Adrian Leonard, PhD Candidate, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
MA, MPhil (University of Cambridge)
Adrian Leonard is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of History studying under Professor Martin Daunton, supported by the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies and the Centre for Financial History at Newnham College.
Adrian’s project for the Centre for Risk Studies will investigate and analyse the development of risk modelling, the systems used to calculate future financial liabilities arising from or affected by uncertain events. His main area of interest is marine insurance in Britain and the British Empire from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. He is currently exploring the efficacy of marine war insurance premiums and their contribution to reducing transactional frictions in British trade.
On the side, Adrian is President (Emeritus) of the Cambridge University History Society (Clio), and Graduate Representative on the History Faculty Board. He completed his MPhil at Trinity Hall, immediately after completing his undergraduate degree in History at Hughes Hall, Cambridge. He is the recipient of a studentship from the Ellen Macarthur Fund for Economic History, and was awarded the Hughes Hall Scholarship in 2010. Before returning to higher education, he spent twenty years as a writer and editor in the financial services and insurance sectors.