My review of Childhood and War in Eighteenth-Century Britain (2025) by Jennine Hurl-Eamon has recently been published by the journal English Historical Review.

The book provides an important new perspective on eighteenth-century warfare and contains considerable original research, though I wasn’t always persuaded by its analysis.

Excerpt: “Although more than a third of England’s eighteenth-century population was under the age of 15, the wartime experiences of youngsters during this notably belligerent era have received only sporadic historical attention. Jennine Hurl-Eamon’s welcome volume aims to address this oversight by bringing military history into dialogue with the history of childhood.
The book’s scope is both broader and narrower than its title suggests. Rather than covering the eighteenth century proper, Hurl-Eamon focuses on the period from the Seven Years War to the Battle of Waterloo (1756–1815). She is primarily concerned with the British Army, on the grounds that more has been written about youthful seafarers. Yet, much like the Georgian soldiers she studies, Hurl-Eamon ventures well beyond British shores, tracing children’s interactions with the military across diverse European and colonial contexts. Her research encompasses both boys and girls, and includes youngsters caught up in the fighting as well as children whose knowledge of war was strictly second-hand. The author exploits a wide array of sources, making extensive use of soldiers’ memoirs and contemporary prints. The analysis is further enriched by the productive sampling of local archives and courts-martial records.”

Visit English Historical Review for the full review (may be paywalled) or read the accepted manuscript version for free here.

I was delighted to learn this week that my PhD thesis, “Musical Warriors“, has received the 2026 Research Prize from The International Society for the Research and Promotion of Wind Music (IGEB). The award recognizes the best dissertation in the field of wind music research completed in the last five years.

The prize also includes an invitation to present at the IGEB annual conference in Bern, Switzerland in July 2026, with the reimbursement of accommodation costs.

I am grateful for this vote of confidence in my work by the judging panel of musicians and musicologists. It is a welcome fillip in advance of the publication of my book, Musical Warriors: British Military Music and the Napoleonic Wars, by McGill-Queen’s University Press early next year.

I was recently asked to write a short article about the 55th Regiment of Foot for The Lion & the Dragon, the magazine of Cumbria’s Museum of Military Life. Located in Carlisle Castle in northern England, this excellent regimental museum interprets the history of the 55th Foot and other regiments of the British Army from the 18th century to the present day. My article, which appears on page 7 of the Spring 2026 issue and is reproduced below, chronicles colourful episodes of officer misconduct during the Napoleonic Wars. The piece is more descriptive than analytical, but I hope it provides revealing insight into the interpersonal problems that could arise during spells of otherwise uneventful garrison duty.

The 55th Regiment cannot boast of an especially glorious or action-packed record during the Napoleonic Wars, but courts-martial documents preserved in The National Archives reveal that its officers had ample opportunity to pick fights with each other.

While on garrison duty in Jamaica in 1808, Captain Hamilton Clune was shunned by his mess‑mates for suggesting that Ensign Davis’s wife had loose morals. Although Clune requested a court of enquiry to clear his name, officers of the regiment pressed the principals to resolve their quarrel in a manner ‘totally different from that of a public investigation’, especially after Davis boasted of calling Clune a scoundrel. Lieutenant‑Colonel Douglass extracted promises from both men to avoid a duel, but once he departed for England the pledges were widely regarded as void. Even the regiment’s second‑in‑command, Major Heyliger, tacitly endorsed an exchange of pistol shots, noting that other officers were ‘in hopes’ the pair would ‘settle their dispute as gentlemen commonly do, and give the regiment no further trouble.’

Douglass was obliged to intervene in another affair of honour several years later. Denouncing an 1811 duel in which Lieutenant Blake wounded Lieutenant Adams, he insisted that ‘the world does not contain a more detestable character than that of a professed duellist.’ While Douglass refrained from pressing charges, he extracted written undertakings from the participants to refrain from such quarrels in future. Blake’s declaration would later be used against him when he was court‑martialled and cashiered in 1814 for caning Captain Clune in the streets of Windsor and telling him to ‘kiss my arse’ after parade.

In the 55th Foot, as in other regiments, officers met collectively to deliberate on the misbehaviour of their peers without recourse to potentially career-ending courts-martial. In 1808, for example, the captains of the corps recommended ostracizing both Clune and Davis for slanderous language. Clune rejected this judgment, accusing his comrades of arrogating judicial authority, only to later demand that Lieutenant Blake be shunned for calling the 55th ‘a most rascally corps.’

Clune was known for his ‘unhappy temper’, and Richard Blake was clearly an impetuous rogue, but the pair were by no means the only troublesome officers in the regiment. In 1806, for example, the 55th’s paymaster was court‑martialled and cashiered for ‘highly unbecoming conduct’ after exchanging blows with a lieutenant in a Jamaican mess room; his social disgrace was compounded by the fact that a private soldier had been forced to separate the brawling duo. Another subaltern, Alexander Proudfoot, was expelled from the mess for failing to pay his bills and prosecuted on a variety of charges in 1808. Proudfoot contrived to relocate his lodgings to the room beneath his court-martial so he could eavesdrop on the supposedly confidential sentencing proceedings through the floorboards.

Such antics may amuse us today, but they caused no little consternation at the time. Military men fretted about declining standards and the erosion of social exclusivity, complaining that incessant wartime demand for manpower made it all too easy for uncouth candidates to secure commissions. Major‑General Hugh Carmichael, for example, noted the extreme youth of many officers in the 55th Foot and blamed the frequency of courts‑martial in Jamaica on an influx of ‘persons…insensible to those feelings that should actuate British officers and gentlemen’. Captain Clune put matters more bluntly when casting aspersions on Mrs Davis, allegedly asserting that even ‘highwaymen might get commissions’ in return for marrying ‘the cast-off mistresses’ of influential philanderers.

Ever wonder why the British lost the American Revolutionary War? And how the United States managed to win its independence? The triumph of a colonial insurgency over a mighty European empire is understandably seen as an astonishing upset. Yet re-imposing royal authority over the rebellious colonies was perhaps always going to be a tall order, given the vast distances involved. Was former prime minister Lord Chatham correct to assess, as he did in 1777, that Britain had committed itself to an unwinnable war?

I convened an international panel of experts to ponder these questions as part of the UK National Army Museum’s commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the American War of Independence. My enlightening discussion with Friederike Baer, Kevin Weddle and Mark Urban, which was recorded earlier this year, goes live on Sunday, 19 October.

I’ve recently relocated from Cambridge, England, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to start a new role as the Ewart A. Pratt Fellow in Military, Naval, and Maritime History at Memorial University. It is wonderful to be back in Canada after many years abroad, and I’m eager to explore this beautiful part of the country.

During my two-year tenure, I will be researching duelling, honour, and courts-martial among British Army officers during the era of the Napoleonic Wars. The project seeks to get at the heart of what it meant to be an officer and a gentleman at the time, and I’m really looking forward to digging into the archives.

To mark the move, I wanted to share something that connects directly to both the place and the period: a watercolour of St. John’s painted around 1796 by a Royal Artillery officer named George Bulteel Fisher. This beguiling view from Fort Townshend also depicts an artilleryman and a soldier of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Currently housed in the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University, the artwork was the subject of an informative 2022 article by the late historian René Chartrand.

I also look forward to teaching students at Memorial; I’m set to run a third-year course on the history of the British Empire in Winter 2026.

I look forward to delivering a lunchtime talk tomorrow at the National Army Museum in London, England (12 noon). The lecture will explore the life of Shadrack Byfield, a War of 1812 veteran who lost an arm, wrote multiple memoirs, and designed his own prosthesis.

Please visit the museum’s website to register to attend either in person or online. A recording of the talk will be also made available afterwards on the museum’s YouTube channel.

Talk Synopsis

Join Dr Eamonn O’Keeffe as he explores the War of 1812 through the eyewitness account of a disabled British veteran of the conflict.

The military memoirs of Shadrack Byfield, a Wiltshire weaver and war amputee, have long enjoyed a prominent place in the story of the Anglo-American War of 1812. As one of the few eyewitness accounts of the conflict from a rank-and-file British soldier, his autobiography has been widely quoted in books, documentaries and museum displays. Yet very little is known about the man behind the memoir.

Drawing on original research, including a newly discovered second autobiography, this talk investigates Byfield’s efforts to navigate civilian life, secure veterans’ benefits and publish accounts of his experiences. It chronicles the ex-soldier’s invention of a prosthesis to enable a return to work and analyses his shifting and sometimes contradictory self-presentation in print.

O’Keeffe uses Byfield’s lively and often moving story as a case study through which to explore the broader experiences of British veterans returning home after the Napoleonic Wars.

In recent months, I have had the pleasure of collaborating with the UK National Army Museum on a range of public programming focused on the American War of Independence (1775–1783). Besides hosting roundtable discussions and planning weekly talks to mark the conflict’s 250th anniversary, I presented a series of short films exploring contrasting and often unfamiliar perspectives on this transformative event.

These concise videos aim to synthesize the latest historical research on the American Revolution for a broad audience while also highlighting the range of the National Army Museum’s collections. The first instalment explores the origins of the breach between Britain and the nascent United States. Subsequent videos explain how a colonial rebellion morphed into a worldwide conflict and highlight some of the myriad ways the war impacted life in Britain and Ireland.

🎥 Watch the full series on YouTube:

Visit the National Army Museum’s YouTube channel to discover further recordings of recent expert talks on the American Revolutionary War, including analyses of the Saratoga campaign, British strategy and tactics, Patriot political mobilization, and mutinies in the Continental Army.

This Easter weekend marked the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord – the opening engagements of the American War of Independence. I recently had the pleasure of convening a roundtable discussion at the National Army Museum to commemorate the occasion. Over the course of a ninety-minute conversation, Professor David Armitage, Dr Megan King, and Professor Steve Pincus offered wide-ranging insight into the debates over rights, allegiance, and imperial governance that set the stage for the American Revolution.

A recording of this thought-provoking anniversary event is now available on the National Army Museum’s YouTube channel.

Over the past week and a half, I had the opportunity of presenting at two major conferences: the Society for Military History annual meeting in Mobile, Alabama, and the Wellington Congress in Southampton, England. The itinerary, which was scheduled many months ago, was intense and rather exhausting. Nonetheless, I greatly enjoyed reconnecting with longtime friends and meeting an impressive array of researchers and scholars.

Between conferences, I took some time to explore the rich culture and cuisine of the Gulf Coast. Highlights included touring the massive battleship USS Alabama and exploring the French Quarter and National WWII Museum in New Orleans. I also made my way to the Chalmette battlefield, the site of a disastrous British assault on Andrew Jackson’s lines at the close of the War of 1812.