Dr Michael Robinson

Personal Statement

I am a Leverhulme Trust Funded Early Career Researcher working at the History Department. I started my academic career at the University of Liverpool’s History, Languages and Cultures in 2012 successfully completing a PhD in 2016. My thesis was entitled ‘Nobody’s Children?’: Shell-Shock and Rehabilitation in Ireland’. This project analysed the wartime and post-war experiences of Irish soldiers and veterans of the First World War who suffered from war trauma and combat neurosis. The thesis was published as a monograph entitled: Shell-Shocked British Army Veterans in Ireland, 1918-39: A Difficult Homecoming. The book was published as part of Manchester University Press’ Disability History series in 2020. This research led to postdoctoral work on veteran welfare and disability in the aftermath of the First World War across the British Empire. In 2017, I was provided twelve-month Principal Investigator funding by the Wellcome Trust to analyse the post-war experiences of disabled British Army veterans of the Great War who migrated to Australia. The results of this research was published in Social History of Medicine. My current research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, focuses on Britain, Australia, and Canada and their respective veteran welfare systems and rehabilitative infrastructures established in the aftermath of the First World War and their evolution from 1914 to 1955. This research will form the basis of my second monograph provisionally scheduled to be published in 2023. Most recently, I published a policy paper for History & Policy website comparing Great War veteran pensions during the Great Depression to Universal Credit policy during the time of Covid-19.

Media Contacts
Available for media contact about any aspect of shell-shock and/or disability in the aftermath of the First World War.