Dr Linsey Robb

Associate Professor

Department: Humanities

I am a social and cultural historian of warfare. I completed my undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Strathclyde (with an MSc in Social History from the University of Glasgow), graduating for the final time in July 2013. After graduation I worked on the AHRC-funded oral history project ‘Masculinities Challenged?’, a large-scale oral history project examining the lives of men in reserved occupations during the Second World War. I then taught at Teesside University (2015-2017) before joining Northumbria University in September 2017. I am currently completing a project, previously funded by the AHRC, on the lived experiences of Britain's Second World War conscientious objectors.

Campus Address

Office location: Lipman 316

Email Linsey

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

I am predominantly interested in the civilian experience of modern warfare. My previous research focused on the lived experiences and cultural representations of civilian men at work in the Second World War. My current research predominatly focuses on the lives of British Conscientious Objectors in the Second World War.

Key Publications

‘One of us’: Class and Conscientious Objection in Britain During the Second World War, Robb, L. 18 Feb 2025, In: Cultural and Social History
‘We Must Find a Way to Remember Them Too’: British Second World War Conscientious Objectors in Post-War Culture, Thompson, R., Robb, L. 21 Oct 2024, In: Journal of War and Culture Studies
British Humour and the Second World War: ‘Keep Smiling Through’, Pattinson, J., Robb, L. 1 Jun 2023
‘Few things in life are less funny than war’: Reclaiming the humour in the horror, Pattinson, J., Robb, L. 1 Jun 2023, British Humour and the Second World War, London, Bloomsbury
'Good-Natured as any Folk in the World': The Ministry of Information Film and British Humour during the Second World War, Robb, L. 1 Jun 2023, British Humour and the Second World War, London, Bloomsbury
Britain at war 1914–1918 and 1939–45, Robb, L. 30 Dec 2022, 20th Century Britain, London, Taylor & Francis
Women and War: British Women and War, 1850-1950, Robb, L. 17 Apr 2020
The 'Conchie Corps': Conflict, Compromise and Conscientious Objection in the British Army, 1940 – 1945, Robb, L. 1 Sep 2018, In: Twentieth Century British History
'Fighting In Their Ways'? The Civilian Man in British Culture, 1939-1945, Robb, L. 1 Jun 2017, Home Fronts - Britain and the Empire at War, 1939-45, Boydell & Brewer
Men in reserve: British civilian masculinities in the Second World War, Juliette, P., McIvor, A., Robb, L. Jan 2017

Current and Recent Projects

We say no!: British Conscientious Objection in the Second World War, Robb, L. (Principal Investigator), Arts & Humanities Research Council, 09/01/23 - 08/07/24, £182,466.00

PGR Supervision

Bethany Wyatt Cultures of Care in Britain’s Country House Hospitals, 1914-1919 Start Date: 23/10/2024
Victoria Peretitskaya The Russian Doukhobors in Canada: A twentieth-century history of radical pacifism, religious anarchism and migration. Start Date: 01/10/2023
Luke Usher 'We Were There,' The British Veterans’ Recalled Experience of the Burma Campaign, 1942-45. Start Date: 20/01/2023