Janet Weston is a historian of health in modern Britain, particularly mental illness, infectious disease, and the law. Her current research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, focuses on the values expressed by public health laws in Britain over the course of the 20^th century; she is also interested in the integration of history and humanities into public health research and practice, and leads a public health humanities network.

Past projects have examined responses to HIV and AIDS in Irish and English prisons in the late 20^th century; medical understandings of sexual offenders in the mid-20^th century; and most recently, the history of mental capacity law and the Court of Protection. One highlight of this was the production of two short films, bringing to life the stories of women found ‘incapable of managing their affairs’ in the 1930s. which you can watch here.

She joined the Social History Society as a PhD student in the mid-2010s, became a co-convenor of the ‘Deviance’, Inclusion and Exclusion strand in 2018, and was elected Treasurer in 2023.

Key Publications

• Looking after Miss Alexander: Care, Mental Capacity, and the Court of Protection in Mid-Twentieth Century England (McGill Queens University Press) (2023)
• ‘Paternalism in Historical Context: Helmet and Seatbelt Legislation in the UK’, Public Health Ethics 16:1, 64-76 (2023)
• Histories of HIV/AIDS in Western Europe: new and regional perspectives ed. by Janet Weston and Hannah Elizabeth (Manchester University Press) (2022)
• ‘Oral Histories, Public Engagement and the Making of Positive in Prison’, History Workshop, 87, 211-223 (2019)