When Margery Dod brought a plea of trespass to Nottingham’s borough court in April 1324, she listed a string of accusations against many members of the de Spondon family, likely to have been her neighbours, trading contacts, or both. Margery…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
Black Women in Wartime Britain 1939-45 by Stephen Bourne
At the height of the London Blitz in 1941, Esther Bruce, who was then a young woman aged 28, became part of my family. Her Guyanese father had just died, so their neighbour, 63-year-old Granny Johnson (my great-grandmother), ‘adopted’ her.…
Black Women in Britain During the Great War By Stephen Bourne
With only a few exceptions, such as the Crimean war ‘doctress’ Mary Seacole, black and dual-heritage women have been ‘written out’ of British history. This is true of the many books published about Britain and the First World War and…
I love you, my subject by Dr Jo Stanley
What’s an extrinsic joy if you’re a historian? For me it’s the simple-but-wonderful pleasure of continually finding both heroines and beloved new friends among the people whose histories I explore. They may be living, and so we can physically meet…
Caroline Ganley and the School Care Committee: school meals and active citizenship before the Vote by Yvette Williams Elliott
The closure of schools to most pupils due to Covid-19 this year has once again highlighted the issue of food poverty, and raised fears for vulnerable children missing out on vital lunches and all the other social welfare provision provided…
The ‘Dudley Dig & Cruise’: Women and Canal Restoration in 1970s Britain
It is the weekend of 26/27 September 1970. Margaret has driven her Mini to Parkhead, a derelict industrial area on the Dudley Canal, waste tip for Doulton’s ceramics. The whole area is buzzing with hundreds of enthusiastic workers clearing the…
Recovering and Reconstructing the Lives of Parish Clergy Wives in Elizabethan England by Dr Anne Thompson
Women in Elizabethan England rarely have a voice of their own, but occasionally an individual emerges whose thoughts, words, and actions come across loud and clear; Avice Helme, widow of a sixteenth-century Dorset vicar, proved to be one such woman.…
Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman, by Dr Tabitha Kenlon
Pop quiz! The passages below are from conduct manuals. Can you guess which century each quotation belongs to – the fourteenth, eighteenth, twentieth, or twenty-first? “Men want to feel like they are dating a model or celebrity, so look like…
Popular Memory and Gender in Medieval England: Men, Women and Testimony in the Church Courts, c. 1200-1500 by Dr Bronach C. Kane
In May 1365, Alice de Bridelyngton and Joan del Hill, spinsters by trade, testified in a marriage case brought in the church court of York between Margery de Merton and Thomas de Middelton. Both women said that they had overheard…