Professor Ditchfield is a specialist in the political and religious history of eighteenth-century Britain. His PhD is from Cambridge University and he is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

His published work has focused upon the significance of religious issues in Parliament, and in particular those which involved toleration and civil equality for religious minorities, and upon developments within Protestant Dissent, notably the emergence of Unitarianism. It has also taken account of movements for political and ecclesiastical reform; the career of Samuel Johnson; and, more generally, the nature of monarchical and parliamentary authority between c.1750-c.1800, with particular reference to the reign of George III. His current research involves the history of Parliament; changes and continuities in religious thought in the later eighteenth century, with particular reference to Unitarianism and Anglican Latitudinarianism; Dissenting education; and reform movements. His research plans include further articles on the connections between theological and political radicalism in the age of the American and French Revolutions; and the second and final volume of his edition of The Letters of Theophilus Lindsey. The first volume of this edition, covering the years 1747 to 1788, was published in November 2007. He is involved in a major project for a forthcoming book on the history of Dissenting Academies, to be published by Cambridge University Press; and is contracted to edit the letters of Francis Blackborne (1705-1787), Archdean of Cleveland, for the Church of England Record Society.

Books and Editions

• The Letters of Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808). Volume I: 1747-1788, Church of England Record Society/The Boydell Press, November 2007
• The Letters of Theophilus Lindsey and the Cause of Protestantism in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain, Friends of Dr Williams's Library Fifty-ninth Annual Lecture: Dr Williams's Trust, London, 2007.
• George III: An Essay in Monarchy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
• The Evangelical Revival, UCL Press, 1998
• (With David Hayton and Clyve Jones), British Parliamentary Lists, 1660-1800. A Register Hambledon Press, London, 1995
  
• (With Bryan Keith-Lucas). A Kentish Parson. Selections from the Private Papers of the Revd Joseph Price, Vicar of Brabourne, 1767-1786, Kent County Council Arts and Libraries: Stroud, 1991

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• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Trustee, Dr Williams's Trust and Library, London
• Member, Advisory Committee of the Centre for Dissenting Studies (Dr Williams's Library and Queen Mary College, London)
• Member, editorial board of Enlightenment and Dissent

Undergraduate

• HI605 - Independent Documentary Study in History
• HI640 - Late Stuart and Hanoverian: Britain 1688-1750
• HI5038 - G:Britain and the French Revolution, c.1785-c.1804