Dr. Spencer Jones is an award-winning historian and author. He is Senior Lecturer in Armed Forces and War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and serves as the Regimental Historian for the Royal Regiment of Artillery.  In 2018 he was made a Haig Fellow by the Douglas Haig Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to the study of the First World War. In 2019 he became Guild President of the Guild of Battlefield Guides.

His key works include the award-nominated From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army 1902 - 1914 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2012) and the edited collection Stemming the Tide: Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914 (Helion & Co., 2013), which was runner-up for the 2013 Templer Medal. He has also edited Courage without Glory: The British Army on the Western Front 1915 (Helion & Co., 2015) and At All Costs: The British Army on the Western Front 1916 (Helion & Co., 2018). He has contributed chapters to over a dozen books and has published articles in The Journal of Military History, War in History, the British Journal for Military History and The Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research.

Spencer is a frequent contributor to BBC History Magazine and has appeared on a number of television programmes including The One Show, Who Do You Think You Are, The Great War in Numbers and Britain's Forgotten Army.

Dr Jones's research interests focus upon the history of the British Army, with a particular emphasis on the Anglo-Boer War (1899 - 1902) and the First World War (1914 - 1918). His work in this field is wide ranging, covering command, leadership, morale, recruitment, tactics and training.  He is an acknowledged specialist on the British Army and its role on the Western Front 1914-15.

PhD supervision

British military history 1861 – 1945, particularly those pertaining to the Anglo-Boer War or First World War.

Guild President of the Guild of Battlefield Guides.

Regimental Historian of the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

Haig Fellow for 2018 - Douglas Haig Fellowship (Read our press release about Dr Jones' Haig Fellowship)

PhD – History, 2009

MPhil – History, 2006

BA (Hons) War Studies and History, 2002

Books

At All Costs: The British Army on the Western Front 1916 (Solihull, Helion and Company, 2018)

Courage without Glory: The British Army on the Western Front 1915 (Solihull, Helion and Company, 2015) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Courage-Without-British-Wolverhampton-Military/dp/1910777188

The Great Retreat of 1914: From Mons to the Marne (London, Endeavour 2014) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Retreat-1914-Mons-Marne-ebook/dp/B013JUZ7FK

Stemming the Tide: Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914 (Solihull, Helion and Company, 2013.) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stemming-Officers-Leadership-Expeditionary-Wolverhampton/dp/1910294721

From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army 1899 - 1914 (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 2012) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boer-War-World-1902-1914-Commanders-ebook/dp/0806144157

Articles

'Shooting Power':  A Study of the Effectiveness of Boer and British Rifle Fire, 1899 – 1914, British Journal for Military History, 1(1), 2014, pp.29 - 47

'Scouting for Soldiers:  Reconnaissance and the British Cavalry 1899 – 1914', War in History, 18(4), November 2011, pp.495 – 515

'The Influence of Horse Supply on Field Artillery of the American Civil War,' Journal of Military History 74(2), April 2010, pp. 357 – 377.

Chapters

'Toothless Lions: Firepower and Equipment in the British Army on the Western Front, 1915' in Peter Liddle (ed.) Britain and a Widening War, 1915-16: From Gallipoli to the Somme (Barnsley, Pen & Sword, 2016)

'"To make war as we must, and not as we should like":  The British Army and the Problem of the Western Front, 1915' in Spencer Jones (ed.) Courage without Glory: The British Army on the Western Front 1915 (Solihull, Helion & Co., 2015)

'True Grit:  Officers of the British Expeditionary Force and the Great Retreat, 1914' in Peter Liddle (ed.) Britain Goes to War; How the First World War Began to Reshape the Nation (Barnsley, Pen & Sword, 2015)

'Applying Colonial Lessons to European War:  The British Expeditionary Force 1914' in Jonathan Krause (ed.) The Greater War: Essays on Other Combatants and Other Fronts, 1914 - 1918 (London, Palgrave MacMillan, 2014)

'The Thin Khaki Line:  The Evolution of Infantry Attack Formations in the British Army 1899 – 1914', in Ross Mahoney, Stuart Mitchell and Michael LoCicero (Eds.) A Military Transformed? Transformation and Innovation in the British Military, 1815-1945 (Solihull, Helion and Company, 2014)

'An Officer of Rare and Unusual Coolness:  General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien' in Spencer Jones (ed.) Stemming the Tide:  Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914 (Solihull, Helion and Company, 2013)

'The Demon':  Brigadier General Charles Fitzclarence V.C.' in Spencer Jones (ed.) Stemming the Tide:  Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914 (Solihull, Helion and Company, 2013)

Visit Dr Jones' YouTube Channel to watch and listen to lectures he has delivered for the Western Front Association, West Midlands History Society and University of Wolverhampton First World War Study Day Series.

Teaching interests

Dr. Jones is course leader for the BSc Armed Forces degree and teaches on the MA in British First World War Studies. Subjects covered at undergraduate level include contemporary British conflicts, military leadership and the First World War.