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Brodie Waddell

@brodiewaddell.bsky.social

5.4K followers 650 following 580 posts

Early Modern History at Birkbeck, University of London | Likes: archives, fatherhood, footnotes, the seaside. | Dislikes: Henry VIII, cars, inequity. My research: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8004317/brodie-waddell

www.bbk.ac.uk

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · Nov 11

Welcome new followers! I'm a historian of #EarlyModern England at @bbkhistorical.bsky.social, currently working on two projects: the #PowerOfPetitioning (petitioning.history.ac.uk) and the #WrittenWorlds of non-elite writers (writtenworlds.org). 🗃️

Front cover of The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain, edited by Brodie Waddell and Jason Peacey.

Screenshot of the landing page for the Written Worlds project website.

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History Workshop @historyworkshop.org.uk · 8d

How has paperwork served as a tool of empowerment for people who often find power elusive?

In our latest podcast, a group of historians, archivists, and activists met at the Raphael Samuel History Centre (@rshc.bsky.social) to discuss the hidden history of paperwork 🗃️🎙️

Changing The Record

How has paperwork served over time as a radical tool for empowerment and change?

www.historyworkshop.org.uk

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 7h

The world is falling apart and UK higher education is a bin fire, but I've got two first-year BA modules this year at @bbkhistorical.bsky.social and the enthusiasm and curiosity of new Birkbeck students give me life.

They just want to learn about new stuff! And I get to help them do that!

The world according to Henricus Martellus, a German mapmaker working in Florence in the 1480s.

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 1d

It's really good fun and lots of the series are very well written. Even if you can't get it delivered you could check out the books by Phoenix authors.

Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 1d

The Phoenix comic is great for that age and some of the series in it have been turned into books.

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Anna Cusack @annacusack.bsky.social · 5d

If anyone needs a freelance researcher in London (or across the UK), I'm your person!
I've reasonable rates, lots of archive experience & great recommendations from academics globally. I'm only teaching 1 module this term, as the job market is what it is. Therefore, I'm open to all work. DM me!

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 5d

I can reassure you both that, in addition to being very very smart, all four are lovely human beings.

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Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 6d

I just received the first copies of my book and I have to say it’s looking gorgeous! 😍 Thank you @reaktionbooks.bsky.social for making such a beautiful book #earlymodern

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 6d

Who did what in early modern England?

New #OpenAccess book, 'The Experience of Work in Early Modern England' by @jwhittle.bsky.social, @markhailwood.bsky.social, @hkrobb.bsky.social & @aucointaylor.bsky.social, based on thousands of #EarlyModern court depositions 🗃️

Read it: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

This book applies the innovative work-task approach to the history of work, which captures the contribution of all workers and types of work to the early modern economy. Drawing on tens of thousands of court depositions, the authors analyse the individual tasks that made up everyday work for women and men, shedding new light on the gender division of labour, and the ways in which time, space, age and marital status shaped sixteenth and seventeenth-century working life. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, the book deepens our understanding of the preindustrial economy, and calls for us to rethink not only who did what, but also the implications of these findings for major debates about structural change, the nature and extent of paid work, and what has been lost as well as gained over the past three centuries of economic development. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Cover of Whittle, Jane, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb, and Taylor Aucoin. The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. of Cambridge Studies in Economic History - Second Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 7d

Goodnight from Meek’s Ironmongery in Barwell, where the resident poltergeist is hammering nails into the walls to spell out some deeply rude words. Goodnight from David Moody, hearing the crow that lives in his stomach caw at the approach of the Wicker King. Goodnight from Hookland.

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Social History Society @socialhistsoc.bsky.social · 19d

📣Reminder that the deadline is coming soon!

Social History Society @socialhistsoc.bsky.social · 23d

📢 Reminder: the deadline for the Social History Society Small Grants is coming up soon!

💷 Up to £1000 available to support research, events & activities in social & cultural history

🗓️ Apply by 1 October for events Dec–Apr
🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/funding/smal...
✨Apply today!

Small Grants

The Social History Society maintains a Small Grants Fund to support research, events and activities by members of the Society. We give priority to activities and research that would otherwise remai…

socialhistory.org.uk

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 9d

Teaching starts this week, so may need to incorporate this into my intro slides. Students need to be ready to have their minds blown by the late age for first marriages in pre-industrial northwest Europe. 🤯

Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · Jun 19

Sorry, kids. Prepare to be SHOCKED and OFFENDED by the high levels of rural proletarianization in seventeenth-century England.

BBC headline: be ready to be shocked and offended at university, students told.

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 9d

On the other site, I once quipped that one of the best public outreach activities that historians could do was accurately maintaining Wikipedia pages. This might be more prescient nowadays…

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 9d

We've got a stellar set of speakers this term at @ihr.bsky.social. Come along an immerse yourself in the latest early modern history research! #EarlyModern 🗃️

IHR Society, Culture & Belief, 1500-1800 @ihrscb.bsky.social · 13d

We're back! 🎉 And we're thrilled to announce our term card for Autumn 2025! Our first event is on Thursday 16 October at 5.30 pm. Lyndal Roper will be discussing 'Turbulence and the German Peasants' War of 1524-6'. You can register to attend the event at: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

To attend, please register at the event of your choice here. If you have signed up but suddenly find yourself unable to make it, you can relinquish your spot by emailing: ihr.events@sas.ac.uk. If you would like to attend in-person and the event reads as fully booked, please do drop by anyway as we can always find some extra chairs!

Thursday 16 October, 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm
Lyndal Roper (University of Oxford), Turbulence and the German Peasants’ War of 1524-6
Please register here if you would like to attend.
Hybrid. Online-via Zoom & Room 243, Second Floor, Senate House

Thursday 30 October, 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm
Emily Vine (University of Exeter), Birth, Death and Domestic Religion in Early Modern London
Please register here if you would like to attend.
Hybrid | Online-via Zoom & IHR Wolfson Room NB02, Basement, IHR, Senate House

Thursday 27 November, 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm
Nailya Shamgunova (University of East Anglia), ‘English and Scottish Scholars at the Global Library, c. 1500-1700’
Please register here if you would like to attend.
Hybrid | Online-via Zoom & IHR Wolfson Room NB02, Basement, IHR, Senate House

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Prof. Elaine Chalus @profelainechalus.bsky.social · 11d

For anyone who is #teaching #18thcentury politics and/or electoral culture, or is doing #localhistory or #familyhistory, do check out our ECPPEC web resource : it's chock-full of short informative essays, polling data, and artefacts #skystorians ecppec.ncl.ac.uk

Eighteenth-Century Political Participation & Electoral Culture

18th-century Britain is notorious for corrupt and restrictive politics, when few could vote, bribery and debauchery were commonplace. But it was also an age when modern democracy was being shaped.

ecppec.ncl.ac.uk

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Social History Society @socialhistsoc.bsky.social · 14d

📢 The Social History Society Book Prize 2026 is now open for nominations!

Now in its 8th year, the prize celebrates the best books in social history & cultural history✨

More information here: socialhistory.org.uk/2025/09/24/b...

Book Prize 2026 Open

We are delighted to announce that the Social History Society annual Book Prize has reopened and is seeking nominations. The prize is now in its eighth year and is awarded to the best book in Social…

socialhistory.org.uk

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will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 19d

it’s friday evening and now is as good a time as any to remind you all to JOIN A UNION

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 26d

I finally transferred to ad-free version of Wordpress, so that people had easier to my site, especially my list of radical online collections & archives (nearly 1000 collections listed).

It'd be great if people clicked on the link to see if it is all working!

hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...

radical online collections and archives

I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would b…

hatfulofhistory.com

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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 19d

Concerned by this #UKHE -wide drive. It clearly is a way of removing representation from governance structures (a Department has a voice, committees, & governance structure, a 'subject area' does not), however much consultants/HR deny it is.

Would be good to know how people protect representation.

will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 20d

do you work in a university/faculty/school in the UK that abolished “departments”? willing to share experiences (by DM if preferred)? RTs also appreciated

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 20d

Google translate suggests this new German review by Andreas Gestrich of our #PowerOfPetitioning book is fairly positive, but can anyone who's not a machine confirm?
www.sehepunkte.de/2025/09/3993...

SEHEPUNKTE - Rezension von: The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain - Ausgabe 25 (2025), Nr. 9

Rezension über Brodie Waddell / Jason Peacey (eds.): The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain, London: UCL Press 2024, XI + 274 S., 14 s/w-Abb., ISBN 978-1-80008-551-0, GBP 30,00

www.sehepunkte.de

Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 23d

Solidarity, Krista. That's a really tough position to be caught in! I hope the senior management see sense soon.

Reposted by Brodie Waddell

Jen Baird @jenbaird.bsky.social · 24d

Term is coming up, time to decorate those office doors

Dan Stewart @drdanstewart1.bsky.social · Feb 26

Apropos of nothing, here's some posters I made for outside my office in case anyone wants them. Text on one edited from @blacktrowel.bsky.social, the other from an Eco article (both cited of course). If you'd like the PDF files, just email me. #antifascist #AncientBluesky 🏺

A poster titled "Don't Panic! How to fight fascism as a student of the past". 14 points are listed: 1. Document. 2. Work Together. 3. Leverage your skills. 4. De-escalate. 5. Beware entryism. 6. Know the tools of fascism. 7. Solidarity over charity. 8. Thank local, plan big. 9. Money works. 10. Get trained. 11. Grow your roots. 12. Push through discomfort. 13. Stay safe. 14. Remember, tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.

A poster entitled "How to Spot a Fascist". Taken from an Umberto Eco 1995 Article in the New York Review of Books. 14 signs are listed: 1. The cult of tradition. 2. The rejection of modernism. 3. The cult of action for action's sake. 4. Disagreement is treason. 5. Fear of difference. 6. Appeal to social frustration. 7. The obsession with a plot. 8. The enemy is both weak and strong. 9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. 10. Contempt for the weak. 11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. 12. Machismo and weaponry. 13. Selective populism. 14. Un-fascism through Newspeak.

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 26d

An understandable position!

Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 26d

fwiw, the UCU branch officers' update email that goes out every Friday (not the mains one to all members) is very good in my opinion at doing that. Though it require being a branch officer...

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 26d

What can petitions to magistrates from London apprentices tell us about gendered violence in #EarlyModern England?

New addition from Hilary Taylor to the #PowerOfPetitioning annotated bibliography:
petitioning.history.ac.uk/2019/05/13/p...

Screenshot of the first page of Hilary Taylor, 'The gendered dynamics of violence in English apprenticeship: apprentices’ petitions to the Middlesex and Westminster Sessions, c. 1690–1830'

Abstract: This article offers the first systematic analysis of the role that violence played in the management of apprentices, and the gendered dynamics of violence in English apprenticeship more broadly. It does so through an examination of 195 petitions that apprentices or their supporters submitted to the Middlesex and Westminster Sessions, which sought the cancellation of their indentures on grounds of ‘immoderate correction’. It offers a quantitative overview of the surviving petitions, examining the proportion that featured allegations of violence, the terms and level of detail in which violence was described, and its relationship to apprentices’ other stated grievances. It moves on to reconstruct the factors that could prompt masters and mistresses to mete out correction (as well as their commentaries on their perceived right to do so) and the tactics that petitioners used in crafting their complaints to legal authorities. Although female apprentices complained about violence at a disproportionate rate to their male peers, the material considered here suggests that their petitions did so in comparatively formulaic and restricted terms. The final section considers what implications this might have for our understandings of violence, gender and apprenticeship, and a genre of document – the petition – that provides access to these issues.

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Daniel F Gosling @thegozfather.bsky.social · 28d

#REQciting news for fans of the Court of Requests. As of this morning, over 20,000 new online item descriptions have been added to the catalogue for REQ 2/16-265 since Feb 2024. Captain Nemo eat your heart out. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C...

Browse records of other archives | The National Archives

The official archive of the UK government. Our vision is to lead and transform information management, guarantee the survival of today's information for tomorrow and bring history to life for everyone...

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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