Dr Nicola Martin

Research

My research is focused on British army officers throughout the long eighteenth century. I am developing ideas raised in my PhD through research into warfare and identity formation. In particular, I am interested in the various ways that militarisation affected understandings of loyalty and imperial subjecthood in Scotland and North America. I am currently working on my first monograph, which investigates the overarching cultural frameworks, individual circumstances, and local conditions guiding the actions and understandings of British army officers as they waged war, pacified hostile peoples, and attempted to assimilate ‘other’ population groups within the British Empire. The book demonstrates the impact of the Jacobite Rising of 1745-46 on British imperialism in North America and centres the material role of British army officers in the imperial crisis that led to the American Revolution.

Additionally, I am interested in the role of Scottish army officers within the British Parliament from 1707 and the ways in which they negotiated place and power both in their locality and in London. I have written several biographies of Scottish representative peers for the History of Parliament and am currently researching the 16th and 17th earls of Sutherland during the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite Risings.

Publications

Articles and book chapters

• ‘Loyalty and Resistance: Whig responses to anti-Jacobite imperatives in the Scottish Highlands’ in K. German and D. Layne (eds.), The Cultures of Scottish Jacobitism [Manchester University Press]. Forthcoming 2024.
• ‘Inculcating loyalty in the Highlands and beyond, c.1745–1784’, Atlantic Studies, 2023.
• ‘Lord Loudoun, the Highlands, and imperial subjecthood in North America’, Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 100(2), (Oct 2021).
• Several biographies of Scottish representative peers in The History of Parliament: The House of Lords 1715-1790 (History of Parliament Trust). These include Hugh Campbell, 3rd earl of Loudoun, John Murray, 2nd earl of Dunmore, John Sutherland, 16th earl of Sutherland, William Sutherland, 17th earl of Sutherland, James Stewart, 2nd earl of Orkney, and William Home, 8th earl of Home.

Magazine Articles

• ‘In the Heart of the Vile Race: the British army, the Highlands and the Empire’, History Scotland (July 2020).

Guest Blogs

• Several blog posts for ‘A Civilised Nation?’ Project, Scotland’s Futures Forum (2017).
• ‘The Influence of the Scottish Highlands on the British Army in early America’, The Junto, online (2016).
• ‘After Culloden’, Centre for Scottish Studies, online (2016).

Book Reviews

• Mackillop, 'Human Capital and Empire: Scotland, Ireland, Wales and British imperialism in Asia, c.1690-c.1820’, History Scotland (2023).
• Griffin and F. D. Cogliano (eds.), ‘Ireland and Empire: Empire, Revolution, and Sovereignty’, Journal of the Early Republic (2023).
• Linch and M. Lord (eds.), ‘Redcoats to Tommies: The Experience of the British Soldier From the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of British Studies (2022).
• Black, ‘How the Army made Britain a Global Power, 1688-1815’, British Journal for Military History (2022).
• A. Pettinger, 'Frederick Douglass and Scotland, 1846’, Scottish History Review (2021).
• F. McKichan, 'Lord Seaforth: Highland Landowner, Caribbean Governor’, History Scotland (2020).
• C. Anderson and C. Fleet, 'Scotland: Defending the Nation: Mapping the Military Landscape’, History Scotland (2019).
• J. R. Barrett, 'The Making of a Scottish Landscape: Moray’s Regular Revolution, 1760-1840’, History Scotland (2016).

Teaching

I was appointed a fellow of the Higher Education Academy in December 2019.

I currently act as Module Leader for:

• What Is History? (First Year)
• Themes in US History (Second Year)
• Jacobites: Patriots, Rebels, or Opportunists (Third Year)

I also teach/have taught on:

• Empire, Environment, and Identity: Scotland 1600-2000 (First Year)
• People, Protest and Power (First Year)
• Historians and History (Second Year)
• Scots in North America: experience and identity (Third Year)
• Public History (Third Year)
• Gender in American Culture and Society, 1776-1917 (Fourth Year)
• Royal Power, Propaganda and Performance in Early Modern Europe (MLitt)
• Arguments and Alternatives (MLitt)

Additional Activities

• Secretary of the Jacobite Studies Trust (appointed February 2023)
• Grants Officer for the Society of Army Historical Research (appointed August 2023)
• National Trust for Scotland Culloden War Stories: ‘Cumberland’s Army in North America’ (April 2022).
• Highland Clearances’, Unearthed Podcast (November 2020).
• BBC Blood of the Clans (August 2020).
• Research Assistant, Victorian Election Violence Project, Durham University (2019).
• National Trust for Scotland Culloden Annual Commemoration (April 2018), invited speaker.
• ‘Scotland 2030 – Technology and Society’ Royal Society of Edinburgh and Scotland’s Futures Forum (November 2017), invited speaker.
• ‘Negotiating Academic Careers’ Scottish Association for the Study of America Workshop (University of Edinburgh, February 2017), co-organiser.
• Scottish History Network (2016-19), co-founder. The Scottish History Network produced a weekly digest of Scottish History news within and outwith academia and organised a State of the Field Workshop (April 2016) and ‘Scottish History: British or European?’ Panel Discussion (August 2016).
• Scottish Association for the Study of America Annual Conference (University of Stirling, March 2016), organiser.