Prof Brodie Waddell - Birkbeck, University of London

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 Birkbeck and beyond.

Highlights

Principal Investigator on 'The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth-Century England' (2019-21), with Jason Peacey of UCL (Co-I) and Sharon Howard of Birkbeck (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 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, Medieval and Early Modern Worlds

Research projects

The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth-Century England.

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.

Poverty, Taxation and Regulation: Petitions to Local magistrates in Eighteenth-Century England.

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

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

Article

Waddell, Brodie (2026) Petitions, Puritans, and the Civil War. History Today 76 (9), pp. 76-85. ISSN 0018-2753.
Waddell, Brodie (2024) The popular politics of local petitioning in early modern England. Journal of British Studies ISSN 0021-9371.
Hitchcock, D. and Waddell, Brodie (2024) Riches and poverty in English Protestant culture, c.1550–1800: vernacularising the Parable of Dives and Lazarus. English Historical Review ISSN 0013-8266.
Hailwood, M. and Waddell, Brodie (2023) Work and identity in Early Modern England. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society ISSN 0080-4401.
Waddell, Brodie (2022) The economic crisis of the 1690s in England. Historical Journal ISSN 0018-246X.
Waddell, Brodie (2021) The rise of the parish welfare state in England, c.1600-1800. Past & Present 253 (1), pp. 151-194. ISSN 0031-2746.
Waddell, Brodie (2021) The evil May Day Riot of 1517 and the popular politics of anti-immigrant hostility in early modern London. Historical Research 94 (266), pp. 716-735. ISSN 0950-3471.
Waddell, Brodie (2020) "Verses of My Owne Making": literacy, work and social identity in Early Modern England. Journal of Social History 54 (1), pp. 161-184. ISSN 0022-4529.
Waddell, Brodie (2018) Writing history from below: chronicling and record-keeping in Early Modern England. History Workshop Journal 85 (1), pp. 239-264. ISSN 1363-3554.
Waddell, Brodie (2015) The politics of economic distress in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, 1689-1702. English Historical Review 130 (543), pp. 318-351. ISSN 0013-8266.
Waddell, Brodie (2012) Governing England through the Manor Courts, c.1550-1850. Historical Journal 55 (2), pp. 279-315. ISSN 0018-246X.
Waddell, Brodie (2008) Economic immorality and social reformation in English popular preaching, 1585-1625. 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) 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 Peacey, J., eds. (2024) The power of petitioning in early modern Britain. London, UK: UCL Press. ISBN 9781800085503.
Waddell, Brodie (2012) God, duty and community in English economic life, 1660-1720. Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 9781843837794.
Waddell, Brodie (2011) Landscape and society in the Vale of York, c.1500-1800. 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) Introduction: Petitions and petitioning in historical perspective. 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) Transitions and continuities in petitioning in early modern England. 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) Introduction: power, processes and patterns in early modern petitioning. 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) Shaping the state from below: the rise of local petitioning in early modern England. 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) Economic life. 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) Neighbours and strangers: the locality in later Stuart economic culture. In: Williamson, F. (ed.) Locating Agency: Space, Power and Popular Politics. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 103-132. ISBN 9781443814485.

Business and community

Outreach

Academic leader, 'Investigating the Lives of Seventeenth-Century Petitioners', U3A Shared Learning Project, 2019-20