Research interests* Teaching interests* Publications* Areas of research supervision* Contact details
I work on the history of medieval and early modern London, and am particularly interested in the interaction of social life and physical environment. I have published on a number of aspects of this, such as population and urban growth, gardens and open space, markets, bridges, and London's archaeology. For some time my research focused on the history of death and burial in a metropolitan context, concentrating on the early modern period, leading to the publication of several articles and a major monograph study, The dead and the living in London and Paris, 1500-1670 (Cambridge, 2002). I collaborate, both independently and as English Heritage-funded advisor, with archaeologists working on medieval and early modern London, especially on questions of burial.
More recently I have turned to the history of the family in London, investigating the structure and composition of family and household groups in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and considering whether there are distinctive urban or metropolitan characteristics. In collaboration with Professor Richard Smith, Director of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, and Dr Matthew Davies, Director of the Centre for Metropolitan History at the Institute of Historical Research, I co-directed a three-year research project entitled "People in Place: families, households and housing in early modern London". This project was established with a grant of over £300,000 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and ran from 2003 to 2006, employing three researchers. You can read a brief account of the project and its findings at http://www.history.ac.uk/pip. Subsequently, the same group obtained funding of nearly £200,000 from The Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine for a successor project (2006-8), entitled “Housing Environments and health in London, 1550-1750”, drawing on the skills and resources developed by “People in Place’ to explore the relationship of environment and health in early modern London. I am also Co-Investigator on another AHRC-funded project to transcribe, edit and comment on the Hearth Tax returns for London in the 1660s, beginning in 2007.
I also write more widely on the history of medieval and early modern London, and am currently completing A short history of early modern London for publication by Cambridge University Press. I am interested in the archival and documentary sources for writing the history of London, and was one of the editors of the London Record Society from 1983 to 2006. I co-chair the research seminar on 'Medieval and Tudor London' at the Institute of Historical Research.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and, from 2006 to 2010, Honorary Secretary of the Society.
I currently teach part of the Group 1 undergraduate survey course, 'British and European History 1250-1500', a Group 2 course on 'The English Family, 1350-1720' and a documents-based Group 3 course, 'Later Medieval London, 1450-1560: community, politics, and religion'.
At MA level, I am course director of the MA in London Studies, and teach on the core course, 'Metropolitan Histories', and offer options on 'Early Modern London, society and culture' and 'Death, disease, and the early modern city'.
With Derek Keene: A Survey of documentary sources for the history of London before the Great Fire (London Record Society 22, 1985)
'The population of London, 1550-1700: a review of the published evidence', London Journal 15 (1990)
'Medieval London' in The Times London History Atlas, ed. Hugh Clout (1991)
'Burial on the margin: distance and discrimination in the early modern city', in M.Cox (ed.), Grave Concerns: death and burial in England, 1700-1850 (York: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 113, 1998)
'From compact city to complex metropolis: records for the history of London, 1500-1720', in M.V.Roberts (ed.), Archives and the metropolis (London: Corporation of London, 1998)
'Reformation and culture in England, Wales and Scotland, 1540-1700', in P. Clark (ed.) Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. 2 (2000)
'City, Capital and Metropolis: the Changing Shape of Seventeenth Century London', in J.F.Merritt (ed.), Imagining Early Modern London: Perceptions and Portrayals of the City from Stow to Strype, 1598-1720 (2001)
'Real Estate: Space, Property and Propriety in Urban England', Journal of Interdisciplinary History (32.4, Spring 2002)
The dead and the living in London and Paris, 1500-1670 (Cambridge, 2002)
'Recent perspectives on early modern London', Historical Journal, 47.2 (2004), pp. 1-16
'Shops, markets and retailers in London's Cheapside, c. 1500-1700', in Buyers, sellers and salesmanship in medieval and early modern Europe, ed. B. Blondé, P. Stabel, J. Stobart and I. Van Damme (Brepols, Turnhout, 2006)
My recent and current research students are working on aspects of later medieval and early modern London (up to the early eighteenth century), and on the social history of death. I also welcome applications from students who wish to work on topics in urban history and social and economic history in a wider geographical framework within that period.
Email: v.harding@bbk.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7631 6284
Room: 362 (Malet Street)