As part of this project, we are seeking to share our research findings with both academic and public audiences through publications and events. Many more of the direct results of this project can be found on our Resources page.
Publications
Brodie Waddell and Jason Peacey, eds, The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain (UCL Press, 2024), 286pp.
Brodie Waddell, ‘The Popular Politics of Local Petitioning in Early Modern England’, Journal of British Studies (April 2024), pp. 1-20.
Brodie Waddell (ed.), Petitions in the State Papers, on British History Online (2020)
Jason Peacey (ed.), Petitions to the House of Lords, on British History Online (2020)
Sharon Howard (ed.), Petitions to the Cheshire Quarter Sessions, on British History Online (2019)
Brodie Waddell (ed.), Petitions to the Derbyshire Quarter Sessions, on British History Online (2019)
Brodie Waddell (ed.), Petitions to the Staffordshire Quarter Sessions, on British History Online (2019)
Brodie Waddell (ed.), Petitions to the Westminster Quarter Sessions, on British History Online (2019)
Brodie Waddell (ed.), Petitions to the Worcestershire Quarter Sessions, on British History Online (2019)
Short Pieces
These shorter pieces have been written by members of the project team or commissioned for the project website, listed in chronological order.
Brodie Waddell, ‘The Long Road to a New Project’ (17 September 2018)
Sharon Howard, ‘Gender, institutions and the changing uses of petitions in 18th-century London’, In Her Mind’s Eye: Explorations in History Data (22 April 2019)
Brodie Waddell, ‘Petitioning in Early Modern England: An Annotated Bibliography’ (13 May 2019)
Brodie Waddell, ‘Petitions in Early Modern England: A Very Short Introduction’ (10 June 2019)
Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth, ‘The Penruddock Petitions: The Aftermath of a Royalist Revolt, 1655-1660’ (12 May 2020)
Sharon Howard, ‘Women, gender and non-lethal violence in Quarter Sessions petitioning narratives’, Early Modern Notes (12 August 2020)
Sharon Howard, ‘The petition of Elizabeth Skory: A young woman seeks redress against a powerful man in 1621’ (20 August 2020)
Alex Wakelam, ‘‘For signing a Petition … [he] was put into the Stocks’ – Petitioning from within the Debtors’ Prison’ (27 August 2020)
Jason Peacey, ‘Edmund Felton’s Petitions for Justice, 1621-1653’ (15 September 2020)
Philip Carter, ‘Letting the people speak: 2,526 early modern petitions on British History Online’, On History (11 November 2020)
Emily Rhodes, ‘Crime and Women’s Petitions to the post-Restoration Stuart Monarchs’ (11 January 2021)
Laura Flannigan, ‘A Family Feud and Parallel Petitioning to the Crown from Sixteenth-Century Devon’ (29 March 2021)
Brodie Waddell, ‘Arguing about Alehouses: Local Petitions and Parish Politics in Early Modern England’, My-Parish, Warwick Network for Parish Research (April 2021)
Sharon Howard, ‘Topics’, ‘Responses’, and ‘Petitioners’, Exploring the Power of Petitioning (2021-22)
Brodie Waddell, ‘Record Masterclass: Quarter-Sessions Petitions’, Who Do You Think You Are Magazine, Issue 186 (January 2022), pp. 56-57.
Brodie Waddell, ‘Multitudes of hands: The power of petitioning in seventeenth-century England’, podcast on The World Turned Upside Down (September 2024).
Shared Learning Project
‘Investigating the Lives of Seventeenth-Century Petitioners’ (2019-21): A U3A Shared Learning Project producing short reports on many of the petitions transcribed in our British History Online volumes.
Outreach Events
Brodie Waddell, ‘Crime, Poverty and Pub Licencing: Local Petitioning in Worcestershire, c.1600-1800’, Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 17 January 2022.
Brodie Waddell, guest speaker on petitioning and popular politics at Lambeth Academy Sixth Form mini-conference, 28 June 2021.
Brodie Waddell, source-based workshop on petitioning and popular politics in seventeenth-century England, 14 November 2o19, BSix Sixth Form College, Hackney, London.
Sharon Howard, ‘The Power of Petitioning’ exhibit and talk at the Heritage Open Days, 14 September 2019, Cheshire Record Office.
Academic Events
Brodie Waddell, ‘The People, the State, and the Power of Local Petitioning in Early Modern England’, Early Modern Social and Economic History Seminar, Cambridge, June 2022.
Brodie Waddell, ‘Petitioning about Poverty in England, 1560-1750’, Poverty, Poor Relief, and Policy in Britain and Beyond, c.1600-1900, Canterbury Christchurch University, April 2022.
Brodie Waddell, ‘The Popular Politics of Local Petitioning in Early Modern England’, Early Modern History Research Seminar, Trinity College Dublin, April 2022.
Brodie Waddell, ‘What can you do with 2,526 petitions? Creating, Using and Sharing a New Digital Corpus of Transcribed Manuscripts’, Book and Print Initiative, School of Advanced Study, online, November 2021
Brodie Waddell, ‘Petitions and the Politics of the Parish in Seventeenth-Century Southern England’, Wessex Centre for History and Archaeology, online, November 2021
Brodie Waddell, ‘Parochial Petitions, Social Identity and Popular Mobilisation in Early Modern England’, Social History Society Annual Conference, online, July 2021.
Panel with Joris Oddens, Jason Peacey and Brodie Waddell, ‘The Changing Cultures of Petitioning in England and the Netherlands, c.1560-c.1940’, at the European Social Science History Conference, online, March 2021.
Panel with Jason Peacey, Imogen Peck and Brodie Waddell, ‘Cultures of Petitioning Early Modern England’, North American Conference on British Studies, online, November 2020.
‘The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain’, online workshop, 14-15 September 2020, with papers from Lloyd Bowen, Karin Bowie, Sharon Howard, Jason Peacey, Imogen Peck, Elly Robson, Ted Vallance, Leah Veronese, Brodie Waddell and Hannah Worthen.
Brodie Waddell, ‘Shaping the English State from Below: The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern England’, at the Social History Society annual conference, online, 24 June 2020.
Sharon Howard, ‘”A matter soe shamfull and unnaturall, as the lyke by anie woman hath seeldome bine offred”: women, gender and non-lethal violence in petitioning narratives in early modern England and Wales’, at ‘Gender and Violence in the Early Modern World’, 23 November 2019, University of Cambridge.
Brodie Waddell, ‘Negotiating with Authority: Petitions, Supplications and the Limits of Deference’, presented at ‘Negotiations and Negotiating in Historical Perspective’, 3 June 2019, King’s College London.
Brodie Waddell, ‘Petitioners as Experts in Early Modern England’, presented at ‘Social Expertise and Political Decisions in Early Modern Europe’, 3 May 2019 at Birkbeck, University of London.
Sharon Howard, ‘Petitioning in eighteenth-century London: gender, institutions and change in the uses and meanings of petitions’, presented at ‘Petitions and Petitioning from the Medieval Period to the Present: When and Why Do Petitions Matter?’, 11-12 April 2019 at Birkbeck, University of London.
Brodie Waddell, ‘The Emergence of a Petitioning Culture in Early Modern England’, presented at ‘Petitions in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions’, 13-15 February 2019 at the University of Lisbon.