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Prof Brodie Waddell

Positions held:
  • Professor of History, School of Historical Studies
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    I joined the department in 2012, after completing post-doctoral fellowships at York and Cambridge. My research focuses on English history from c.1550 to c.1750, especially social and economic life. I teach, supervise and research with my colleagues in early modern history at ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú and beyond.

    Highlights

    • Principal Investigator on (2019-21), with Jason Peacey of UCL (Co-I) and Sharon Howard of ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú (Postdoctoral Research Associate). This project is funded by an AHRC Research Grant, AH/S0001654/1.

    • Co-Investigator on 'Written Worlds: Non-Elite Writers in Seventeenth-Century England', 2022-27, funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

    Web profiles

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Director of Education (History, Classics and Archaeology)
  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • petitions and supplications
    • writing practices among middling and labouring people
    • the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688
    • charity, welfare and the poor law
    • religious attitudes to economic issues
    • craft guilds and local government
    • land management and common resources
    • protest, riot and rebellion
    • ballads, pamphlets and other printed ‘popular culture’

    Research overview

    How did how ordinary people respond to the challenges they faced in an era of rapid social, political and economic change? This is the question at the heart of my research agenda, but the approaches that I have adopted to answer it have included a wide variety of different methods and have ranged across several centuries of English history.

    My current research focuses on the pratice of petitioning, one of the most common ways for people without official political power to push the authorities to act. This project is funded by grants from the AHRC and the Economic History Society, which has enabled me to draw on thousands of surviving petitions to local and central government from c.1570 to c.1800. It shows how these written requests and complaints became a crucial mode of communication between the ‘rulers’ and the ‘ruled’. People at all levels of society – from noblemen to paupers – used petitions to make their voices heard.

    In my other research, I have explored many more facets of early modern history, as outlined in my research interests list. While the specific topics range widely, my work has focused on England, c.1550-1750.

    Research Centres and Institutes

    • Steering Committee,

    Research projects

    Abstract

    How can people without official political power push the authorities to act? Historically, one of the most common tactics was to create a petition or supplication. In seventeenth-century England, petitioning was ubiquitous. It was one of the only acceptable ways to address the authorities when seeking redress, mercy or advancement. As a result, it was a crucial mode of communication between the ‘rulers’ and the ‘ruled’. People at all levels of society – from noblemen to paupers – used petitions to make their voices heard. Some were mere begging letters scrawled on scraps of paper; others were carefully crafted radical demands signed by thousands and sent to the highest powers in the land. Whatever form they took, they provide a vital source for illuminating the concerns of supposedly ‘powerless’ people and offer a unique means to map the structures of authority that framed early modern society.

    Abstract

    In eighteenth-century England, ordinary people regularly petitioned county and city magistrates about personal calamities or local problems. These requests survive in huge numbers in local archives, including nearly ten thousand for London alone. Analysing such petitions allows us to better understand social relations, economic hardship and the role of the state in this period as well as the outlook and circumstances of people who lacked any official authority of their own. Which issues drove people to complain? How did they frame their requests? How did such petitioning vary by geography, chronology, gender and social status?

  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Teaching

    Teaching modules

    • The Early Modern World, 1500-1800: Reformations and Revolutions
    • Research Skills for Historians
    • Britannia's Embrace: The British Empire and the World
    • Border Crossings: Histories of Migration, Documents and the State
    • Writing the Past: Dissertation
    • The Voices of the People, 1500-1800
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Waddell, Brodie (2026) . History Today 76 (9), pp. 76-85. ISSN 0018-2753.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2024) . Journal of British Studies ISSN 0021-9371.
    • Hitchcock, D. and Waddell, Brodie (2024) . English Historical Review ISSN 0013-8266.
    • Hailwood, M. and Waddell, Brodie (2023) . Transactions of the Royal Historical Society ISSN 0080-4401.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2022) . Historical Journal ISSN 0018-246X.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2021) . Past & Present 253 (1), pp. 151-194. ISSN 0031-2746.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2021) . Historical Research 94 (266), pp. 716-735. ISSN 0950-3471.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2020) . Journal of Social History 54 (1), pp. 161-184. ISSN 0022-4529.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2018) . History Workshop Journal 85 (1), pp. 239-264. ISSN 1363-3554.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2015) . English Historical Review 130 (543), pp. 318-351. ISSN 0013-8266.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2012) . Historical Journal 55 (2), pp. 279-315. ISSN 0018-246X.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2008) . Cultural and Social History 5 (2), pp. 165-182. ISSN 1478-0038.

    Book

    • Huzzey, R. and Janse, M. and Miller, H. and Oddens, J. and Waddell, Brodie, eds. (2024) . Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197267721.
    • Waddell, Brodie and Peacey, J., eds. (2024) . London, UK: UCL Press. ISBN 9781800085503.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2012) . Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 9781843837794.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2011) . Borthwick Papers. (120), York, UK: The University of York. ISBN 9781904497554.

    Book section

    • Huzzey, R. and Janse, M. and Miller, H. and Oddens, J. and Waddell, Brodie (2024) . In: Huzzey, R. and Janse, M. and Miller, H. and Oddens, J. and Waddell, Brodie (eds.) Petitions and Petitioning in Europe and North America From the Late Medieval Period to the Present. Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197267721.
    • Waddell, Brodie and Worthen, H. (2024) . In: Huzzey, R. and Janse, M. and Miller, H. and Oddens, J. and Waddell, Brodie (eds.) Petitions and Petitioning in Europe and North America From the Late Medieval Period to the Present. Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 155-181. ISBN 9780197267721.
    • Waddell, Brodie and Peacey, J. (2024) . In: Waddell, Brodie and Peacey, J, (eds.) The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain. London, UK: UCL Press. pp. 1-32. ISBN 9781800085503.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2024) . In: Waddell, Brodie and Peacey, Jason (eds.) The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain. London, UK. pp. 201-228. ISBN 9781800085503.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2016) . In: Sangha, L. and Willis, J. (eds.) Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources. Routledge Guides to Using Historical Sources. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 224-239. ISBN 9781138823648.
    • Waddell, Brodie (2010) . In: Williamson, F. (ed.) Locating Agency: Space, Power and Popular Politics. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 103-132. ISBN 9781443814485.
  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Outreach

    Academic leader, , U3A Shared Learning Project, 2019-20