Professor Jon Stobart
Professor of Social History
My profile
Biography
I am a social and economic historian of the eighteenth century, with particular interests in the histories of retailing and consumption, both by the urban middling sorts and the rural elite. My primary focus has been on England, but I am increasingly engaged in international comparative studies and global encounters.
I have recently completed a major study of the consumption and lifestyle of eighteenth-century clergy and their families (funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung) which will shortly be published by Bloomsbury. I am currently co-convening an AHRC-funded international research network on country house servants, commencing comparative analysis of rural retailing in Germany and England (funded by the DFG), and undertaking research on auctions and domestic consumption in Jamaica (British Academy).
Academic and professional qualifications
Much of my work is collaborative, international and interdisciplinary - a reflection, in part, of my background in historical geography, which I studied for my DPhil at Oxford University, writing my thesis on the role of the urban system in early industrialisation in northwest England. Since then, I have worked with geographers, art historians, heritage professionals and historians from the UK and across Europe on projects funded by the AHRC, The Leverhulme Trust, the European Union, the Pasold Trust, the British Academy, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
I am the founding editor of the journal History of Retailing and Consumption, co-chair of the Material and Consumer Culture network in the ESSHC, and a member of the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage.
External examiner roles
I have examined PhD theses at Birkbeck College London, University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge, University of Durham, University of Exeter, Kings College London, University of Leicester, University of Newcastle, University of Northampton, Oxford Brookes University, University of Sheffield, University College London, and University of Warwick
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
I have reviewed papers for a wide range of academic journals including: Economic History Review, Cultural and Social History, Journal of Historical Geography, Urban History, Southern History, Business History Review, Historical Journal, and Journal of Consumer Culture.
I have also reviewed book proposals and manuscripts for Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Bloomsbury, and Manchester University Press.
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
I am a member of the Peer Review and Strategic Review Colleges of the AHRC, and of the History and Archaeology panel for FWO, Belgium
Visiting and honorary positions
I was Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Historical Society 2018-23
Editorial Board membership
I am the founding co-editor of History of Retailing and Consumption
Membership of professional associations
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Economic History Society (council member, 2005-2013)
Social History Society (executive committee, 2005-2013)
Historical Geography Research Group, Royal Geographical Society
Impact
My work on Consumption and the Country House has involved collaborative initiatives with a number of heritage organisations representing country houses in the Midlands. My aim here is to facilitate different ways of interpreting and presenting the history of these houses, focused on the owners’ consumption practices.
I have worked with the National Trust at Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire. One aspect of this was facilitating story-telling centred on the lives of Sir John Turner Dryden and his wife Elizabeth Dryden, the story culminating with the chance to see his dress suit, held at the house but rarely on publlic display. Another was producing interpretative materials for the house, including a smart phone app which provided an alternative mechanism for navigating the house. This proved especially popular with younger visitors, one of whom reported that it was ‘better than talking to old people’!
I have also collaborated with Stoneleigh Abbey Trust, again producing a range of interpretive materials and a small exhibition which told the story of the Honourable Mary Leigh who had a life interest in the house in the late eighteenth century. The purpose here was to throw light on one of the neglected episodes in the history of the property and challenge visitors to think about the impact of apparently minor characters in shaping the house as it is seen today.
Projects
A key focus of my research in recent years has been the English country house - viewed as a site and nexus of consumption and a material manifestation of the habitus of the landowning classes. This has produced a large number of publications, most notably Consumption and the Country House (OUP, 2016) - the key output of an AHRC-funded project.
Building on this, I have developed four related areas of activity.
The first is to explore the country house as a place of comfort. This is most evident in a material sense, with different forms of furniture, improved heating and lighting, and new ways of organising rooms helping to create a domestic environment that was more convenient and physically comfortable. Comforts were also social and emotional: it was important to people that they should feel comfortable by conforming to social norms and through their relationships with family and friends. This work has recently been published as Comfort in the Eighteenth-Century Country House (Routledge, 2022).
Second, and linked to the idea of comfort, is to open up our understanding of the lives and material worlds of country house servants across eighteenth-century Europe. To do this, I am co-ordinating an AHRC-funded research network which brings together academics and heritage professionals from across Europe in a series of workshops examining servants’ material culture; their social and familial networks; their representation in literary and visual sources, and their inclusion in the presentation of country houses to the public. We will shortly have a website for the project, but please contact me directly.
The third is to widen the geographical scope of this work by focusing specifically on the place of global goods within the country house, and to do this for houses throughout Europe and across the world. Bringing together scholars from Europe, North America, the Caribbean and India, I have curated a book project that explores the supply, meaning and impact of global goods in the houses of the elite, and the ways in which local contexts (from west Africa to Wallachia, and from Japan to Jamaica) impacted on the character and meaning of global goods. This will shortly be published by UCL Press as an open access book: Global Goods in the Country House. Linked to this, I am starting to explore the domestic goods owned by merchants, plantation owners and others in the British Caribbean. More specifically, I am interested in the role of auctions as a means for acquiring and dispersing household goods; work that is funded by a British Academy Small Grant.
Fourth and finally, I am seeking to deepen our understanding of how questions of how morality shaped consumption and lifestyle. To do this, I am focusing on the Church of England clergy through the long eighteenth century, exploring how their lifestyle, consumption practices and houses were shaped by: societal attitudes to the clergy; their own collective and normative self-image, and their individual attitudes to questions of worldliness, hospitality and charity. This research was funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung and is being published as Life in the Georgian Parsonage (Bloomsbury, forthcoming, 2024).
Alongside this, I am continuing my research on retailing. In addition to co-writing a major study of the second-hand trade, specifically the nature and role of household auctions in recirculating goods, I am commencing an international comparative study of rural retailing in Germany and England during the long eighteenth century. Funded by the DFG, this seeks to fill a lacuna in the historiography of retailing and challenge misconceptions about the absence of shops in German villages and the “primitive” nature of English village shops (see https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/faculties/faculty-of-humanities/departments…) .
Teaching
Why do I teach?
I enjoy sharing my love of history and of the eighteenth century with others, whether undergraduates, PhD students or the wider public.
How I’ll teach you
I like to put historical sources at the heart of my teaching, encouraging you to discover your own insights into the lives, experiences and emotions of people in the past, and to think about how these might challenge our established views of past societies.
Why study…
Histories of retailing and consumption offer important insights into the lives of individuals, the nature and development of settlements, the social and economic networks that bound together societies and economies, and a wide range of global interactions.
For example, an eighteenth-century tea-table might take us to the Caribbean and supplies of sugar; to China to understand the complexities of the tea-trade; to Central America and the source of mahogany for the table itself. We might want to consider the skills of craftspeople who made the table, the porcelain and the silverware on display, or the retail networks that brought them into the home. It might also lead to to think about gender relations and cultures of polite sociability; of the emotions of those seated at the table, and the nature of the gossip they exchanged.
Subject areas
Histories of retailing and consumption, material culture and leisure.
Supervision
I welcome enquiries about PhD projects on social and cultural histories of eighteenth-century Britain and Europe, especially those that explore material culture, consumption and leisure, the country house and global goods
I have supervised to completion a range of PhD projects, including:
Vicky Morgan (2003), Producing consumer space in 18th-century England: shops and shopping.
Rosie MacArthur (2010), Material culture and consumption on an English estate: Kelmarsh Hall, c.1687-1845 (AHRC Collaborative Award)
Amy Barnett (2010), Taste and Material Culture in Provincial England: The role of the Shopkeeper 1660-1800.
George Watley (2012), The consumer behaviour of Caribbean settlers in Northamptonshire, c.1955-1975 (AHRC Collaborative Award)
Fiona Cosson (2013), Community cohesion and identity: a lifecourse approach
Barbara Russell (2014), Social capital, community and business integration: taking the long view
Hannah Waugh (2014), Consumption, material culture and the country house – case study of Audley End (AHRC Collaborative Award)
PhD Lucy Bailey (2015), The village shop in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: image and reality
Tom McGrath (2022), ‘Northern Powerhouses: The Homes of the Industrial Elite c.1750-1900’
Helen Brown (2023), Rethinking the English Country House Garden: Creation and Consumption, 1750-1850 (a CDA with English Heritage)
I am currently director of studies for:
Paula Martin, Global connections and local contexts: the material culture of Saltram, c. 1725-1840 (an AHRC CDA, working with the National Trust)
Alyssa Myers, Suburban villas in eighteenth-century London: forms, functions and networks (an AHRC CDA, working with English Heritage)
Research outputs
My research ranges across the economic, social and cultural history of England in the long eighteenth century.
A long while ago now, I worked on industrial, urban and regional development in the Midlands and north-west England, published as The First Industrial Region (MUP, 2004) and Towns, Regions and Industries (MUP, 2005), and on the construction and articulation of social and business networks.
Subsequently, I switched to focus more on the geographies and practices of leisure, consumption and retailing. The last of these involved research, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, on the inter-relationship between the spaces and social practices of polite leisure and shopping in provincial towns which was published as Spaces of Consumption (Routledge, 2007). Following on from this, my book Sugar and Spice (OUP, 2013) comprises a major study of the changing world of the grocery trade in the period 1650-1850 – a time during which both retailers and consumers transformed their behaviour and attitudes in the face of a range of new exotic imports.
I have also co-edited several collections of essays that explore retailing, consumption and daily life in a comparative European context, including Modernity and the Second-Hand Trade (Palgrave, 2010), Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century (Palgrave, 2014), the Routledge Companion to the History of Retailing (Routledge, 2019) and Daily Lives and Daily Routines in the Long Eighteenth Century (Routledge, 2021).
In recent years, I have mostly focused my research on the spatiality and practice of consumption in the English country house - research funded by the AHRC. Through detailed case studies of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire country houses, this project links the identity, supply networks and consumption practices of the gentry. It has led a number of journal articles and book chapters, and a monograph, Consumption and the Country House, published by OUP.
Building on this, I developed a joint project with Marie-Curie Fellow, Dr Cristina Prytz (Uppsala University), which explored physical and emotional comfort in the English and Swedish country house during the long eighteenth century. We co-curated exhibitions at a number of Swedish houses and published some of our findings in a range of articles and books chapters. I have recently published collection of essays on the topic, Comforts of Home in Western Europe, 1700-1900 (Bloomsbury, 2020) and a monograph, Comfort and the Eighteenth-Century Country House (Routledge, 2022) .
Based on collaborative work with colleagues from Europe, North America, India and the Caribbean, I have recently published an open access edited collection which explores the presence, meaning and impact of global goods in country houses across the globe: Global Goods in the Country House.
I have just completed a project on the consumption and lifestyle of Church of England clergy and their families in the long eighteenth century, funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. it will be published as Life in the Georgian Parsonage (Bloomsbury, forthcoming, 2024) .
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Stobart, J. (2023) Global Goods and the Country House Comparative Perspectives, 1650-1800.
Lindfield, P.N., Stobart, J. (2022) Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Stobart, J. (2022) Comfort in the Eighteenth-Century Country House. Routledge.
Andersson, G., Stobart, J. (2021) Daily Lives and Daily Routines in the Long Eighteenth Century.
Andersson, G., Stobart, J. (2021) Introduction: Daily lives and daily routines in the (very) long eighteenth century.
Clemente, A., Lindström, D., Stobart, J. (2021) Micro-geographies of the Western City, c.1750–1900. Routledge.
Stobart, J. (2020) The Comforts of Home in Western Europe: 1700-1900.
Stobart, J., Howard, V. (2019) The Routledge Companion to the History of Retailing. Routledge Companions in Business, Management and Accounting.
Stobart, J. (2017) Travel and the British country house: Cultures, critiques and consumption in the long eighteenth century.
Stobart, J. (2017) Introduction: Travel and the British country house.
Ilmakunnas, J., Stobart, J. (2017) A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe: Display, Acquisition and Boundaries.
Ilmakunnas, J., Stobart, J. (2017) Display, Acquisition and Boundaries of Luxury and Taste.
Rothery, M., Stobart, J. (2016) Consumption and the Country House. Oxford University Press.
stobart, J. (2016) The Country House: Material Culture and Consumption. Historic England.
Stobart, J., Blondé, B. (2014) Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century Comparative Perspectives from Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan.
Blondé, B., Stobart, J. (2014) Introduction. Selling textiles in the eighteenth century: Perspectives on consumer and retail change.
Stobart, J.V. (2013) Sugar and Spice. Grocers and Groceries in Provincial England, 1650-1830. Oxford University Press.
Stobart, J., Damme, I.V. (2011) Modernity and the Second-Hand Trade European Consumption Cultures and Practices, 1700-1900. Palgrave Macmillan.
Stobart, J. (2009) Fashioning Old and New Changing Consumer Preferences in Europe (seventeenth-nineteenth Centuries). Brepols Pub.
Stobart, J. (2008) Spend, Spend, Spend A History of Shopping. History Publishing Group.
Stobart, J., Hann, A., Morgan, V. (2007) Spaces of Consumption Leisure and Shopping in the English Town, C. 1680-1830. Routledge.
Stobart, J., Blonde, B., Stabel, P., Van Damme, I. (2006) Buyers and Sellers. Retail Circuits and practices in medieval and Early Modern Europe. Brepols.
Stobart, J., Raven, N. (2005) Towns, Regions and Industries Urban and Industrial Change in the Midlands, C.1700-1840. Manchester University Press.
Stobart, J. (2004) The First Industrial Region North West England C. 1700-60. Manchester University Press.
Owens, A., Stobart, J. (2000) Introduction.
Stobart, J., Owens, A. (2000) Urban Fortunes Property and Inheritance in the Town, 1700-1900. Ashgate Pub Limited.
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Chapters in books
Ilmakunnas, J., Stobart, J. (2023) 'MATERIAL CULTURES OF WARMTH IN ENGLAND AND SWEDEN DURING THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.' Energy in the Early Modern Home: Material Cultures of Domestic Energy Consumption in Europe, 1450–1850. pp. 117-136.
Stobart, J. (2021) 'Servants' furniture: Hierarchies and identities in the english country house.' At Home in the Eighteenth Century: Interrogating Domestic Space. pp. 245-265.
Brown, H., Stobart, J. (2021) 'The rhythms and routines of the English country-house garden.' Daily Lives and Daily Routines in the Long Eighteenth Century. pp. 82-101.
Andersson, G., Stobart, J. (2021) 'Conclusion.' Daily Lives and Daily Routines in the Long Eighteenth Century. pp. 232-236.
Stobart, J. (2021) 'Genteel or respectable? The material culture of rural clergy in late Georgian England.' In Eales, J., Tjerngren, B. (ed.) The Social Life of the Early Modern Protestant Clergy. University of Wales Press,
Stobart, J. (2019) 'From magnificent houses to disagreeable country: Lady Sophia Newdigate's tour of southern England and Derbyshire, 1748.' In Capern, A.L., McDonagh, B., Aston, J. (ed.) Women and the Land, 1500-1900. Boydell Press,
Stobart, J.V. (2017) 'Magnificent and mundane: transporting people and goods to the country house, c.1730-1800.' In Stobart, J. (ed.) Travel and the British country house cultures: critiques and consumption in the long eighteenth century. Manchester University Press,
Stobart, J.V. (2017) 'Making an English country house: taste and luxury in the furnishing of Stoneleigh Abbey, 1763-1765.' In Ilmakunnas, J., Stobart, J. (ed.) A Taste for luxury in early modern Europe: display, acquisition and boundaries. Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 143-160.
Stobart, J.V. (2017) 'Making room for sociability in the eighteenth-century English country house.' Huis en Habitus. Over kastelen, buitenplaatsen en notabele levensvormen. Verloren,
Stobart, J.V. (2017) 'Forbrugssteder: Butikkernes fysiske og oplevede rum I England 1700-1820.' Forgrugets Kulturhistorie: Butik, by og Forbrugere efter 1660.
Stobart, J.V. (2017) 'English rural shopkeepers as retailers and consumers of colonial goods, c.1660-1760.' In Martin, M., Villeret, M. (ed.) La Diffusion de Produits Ultramrins en Eruope, XVIe-XVIIIe Siecle. Presses universitaires de Rennes (PUR), pp. 143-158.
Stobart, J.V. (2016) 'The village shop, 1660-1760: innovation and tradition.' In Jones, R., Dyer, C. (ed.) Farmers, Consumers, Innovators The World of Joan Thirsk. University of Hertfordshire Press, pp. 89-102.
Stobart, J. (2015) 'Rich, Male and Single: The Consumption Practices of Edward Leigh, 1742-86.' Single Life and the City 1200-1900. pp. 224-243.
Stobart, J. (2015) 'Lost Aspects of the Country Estate.' Lost Mansions: Essays on the Destruction of the Country House. pp. 23-43.
Stobart, J. (2015) 'Rich, male and single: The consumption practices of Edward Leigh, 1742–86.' Single Life and the City 1200-1900. pp. 224-243.
Stobart, J.V. (2015) 'Lost aspects of the country estate.' In Raven, J. (ed.) Lost Mansions. Essays on the Destruction of the Country House. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 23-43.
Stobart, J.V., Rothery, M. (2015) 'Men, women and the supply of luxury goods in eighteenth-century England: the purchasing patterns of Edward and Mary Leigh.' In Simonton, D., Kaartinen, M., Montenach, A. (ed.) Luxury and Gender in European Towns, 1700-1914. Routledge, pp. 97-114.
Stobart, J.V. (2014) 'Luxury and country house sales in England, c.1760-1830.' In Fennetaux, A., Junqua, A., Vasset, S. (ed.) The Afterlife of used things. recycling in the long Eighteenth Century. Routledge, pp. 25-36.
Stobart, J.V. (2014) 'The shopping streets of provincial England, 1650-1840.' In Lesger, C., Furnee, J.H. (ed.) The Landscape of Consumption: Shopping Streets and Cultures in Western Europe, 1600-1900. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 16-36.
Stobart, J.V. (2014) 'Taste and textiles: selling fashion in eighteenth-century England.' In stobart, J., Blonde, B. (ed.) Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century. Comparative Perspectives from Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 160-178.
Stobart, J. (2012) 'An empire of goods? Groceries in eighteenth-century England.' Comparative Responses to Globalization: Experiences of British and Japanese Enterprises. pp. 23-44.
Russell, B., Stobart, J., Kakabadse, N. (2011) 'Urban elites in eighteenth-century Northampton.' Global Elites: The Opaque Nature of Transnational Policy Determination. pp. 262-285.
Stobart, J.V., MacArthur, R. (2011) 'Going for a song? Country house sales in Georgian England.' In Stobart, J., Damme, I., Van Damme, I. (ed.) Modernity and the Second-Hand Trade European Consumption Cultures and Practices, 1700-1900. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 175-195.
Stobart, J.V. (2009) 'In and out of fashion? Advertising novel and second-hand goods in Georgian England’.' In Blonde, B., Coquery, N., Stobart, J., Van Damme, I. (ed.) Fashioning Old and New Changing Consumer Preferences in Europe (seventeenth-nineteenth Centuries). Brepols Pub, pp. 133-144.
Stobart, J.V. (2009) 'A settled little society? Networks, friendship and trust in eighteenth-century provincial England.' In Baigent, E., Mayhew, R. (ed.) English Geographies 1600-1950 Historical Essays on English Customs, Cultures, and Communities in Honour of Jack Langton. St Johns College,
stobart, J. (2007) 'Rus et Urbe? The hinterland and landscape of Georgian Chester.' In Palmer, M., Barnwell, P. (ed.) Post-Medieval Landscapes in Britain: Landscape History after Hoskins, Volume 3. Windgather press, pp. 107-118.
Stobart, J.V. (2006) 'Clothes, cabinets and carriages: second-hand dealing in eighteenth-century England.' In Blonde, B., Stabel, P., stobart, J., Van Damme, I. (ed.) Buyers and Sellers. Retail circuits and practices in medieval and early modern Europe. Brepols Publishers, pp. 225-244.
Stobart, J.V. (2003) 'City centre retailing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: structure and processes.' In Benson, J., Ugolini, L. (ed.) A Nation of Shopkeepers Five Centuries of British Retailing. I. B. Tauris, pp. 155-178.
Stobart, J.V. (2002) 'County, town and country: three histories of urban development in eighteenth-century Chester.' In Borsay, P., Proudfoot, L. (ed.) Provincial Towns in Early Modern England and Ireland Change, Convergence, and Divergence. Oxford University Press,
Stobart, J. (2000) 'Social and geographical contexts of property transmission in the eighteenth century.' Urban Fortunes: Property and Inheritance in the Town, 1700-1900. pp. 108-130.
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Journal articles
Stobart, J., Ilmakunnas, J., Overkamp, A.S. (2024) 'To their credit: the aristocracy and commercial credit in Europe, c.1750–1820.' Journal of Modern European History,
Blonde, B., Stobart, J., de Muller, A. (2023) 'Aesthetics for a polite society: consumer cultures and the marketing of second-hand goods in eighteenth-century London.' Economic History Review: a journal of economic and social history,
Stobart, J. (2023) 'A world of goods? Europe, empire and consumer goods in England, c.1670-1820.' Social History, 48(3) pp. 295-315.
Stobart, J. (2021) 'Advertising and the character of English provincial department stores, c.1880–1914.' History of Retailing and Consumption, 7(1) pp. 98-114.
Howard, V., Stobart, J. (2020) 'Issue 6.1: Introduction.' History of Retailing and Consumption, pp. 1-4.
Stobart, J., Overkamp, A.S. 'Networks of supply and elite consumers in Britain and Germany, c.1750-1830.' Economic History Yearbook / Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte,
Stobart, J., Overkamp, A.S. 'Supplying the country house in Britain and Germany, c.1750-1830.' Economic History Yearbook/Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte,
Stobart, J. (2019) 'Book review: Luxurious Citizens: The Politics of Consumption in Nineteenth-Century America.' Business History, 63(7) pp. 1235-1236.
Stobart, J. (2018) 'Housekeeper, correspondent and confidante: The under-told story of Mrs Hayes of Charlecote Park, 1744–73.' Family and Community History, 21(2) pp. 96-111.
Fujioka, R., Stobart, J. (2018) 'Global and local: retail transformation and the department store in Britain and Japan, 1900-1940.' Business History Review, 92(2) pp. 251-280.
Stobart, J.V., Prytz, C. (2018) 'Comfort in English and Swedish country houses, c.1760-1820.' Social History, 43(2) pp. 234-258.
Stobart, J. (2017) 'Domestic textiles and country house sales in Georgian England.' Business History, 61(1) pp. 17-37.
Stobart, J. (2017) 'Making the High Street: Walking Tours and Street Views in the 1830s.' Journal of Victorian Culture, 22(3) pp. 354-361.
O’Byrne, A., Stobart, J. (2017) 'Introduction: Roundtable on John Tallis’s London Street Views (1838–1840).' Journal of Victorian Culture, 22(3) pp. 287-296.
Stobart, J. (2017) 'Cathedrals of Consumption? Provincial Department Stores in England, c.1880–1930.' Enterprise & Society, 18(4) pp. 810-845.
Stobart, J., Bailey, L. (2017) 'Retail revolution and the village shop, c . 1660-1860.' The Economic History Review, 71(2) pp. 393-417.
Stobart, J. (2017) 'Making the global local? Overseas goods in English rural shops, c.1600–1760.' Business History, 59(7) pp. 1136-1153.
Stobart, J.O.N., Van Damme, I. (2016) 'Introduction: markets in modernization: transformations in urban market space and practice, c. 1800 – c. 1970.' Urban History, 43(3) pp. 358-371.
Stobart, J.V. (2015) 'Consumption and the city: retail space and urban form, c.1650-1950.' The Comparative Urban History Review, xxxiv(2) pp. 43-70.
Stobart, J.V., Rothery, M. (2015) 'Fashion, heritance and family: new and old in the Georgian country house.' Cultural and Social History, 11(3) pp. 385-406.
Stobart, J. (2015) 'Status, gender and life cycle in the consumption practices of the English elite. The case of Mary Leigh, 1736–1806.' Social History, 40(1) pp. 82-103.
Stobart, J.O.N. (2015) '‘So agreeable and suitable a place’: The Character, Use and Provisioning of a Late Eighteenth-Century Suburban Villa.' Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 39(1) pp. 89-102.
Stobart, J.O.N. (2013) 'Inventories and the Changing Furnishings of Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, 1717–1819.' Regional Furniture, 27
Rothery, M., Stobart, J.O.N. (2012) 'Inheritance events and spending patterns in the English country house: the Leigh family of Stoneleigh Abbey, 1738–1806.' Continuity and Change, 27(3) pp. 379-407.
Stobart, J.V., Rothery, M. (2012) 'Merger and crisis: Sir John Turner Dryden and Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, in the late eighteenth century.' Northamptonshire Past and Present, 65pp. 19-30.
Stobart, J.O.N. (2011) 'Gentlemen and shopkeepers: supplying the country house in eighteenth-century England.' The Economic History Review, 64(3) pp. 885-904.
Stobart, J. (2011) 'Sucre et épices Achat de produits exotiques au XVIIIe siècle en Angleterre.' Histoire Urbaine, 30(1) pp. 127-146.
STOBART, J.O.N. (2011) 'Who were the urban gentry? Social elites in an English provincial town, c. 1680–1760.' Continuity and Change, 26(01) pp. 89-112.
Stobart, J.V. (2011) 'The language of luxury goods: consumption and the English country house, c.1760-1830.' Virtus: Journal of Nobility Studies, 18pp. 89-104.
Stobart, J. (2010) 'A history of shopping: the missing link between retail and consumer revolutions.' Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 2(3) pp. 342-349.
Stobart, J.O.N., Schwarz, L. (2008) 'Leisure, luxury and urban specialization in the eighteenth century.' Urban History, 35(2) pp. 216-236.
Stobart, J.V. (2008) 'Selling (through) politeness: advertising provincial shops in eighteenth-century England.' Cultural and Social History, 5(2) pp. 309-328.
Stobart, J. (2007) 'Accommodating the shop the commercial use of domestic space in English provincial towns, c.1660-1740.' Citta e Storia, 2(2) pp. 351-363.
Stobart, J.V. (2007) 'Food retailers and rural communities: Cheshire butchers in the long eighteenth century.' Local Population Studies, 77pp. 23-37.
Stobart, J. (2005) 'Information, trust and reputation: Shaping a merchant elite in early 18th-century England.' Scandinavian Journal of History, 30(3-4) pp. 298-307.
Stobart, J. (2005) 'Leisure and shopping in the small towns of Georgian England.' Journal of Urban History, 31(4) pp. 479-503.
Stobart, J.V., Hann, A. (2005) 'Sites of consumption: the display of goods in provincial shops in eighteenth century England.' Cultural and Social History, 2(2) pp. 165-187.
Stobart, J. (2004) 'Building an urban identity. Cultural space and civic boosterism in a 'new' industrial town: Burslem, 1761-1911.' Social History, 29(4) pp. 485-498.
Stobart, J. (2004) 'Personal and commercial networks in an English port: Chester in the early eighteenth century.' Journal of Historical Geography, 30(2) pp. 277-293.
Stobart, J.V. (2004) 'The economic and social worlds of rural craftsmen-retailers in eighteenth-century Cheshire.' Agricultural History Review, 52(2) pp. 141-160.
Stobart, J., Hann, A. (2004) 'Retailing revolution in the eighteenth century? Evidence from North-West England.' Business History, 46(2) pp. 171-194.
Stobart, J. (2003) 'Identity, competition and place promotion in the five towns.' Urban History, 30(2) pp. 163-182.
Stobart, J.V. (2002) 'Culture versus commerce: societies and spaces for elites in eighteenth-century Liverpool.' Journal of Historical Geographpy, 28(4) pp. 485-498.
Stobart, J. (2001) 'Regions, localities, and industrialisation: Evidence from the East Midlands circa 1780 - 1840.' Environment and Planning A, 33(7) pp. 1305-1325.
Stobart, J. (2000) 'In search of causality: A regional approach to urban growth in eighteenth-century England.' Geografiska Annaler, Series B: Human Geography, 82(3) pp. 149-163.
Stobart, J., Hallsworth, A.G. (1999) 'Change and stability, structure and agency in retailing: The case of Stoke-on-Trent.' International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 9(2) pp. 203-221.
Ball, R., Stobart, J. (1998) 'Local Authorities, Tourism and Competition.' Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit, 12(4) pp. 342-353.
Stobart, J. (1998) 'Textile Industries in North-West England in the Early Eighteenth Century: A Geographical Approach.' Textile History, 29(1) pp. 3-18.
Stobart, J., Ball, R. (1998) 'Tourism and Local Economic Development: Beyond the conventional view.' Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit, 13(3) pp. 228-238.
Stobart, J. (1998) 'Shopping streets as social space: leisure, consumerism and improvement in an eighteenth-century country town.' Urban History, 25(1) pp. 3-21.
Stobart, J. (1996) 'An eighteenth-century revolution? Investigating urban growth in north-west England, 1664-1801.' Urban History, 23(1) pp. 26-46.
Ball, R., Stobart, J. (1996) 'Community identity and the local government review.' Local Government Studies, 22(1) pp. 113-126.
Stobart, J. (1996) 'Geography and industrialization: the space economy of northwest England, 1701-1760.' Transactions - Institute of British Geographers, 21(4) pp. 681-696.
Stobart, J. (1996) 'The spatial organization of a regional economy: Central places in North-west England in the early-eighteenth century.' Journal of Historical Geography, 22(2) pp. 147-159.