Alumna Audrey enjoys writing success

Arts and design
A screenshot of alumna Audrey's book 'John Theophilus Desaguliers: A Natural Philosopher, Engineer and Freemason in Newtonian England’'

Audrey Carpenter graduated with a degree in English from Loughborough University in 1990. Audrey was inspired by an 18th Century Literature module with the late Professor Bill Overton. She wrote her dissertation on Isaac Newton’s literary impact which led her to discover John Theophilus Desaguliers, a polymath whose life she explored in her PhD thesis.  

This resulted in the publication of ‘John Theophilus Desaguliers: A Natural Philosopher, Engineer and Freemason in Newtonian England’ in 2011.  

Further research revealed her ancestor Giovanna Sestini, an 18th century Italian opera singer in London, leading to the 2017 book ‘Giovanna Sestini: An Italian Opera Singer in Eighteenth-century London’. 

Her latest work, ‘A Resourceful Rogue: Joachim Hayward Stocqueler (1801–1886)’ was published in 2018.  

She credits her BA course at Loughborough University for inspiring her to author nine articles and three books, turning her retirement into a period of scholarship and discovery.