Emily Kearon-Warrilow
Constructing the ‘child’ as a legal subject across the colonial divide: Sexual offence laws in Britain, India and the League of Nations, 1880s-1930s.
Biography
My interest in colonial history began at the University of Liverpool while studying for my BA. I completed my MA at the University of Birmingham while balancing a corporate job, before finally deciding to return to academia full-time to undertake my PhD.
Alongside my PhD I work on two research projects. I am the PGR Research Assistant for Antifascist Archives (an interdisciplinary project across Department of Politics and Department of Languages, Culture and Film) and the Website Curator for Borderscapes (Department of Languages, Culture and Film). I am also a member of the European Children’s Rights Research Unit in the School of Law and Social Justice.
As Graduate Teaching Fellow in the History department, I have also been responsible for various initiatives aimed at improving racial and gender equality in the department and have taught undergraduate seminars on the module ‘The Global Past of the Present’.
Publications
‘Negotiating age: Evidentiary standards and criminal justice in the history of UK sexual offence legislation’, in Rosemary Auchmuty, Caroline Derry and Danaya Wright (eds.) Research Handbook in Gender, History, and Law (Edward Elgar), forthcoming, Summer 2026
Research Interests
My PhD examines the construction of the child as a legal subject in sexual offence legislation during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. My particular focus in on Britain and colonial India; I use these jurisdictions to examine how colonialism shaped not only domestic sexual offence legislation, but also circumscribed international anti-trafficking laws under the League of Nations.
My broader research interests include legal history; histories of gender and sexuality, including sexual and gendered violence and queer history; colonialism and imperialism; and histories of childhood, including the emerging field of ‘childism’.