Dr Jennifer Aston
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. You can read the Introduction here for free.
