Dr Jennifer Aston

I am an Associate Professor in Law. 

Originally joining Northumbria University as Lecturer in the Humanities Department in 2017, I moved to Northumbria Law School in 2024. I previously held the EHS Eileen Power Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research and positions at the universities of Oxford, Birmingham and Hull. I am also an Associate Member of the Centre for Workforce Futures at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. My research interests include gender and small business ownership, bankruptcy, and the law. I am the author of Female Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century England: Engagement in the Urban Economy (Palgrave, 2016) and my latest book Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in Nineteenth Century England and Wales: ‘For Wives Alone’ (Hart, 2024) won the SLS Margaret Brazier Second Prize for Outstanding Mid-Career Scholarship, 2025 and was shortlisted for the Socio-Legal Studies Association Hart-SLSA Book Prize 2026 and the Socio-Legal Theory and History Prize 2026. You can read the Introduction here for free.

I have published widely on the interaction between gender and legal and financial institutions, including the edited collections Women and the Land 1500-1900 (Boydell, 2019) and Female Entrepreneurs in the Long Nineteenth Century: A Global Perspective (Palgrave, 2020), and articles in journals including Economic History Review, Business History and the Journal of Legal History. My article, ‘Petitions to the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes: A New Methodological Approach to the History of Divorce, 1857–1923’ in the Journal of Legal History was Highly Commended by the judges of the British Records Association’s Harley Prize 2022.

I became Chair of the Economic History Society's Publications Committee in April 2026 and have previously served as Deputy Editor for History: The Journal of the Historical Association and Production Editor for Feminist Legal Studies. I sit on the Editorial Board of Asia-Pacific Economic History Review, and I am a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. 

I am currently working on two research projects:

A New Methodological Approach to the History of Divorce, 1857-1923. Funded by an ESRC New Investigator award, this project employs a new, multidisciplinary methodology that combines mixed-method historical approaches with feminist legal theory and digital humanities to address 4 key research strands (a) the history of divorce and domestic abuse; (b) the economic cost of divorce; (c) child custody and mediation; and (d) the development of the family law profession.

Bankruptcy in Edwardian Britain, 1901-1914. This project [funded by an Economic History Society Carnevali Small Research Grant] uses previously unexamined Board of Trade Official Receiver’s Reports to examine business and personal failure in an era often seen as period of economic prosperity, social decadence, and entrepreneurial opportunity. I will use this new material as a starting point to write the first economic, social, legal, and cultural history of bankruptcy in Edwardian Britain.

In 2025/6, I am teaching on Academic and Professional Practice 1 (LW4024) and co-leading Legal History (LW6026). I was nominated for a Student Led Teaching Award in 2022, and in 2023 received the Student Led Teaching Award for 'Outstanding Staff Member for Arts, Design and Social Science'. 

I welcome enquiries about postgraduate study in economic, social, gender and legal history in nineteenth century Britain and the wider world.