Girlhood was an important lifecycle stage in the trajectory of eighteenth-century working women. ‘Working girlhood’ is explicitly used in this book to discuss those girls of the middling and lower orders who worked or prepared for work in adulthood, thus these are not only ‘labouring ‘girls, but those in families in town and country who … Continued

In her new book, Libertine London, Julie Peakman investigates the sex lives of women from 1680 to 1830, the period known as the long eighteenth century. She explores those women who came to be associated with sex outside of marriage and were verbally abused for indulging in sex for love, desire or a living, behaviour … Continued

  A story of British expatriate social mobility and sexuality in the Middle East   Nineteenth century social history is populated by men (mostly) driven by the self-improvement ethos who emerged from humble circumstances to relative wealth and status.  Such historical rags to riches stories attract intrinsic interest.  They make persuasive illustrations for arguments about … Continued

Made in Swindon: a social history 1840s -1940s was published in May this year by Hobnob Press. It is edited by Philip Garrahan, Emeritus Professor at Sheffield Hallam University, and has six contributing authors. See: https://www.hobnobpress.co.uk/books/p/made-in-swindon-a-social-history-1840s-1950s-edited-by-philip-garrahan It also can be ordered from local bookshops or online from, for example, Waterstones:- https://www.waterstones.com/book/made-in-swindon/philip-garrahan/9781914407888 Royalties from the book … Continued

Kate Brooks’ Critical Histories in Care and Education published earlier this year by Routledge (also available as an ebook) explores the entangled histories of the care system and the development of the English education systems. Aimed at undergraduates and postgraduates, including those in Education, Care, Social Studies and Cultural History, the book is also written … Continued

Sarah Roddy’s Money and Irish Catholicism: An Intimate History, 1850-1921, which is out in e-book format now and will be released imminently in hard copy by Cambridge University Press, examines the finances of the Irish Catholic Church between the end of the Famine and the advent of Irish independence. This was a period when the … Continued

Michael Ward’s Unceasing War on Poverty is the first comprehensive biography of both the Webbs for forty years. It draws extensively on Beatrice’s diaries and on a wide range of other material. Beatrice Potter and Sidney Webb came from opposite ends of the Victorian middle class. Beatrice was one of the nine daughters of Richard … Continued

Social history can slip through the cracks of the floorboards and, if we are not careful, be easily lost. Such, I fear, is the case  with the lives and times of the rural posties who were phased out by Royal Mail in the late 1960s and early 1970s without any fanfare or proper thank you … Continued