Neil Harrison

Assistant Professor

School: Northumbria School of Law

I am an Assistant Professor in law and Solicitor at Northumbria University.

I teach on a wide range of courses on the LLB, MLaw and LLM programmes, including legal history, inquests, commercial contracts, contract law and the Student Law Office. I supervise legal history archives projects students.

My doctoral research is in legal history. In broad terms, the legal impact on business on Tyneside in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on the River Tyne. My research interests also include legal history, local legal history and history more broadly, law and society, legal education and procurement law amongst other areas. Further details are in my Research Interests

I was a commercial disputes lawyer at Bond Dickinson LLP and Square One Law LLP with over 22 years’ practical experience advising on a wide range of commercial disputes, risk assessment and mitigation strategies in the private and public sector, including the local government, education, health, transport, housing, energy, sports and manufacturing sectors.

As a solicitor my areas of expertise included commercial contractual disputes, all aspects of procurement law (as implemented in the UK) including procurement related disputes, PFI disputes, judicial review proceedings and public law disputes, commercial agent and distributor disputes, education related disputes and general contractual disputes.

I also have extensive experience of court and tribunal proceedings at various levels.

My first degree was in history at Jesus College, Cambridge.

I am Member of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the HEA.

Campus Address

Northumbria University School of Law, Room 350
City Campus East 1
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST

Email Neil

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My doctoral research is in legal history. In broad terms, the legal impact on business on Tyneside in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on the River Tyne, its management and ownership by an institution, the Tyne Improvement Commission. I examine the role of individuals, and the interaction between the institution and the individuals in the ownership and management of the River. I examine how the individuals interpreted, enacted, and enforced commercial and regulatory law in the context of the institution.

My research interests are in legal history, local legal history and history more broadly with a focus on the “long nineteenth century”. They include Chartism, radicalism, trade and business, newspapers and the press, biographical history, the role of networks in business, trade and commerce, ports and rivers, the interaction between commerce and culture, and crime and punishment.

My research interests also include law and society, legal education and procurement law.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
A new institution: the importance of networks in the creation of the Tyne Improvement Commission (TIC) in 1850 to own and manage the River Tyne, Harrison, N. 7 May 2025, Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies PGR Conference
Sir Joseph Cowen MP and James Stevenson MP. Chairmen of the Tyne Improvement Commission in the nineteenth century. Fathers of the River Tyne and Tyneside?, Harrison, N. 10 Jul 2024, INCSA Inaugural conference: The Nineteenth Century Today: Interdisciplinary, International, Intertemporal
Sir Joseph Cowen MP and James Stevenson MP. The influence of their networks on their actions as Chairmen of the Tyne Improvement Commission in the nineteenth century, Harrison, N. 15 Mar 2024, Social History Conference
Sir Joseph Cowen MP and James Stevenson MP. Chairmen of the Tyne Improvement Commission in the nineteenth century. Fathers of the River Tyne and Tyneside?, Harrison, N. 15 Nov 2023, Open University Legal and Local History Conference
Using historical archives, legal and regional history in the final year law dissertation: The Past Transforms the Future, Harrison, N. 19 Jun 2023, B and L Research Group Con June 23
Sir Joseph Cowen as Commissioner and Chairman of the Tyne Improvement Commission from 1850 to 1873: the influence of his networks on his interpretation of the law and his actions, Harrison, N. 9 Sep 2021, The Society of Legal Scholars' Legal Biography Workshop
Boat/ship ownership, trade and employment along the lower River Tyne and the Port of Tyne in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Harrison, N. 13 Sep 2018, Centre for Port and Maritime History Annual Conference
Reflection in clinic versus reflection in legal practice, Harrison, N. 3 Jul 2017, IJCLE Conference 2017

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Invited talk: A new institution: the importance of networks in the creation of the Tyne Improvement Commission (TIC) in 1850 to own and manage the River Tyne. “Perhaps in no Port in the Kingdom have there been longer or more numerous contests of jurisdiction and interests than in the Tyne.” (James Guthrie-The River Tyne: Its History and Resources) 2025
Invited talk: A new institution: the importance of networks in the creation of the Tyne Improvement Commission (TIC) in 1850 to own and manage the River Tyne. “Perhaps in no Port in the Kingdom have there been longer or more numerous contests of jurisdiction and interests than in the Tyne.” (James Guthrie-The River Tyne: Its History and Resources) 2025
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Open University-Legal History in Unexpected Places 2024
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Organise Organise Organise 2023
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: society legal scholars conference 2023 2023
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Economic Humanities-Inaugral Event 2022
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Chartism Conference 2019 2019
Invited talk: Value of Water 2018
Visiting an external academic institution: Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums 2018