John Ayshford

I am a doctoral researcher in the history department of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester. My doctoral research, funded by the Elsie Farrar Studentship, seeks to illuminate the radical republican nature of John Stuart Mill's political thought. I am also the co-editor of The Simons of Manchester: How one family shaped a city and a nation (Manchester University Press, September 2024). The Simons of Manchester is a collected volume of essays which rehabilitates the lives of two generations of the influential mancunian family, the Simons, and critically analyses their public work in social reform, business and philanthropy from 1860-1960.