journalism in World War II’; ‘The Conservative Party in World War II’;‘Ernest Bevin’; ‘Clement Attlee’.. In: James Ciment, Thaddeus Russell, ed. The Home Front Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO, 2006.
• Farr M. 'Michael Foot’, ‘Neil Kinnock’, ‘Harold Wilson’. In:Loades, D., ed. Reader’s Guide to British History.New York and London:Fitzroy Dearborn,2003.
• Farr M. Pomp and Circumstance: The Diamond Jubilee of 1897. BBC History Magazine 2002,43-49.