Departmental homepageAs Tutor for Undergraduate Admissions at St John’s College, Jonathan Padley is responsible for outreach to prospective students and the admissions process for those who apply.
Jonathan was brought up in Swansea, South Wales. He read English Language and Literature at St Anne’s College, Oxford, then undertook postgraduate study at the University of Wales Swansea. Whilst pursuing his PhD, Jonathan lectured at Gorseinon College, Swansea, where he was invited to work with the College’s academically strongest university applicants, to help them identify and access the right courses for them across the UK. It was during this time that he first engaged with Cambridge and got the bug for undergraduate admissions and widening participation which has defined his career since.
Before moving to St John’s in 2025, Jonathan spent fourteen years at Churchill College, Cambridge, first as an outreach practitioner, then as a Fellow and the Lead Admissions Tutor. As an experienced advocate for the position that academic excellence and widening participation go hand in hand, he was attracted to St John’s by the College’s clear aspirations in these areas. He feels greatly privileged to be working in such a remarkable, ambitious place, helping to build relationships with schools and colleges, potential undergraduates and their supporters, to make St John’s a natural destination for applicants of the highest intellectual merit and aptitude.
Jonathan is a Bye-Fellow and Director of Studies in Education at Lucy Cavendish and St Edmund’s Colleges, an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, and an Honorary Member of the Faculty of English. He teaches and examines undergraduates and postgraduates in English children’s literature.
Jonathan is a specialist in English children’s literature from the eighteenth century to the present day. His work explores margins, particularly the marginalisation of authors, texts, and characters. His PhD argued that the child protagonists of children’s literature can be understood, etymologically and theoretically, as monsters. He serves on the Editorial Board of Children’s Literature in Education.
Padley, J. 2023. “‘The enemy of imagination’? Re-imagining Sarah Trimmer and Her Fabulous Histories,” in Women’s Literary Education, 1690–1850, edited by Jessica Lim and Louise Joy, 285-310. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Padley, J. 2012. “Peter Pan: Indefinition Defined.” The Lion and the Unicorn 36.3: 274-287.
Padley, J, and K Padley. 2006. “‘A Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven’: His Dark Materials, Inverted Theology, and the End of Philip Pullman’s Authority.” Children’s Literature in Education 37.4: 325-334.
Padley, J. 2003. “Frankenstein and (Sublime) Creation.” Romanticism 9.2: 196-212.
