Bio
I am a historian of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. I am known both as a historian of London in this time and also more broadly as an expert in the cultural and social history of the country. I was born in Liverpool (England); did my undergraduate degree at The University of York; and completed my Ph.D. at The University of Cambridge (under the supervision of Professor Keith Wrightson). After my Ph.D., I was a research fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge, and after Clare and before ISU I taught for six years at The University of Leicester. I have been at ISU for a quarter of a century now. I have written extensively on the nature of local government, urban society, crime, juvenile delinquency, poverty, policing, surveillance (information gathering), punishment, bridewells (houses of correction), and gender in London and the country, and more besides.
Oxford University Press published my most recent book in 2024: Institutions, Information, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700: Turning Inside. Cambridge University press published Lost Londons: Change, Crime, & Control in the Capital City, 1550-1660 in 2008. While my first book was also published by Oxford University Press in 1996: Youth & Authority: Formative Experiences in England, 1560-1640. Youth and Authority won the Whitfield Prize awarded the Royal Historical Society (UK) for the best first book published anywhere in the world on any aspect of British history at any time. I have been working for a few years now on a book with the working title, Capital Streets: Orientation and Disorientation in Early Modern London.
I have held a number of major fellowships, including a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship and a Fellowship at The National Humanities Centre.
Ask An Historian
What unusual documents have you found in the archives?
I found a deposition from the Leicestershire Archdeaconry Court in a case where it was alleged that domestic servant Agnes Bowker had given birth to a cat on 16 January 1569. A drawing of the cat was put in the deposition.