Departmental homepageRichard Partington grew up in Liverpool and was the first person from his family to attend university. Following undergraduate and postgraduate study in Cambridge, he was appointed first as a Research Fellow in History and later as Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Sidney Sussex College. In 2007 he became Senior Tutor of Churchill College and in 2021 Senior Tutor of St John's College. He is a longstanding advocate of widening access to and participation in higher education, and also has expertise in maximising student academic outcomes and student welfare. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Press and Assessment.
He lectures and supervises undergraduates and postgraduates in History, and is convenor of the second-year undergraduate paper State Formation in Medieval Britain and Europe.
His research focuses on politics and leadership in medieval Britain and Europe, state formation, crime, disorder and justice, international politics and war, and the governance of Edward III, King of England 1327-77.
With Caroline Burt, Arise England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State (London, 2024)
'Noble Service to Edward III', in Political Society in Medieval England, ed. Thompson and Watts (Woodbridge, 2015)
'Justice, Law and Lawyers', with Michelle Bubenicek, in Government and Political Life in England and France, ed. Fletcher, Genet and Watts (Cambridge 2015)
'Edward III's Enforcers', in The Age of Edward III, ed. Bothwell (York, 2001)
