Peter Nockles

Early and modern religious history, especially history of high church Anglicanism and the Caroline Divines, the Oxford Movement and Tractarianism, St John Henry Newman studies, Reformation historiography and legacies, history of 18th & 19th century English Roman Catholicism, anti-Catholicism, Protestant Nonconformity, Latitudinarianism, Evangelicalism, Methodism and Wesley Studies (especially John and Charles Wesley), the Enlightenment and its reactions; the history of ecumenism and church unity, the history of universities (more especially the University of Oxford).

I received my MA and Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, in 1975 and 1982 respectively, studying at Worcester College and St Cross College. My Oxford D.Phil thesis was entitled 'Continuity & Change in Anglican High-Churchmanship in Britain, 1792-1850'. A heavily revised and expanded version of this was published by Cambridge University Press in 1994 (paperback 1997) under the itle: The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship in Britain, 1760-1857. My many other publications include a contribution to a History of Canterbury Cathedral (Oxford University Press 1995), to volume 6 of the History of the University of Oxford (Oxford University Press 1997), two major chapters in Oriel College: A History (Oxford University Press 2013), and I was a contributor and the co-editor with Stewart J. Brown of The Oxford Movement: Europe and the Wider World 1830-1930 (Cambridge University Press 2012). I was co-editor of a themed issue of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library (volume 90:1) published in 2014 under the title Reinventing the Reformation. I was a contributor to and editor with Professor Stewart J. Brown & the Rev. James S. Pereiro of the Oxford Handbook of the Oxford Movement, published by Oxford University Press in June 2017. I was also a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of  John Henry Newman published by Oxford University Press in October 2018, and to a festschrift for professor Terrence Merrigan, of the University of Leuven,'Answerable for our Beliefs: Reflections on Theology and Contemporary Culture' (Peters, Leuven, 2022. I was a recipient of a festschrift volume myself, 'Religion in Britain, 1660-1900: Essays in Honour of Peter B. Nockles', guest eds. William Gibson & Geordan Hammond. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 97/1 (Spring, 2021).

    I was an Assistant Librarian and Librarian at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester from December 1979 until 30 September 2016, from 1990 being a curator in Special Collections at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, with responsibility for the Methodist collections for many years and Librarian in Rare Books & Maps, Special Collections, with responsibility for all theological book collections, 2010-16. 

  I was a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford, 2006-11. I have been an Honorary Research Fellow (HRF) in the Department, then Division of Religions & Theology, University of Manchester, since 1999 (confirmed 2007), and an Honorary Research Felow in the School of Arts Languages & Cultures, since February 2014. I am on the Council of the Catholic Record Society (CRS) and was CRS Conference Director, 1996-2007. I am a member of the Association of British Theological & Philosophical Libraries (ABTAPL), the Religious Archives Group (RAG), the Ecclesiastical History Society (EHS), the Church of England Record Society, and I am a Board member and Honorary Fellow of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre (MWRC) at the Nazarene Theological College (NTC), Didsbury, and I am on the Advisory Board of the Oxford Centre for Methodism & Church History, Oxford Brookes University. I am also on the editorial board of the journal 'Wesley and Methodist Studies'. I have given academic seminar papers and lectures widely in Europe (France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden) and North America over the last 25 years. I am on the editorial board of the Newman Studies Journal (NSJ) and I was invited to lecture and to a research visit and stay at the National Institute for Newman Studies (NINS) at Pittsburgh, PA, during autumn 2021, now 2022 due to Covid-19 and then subsequently my own ill health.

    I have examined over a dozen doctoral theses during my career, more recently for the University of Manchester at the Nazarene Theological College, Didsbury. I was an external examiner for a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Leuven and on the examining panel at a public defense which took place place in February 2019. I have co-supervised at least one University of Manchester Ph.D (Kelly Yates). I have been the internal University of Manchester examiner of PhD theses on seveal occasions, most recently in June 2023. I am on the editorial board of the Newman Studies Journal (NSJ) and have been a regular contributorb to the NSJ. I was recently given the Gaillot Award, an award bestowed by the board of the National Institute for Newman Studies (NINS) at Pittsburgh, Pa., USA, in 'recognition of a lifetime achievement in promoting the life and thought of Cardinal (now Saint) John Henry Newman'. I finally received this Award from NINS in September 2021. I gave the Gaillot lecture at the NINS Newman Spring Symposium in March 2022. I have acted as a peer reviewer of numerous articles submitted for various of academic journals.

     In June 2021 I had the honour of being the recipient of a festschrift volume entitled 'Religion in Britain, 1660-1900', guest edited by William Gibson and Geordan Hammond, in a special themed issue of the 'Bulletin of the John Rylands Library', volume 97/1 (Spring, 2021). There was an online Zoom seminar celebration event on 5 June 2021. In May 2022 I attended the festschrift celebration of Professor Terrence Merrigan at the University of Leuven, as a contributor to this festschrift, recently published by (Peeters, Leuven, 2022) under the title, 'Answerable for our Beliefs: Reflections on Theology and Contemporsary Culture' - see above. I have recently also contributed a long essay or a forthcoming festschrift for Emeritus Professor Brown Patterson, of the University of the South, Sewanee, TN. Publication is pending.