Estella Chen

Research Topic

'Witnessing Law in the English Courthouses, 1780-1850'

Supervisor: Bob Harris

My main academic interest lies in the legal, social, and cultural history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, with a particular emphasis on trial court procedures, architecture, and the people who inhabited these spaces.

My DPhil research investigates how the principle of 'open courts of justice' played out in reality, by exploring ‘the public(s)’ who attended courtroom proceedings as lay spectators in the trial courts of metropolitan London and provincial assizes in England. My thesis examines court architecture, the patterns of trial-attendance by the general public, the social composition and the diverse or converging motivations of courtroom spectators, as well as the behaviours and regulation of this heterogeneous group. By considering trial spectating as an important phenomenon in its own right, I hope to uncover the significance of the largely neglected activity of court-observing as a crucial form of public engagement with the law, while drawing attention to several overlooked aspects of the histories of policing, trial, and punishment, as well as offering fresh insights into well-studied legal cases and actors.

Before starting my DPhil, I received my BA Honours Specialisation in History from Western University, Canada, where I was the departmental gold medallist. I then pursued an MSt in 'British and European History, 1700-1850' at Oxford (Wolfson College), where I won the 'Best Performance in Cohort' prize 2022/23 for achieving the highest overall marks among all strands of MSt in History candidates. 

My DPhil has been funded by the Clarendon Fund and The Queen's College, Oxford.