Her doctoral thesis, supervised by Fred Reid, was entitled The early feminists: radical Unitarians and the emergence of the women's rights movement, c.1831-1851 and was completed in 1993.
[1] After obtaining her doctorate she began a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at London Guildhall University.
[2] She was a fellow of University College, Oxford, from 2002 to 2004, when she was appointed a fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a university lecturer in modern history, appointments made permanent in 2009.
[3][4][5] In 2015, she was awarded the title of Professor of Gender and Women's History by the University of Oxford.
[8] Gleadle's research focuses on women's experiences in 18th- and 19th-century Britain, especially with reference to political culture, while she also engages in debates about feminist and gender history theory.