Alex researches queer and radical history, from 1740 to today.
They’re fascinated by the camp and troubling underworld of the Georgian era. Alex researches how queer and trans people made homes, communities, and records of their lives between 1740 and 1835, and how British queerness was entangled with British imperialism.
They’ve worked on figures including the sapphic Ladies of Llangollen, the Black transmasculine soldier William Brown, and the Chevalièr·e d’Eon, a gender-swapping French spy in Regency London. They also write on radical politics, intermedia art, and representations of bisexuality across time.
Queer history matters. So Alex aims to make it accessible, working with an informed, enjoyable style. With Seedlings, they run bimonthly walks through London’s queer, radical and ecological histories. They’re available to commission for public-facing talks, articles and contributions to radio and TV.
Get in touch to commission Alex’s work – it would be a joy to work together!
Academic CV
Publications
Queer Debates on Welsh Writing
International Journal of Welsh Writing in English (forthcoming, 2025)
Talks
Being Trans in Regency London
TransMuted – Trans Community College Series, 2025
How bi-erasure limits queer studies – and how we can overcome it
International Bisexuality Research Conference, 2024
Locking Away Queer National Treasures: the Ladies of Llangollen Journals and the National Library of Wales’ Mistaken Policy
Queer Intersections Oxford, a research network of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, 2024
“Why are you wearing these clothes?”: Bisexuality and Comedy’s Gender Play, from Shakespearean to Screwball
International Bisexuality Research Conference, 2022
Research Interests
1700-1835
The Ladies of Llangollen
Queer and trans domestic life
Queerness in and against British imperialism
Transhistorical
Radical, queer and ecological London
Intermedia art and literature
Research Experience
Picture Researcher – Fashion in the French Revolution, 2024
Alex conducted the picture research for the second edition of Fashion in the French Revolution (Bloomsbury, forthcoming), Aileen Ribeiro’s groundbreaking work of dress history. They worked with organisations including the Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Bibliothèque nationale de France to secure all 120 images – well under the £2000 budget.
Picture Researcher – Bloomsbury Dress and Costume Library / Victoria and Albert Museum collaboration, 2024
Working closely with the V&A team, Alex edited a selection of 300 images of queer, South Asian, East Asian and Black costume from the V&A picture library. These now feature in – and have diversified – Bloomsbury Dress and Costume Library, the leading research resource for students of fashion history.
Archival Researcher – Feasibility Review for John Heilpern’s Collected Writing, 2021
Alex conducted the preliminary research for a book compiling the former Observer and Vanity Fair lead interviewer’s articles, dating from the 1960s to the 2010s. They identified and assessed documents in the Guardian and Vanity Fair archives and the British Library, and compiled a detailed feasibility review for the editor.
Lead Researcher and Author – Gender, Race and Colonialism in Cambridge Portrait Collections, Varsity, 2020
Alex led a team of five, documenting the representation of race and gender across 1700+ portraits on display in Cambridge colleges. In a front-page article, the team revealed the serious under-representation of BIPOC and female students, as well as memorials to colonisers and eugenicists. Their work fed directly into the commissioning of more diverse portraits.
Qualifications
MA Writing
Royal College of Art, 2025-26
Ongoing
MSt English (1700-1830)
University of Oxford, 2022-23
Distinction
BA English
University of Cambridge, 2019-22
First with Distinction
Awards
University of Oxford
English Faculty MSt Studentship (full funding), 2022-23
Worcester College Oxford
College Prize for Academic Achievement, 2023
University of Cambridge
Austin Dobson Prize for English, 2022
Jesus College Cambridge
Senior Keller Prize for Academic Excellence, 2022
Edwin Stanley Roe Prize for an Outstanding Dissertation, 2022
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Prize for English, 2022
Scholarship of the College, 2021 & 2022
Image: Sarah Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler, known as the Ladies of Llangollen, seated in their library. Lithograph by R.J. Lane, c. 1832, after Mary Parker, 1828. Wellcome Images. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Library, London.
Alex Haydn-Williams 