Ryan Hanley

Ryan Hanley is a British professor of history at the University of Exeter. He specialises in race and slavery in modern Britain, with a focus on the perspectives of people of African descent.

Ryan Hanley
Board member of	British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Awards	Alexander Prize Whitfield Book Prize Philip Leverhulme Prize
Academic background
Alma mater	Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	Black British Writing
Institutions	University of Exeter

He is notable for being one of only two historians to have been awarded both the Alexander Prize and the Whitfield Book Prize from the Royal Historical Society. In 2023, Hanley was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize "for his work on Black British history, history and cultures of British anti-slavery, and class and ‘race’ in Britain."

Education and academic positions

Hanley earned his doctorate in history from Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull. After obtaining his degree, he worked at the University of Oxford, UCL, and the University of Bristol before taking up a full-time lecturing position at the University of Exeter. He has also had visiting fellowships at Queen Mary University, London and at the Huntington Library in California. He serves as a member of the executive committee for the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

Professional career

Hanley has published two books and more than twenty chapters and journal articles. His most notable work is that which focuses on the perspectives of those of African descent in Britain, for which he has been awarded both the Whitfield Book Prize and Alexander Prize from the Royal Historical Society. Alongside A. G. Rosser, he is one of only two historians to have received both awards.

He received the Alexander Prize in 2015 for his article Calvinism, Proslavery and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw. In it, Hanley re-examines Gronniosaw's autobiography within the context of Calvinist and Dutch Reformed confessional networks to better understand how the text could advocate for slavery despite being written by a formerly enslaved author. It portrays Gronniosaw as a Black intellectual, and not simply as an ex-slave. The article was deemed significant enough to feature in the Economic History Review's List of publications on the economic and social history of Great Britain and Ireland published in 2016.

Hanley continued this approach by conducting the first full-length historical study of pre-abolition Black British writing in his 2019 Whitfield Prize-winning book Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, c.1770-1830. In each of the eight chapters, Hanley provides a case study on a different Black British writer, and categorises them into three sections. Firstly, 'Black Celebrities', containing Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano/Gustavus Vassa, and Mary Prince. Next, the 'Black Evangelicals', Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Boston King, and John Jea. Ending with the 'Black Radicals', Ottobah Cugoano and Robert Wedderburn. In his review of the work, Matthew Wyman-McCarthy emphasises the significance of Hanley's choice to frame Black British writers within their authorial 'networks'. He says the book makes strides for scholars who can now holistically approach these individuals as intellectuals, rather than simply abolitionists. He also says that the individual case studies conducted by Hanley deserve their place on undergraduate syllabi.

Publications

Books

Year	Title	Publisher	Notes
2016	Britain's History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery	Oxford University Press	Co-authored with Jessica Moody and Katie Donington
2018	Beyond Slavery and Abolition Black British Writing, c.1770–1830	Cambridge University Press	Awarded the Whitfield Book Prize

Journal articles

Year	Title	Journal	Notes
2014	Calvinism, Proslavery and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw	Slavery & Abolition
	Biography and the Black Atlantic	Itinerario-International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction
	Affect and Abolition in the Anglo-Atlantic, 1770-1830	Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
2015	The Royal Slave: Nobility, Diplomacy and the “African Prince” in Britain, 1748–1752	Itinerario-International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction
	Invoking Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century British Imagination	Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
	Inhuman Traffick: the International Struggle against the Transatlantic Slave Trade	Social History
2016	Slavery and the Birth of the Working-Class Racism in England, 1814-1833	Transactions of the Royal Historical Society	Awarded the Alexander Prize
	A Radical Change of Heart: Robert Wedderburn's Last Word on Slavery	Slavery & Abolition
2017	Slavery Hinterland: Transatlantic Slavery and Continental Europe, 1680-1850	Social History
2019	Black Jokes, White Humour: Africans in English Caricature, 1769-1819	English Historical Review
2020	Children Against Slavery: Juvenile Agency and the Sugar Boycotts in Britain	Transactions of the Royal Historical Society	Co-authored with Kathryn Gleadle
2021	The Shadow of Colonial Slavery at Peterloo	Caliban
	Tacky's Revolt: the Story of an Atlantic Slave War by Vincent Brown, and: Black Spartacus: the Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh	Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies	Review essay
	Henry Redhead Yorke, Colonial Radical: Politics and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1772–1813, by Amanda Goodrich	English Historical Review
	Britain’s Black Past, ed. Gretchen H. Gerzina
2022	Not Made by Slaves: Ethical Capitalism in the Age of Abolition	Slavery & Abolition

Chapters

Year	Title	Book	Notes
2017	Introduction	Britain's History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery	Co-authored with Jessica Moody and Katie Donington
	‘There to sing the song of Moses’
2018	The Equiano Effect	Migrant Britain
2019	Cato Street and the Caribbean	The Cato Street Conspiracy
2022	Black Authors and British National Identity, 1763–1791	African American Literature in Transition, 1750–1800

Prizes

Year	Award	Institution	Work
2015	Alexander Prize	Royal Historical Society	Slavery and the Birth of the Working-Class Racism in England, 1814-1833
2019	Whitfield Book Prize		Beyond Slavery and Abolition Black British Writing, c.1770–1830