Anne Laurence’s Statement as candidate for the Presidency of the Economic History Society
The Society as a whole faces important challenges and the president necessarily plays a significant role in
negotiations over
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Open access. Although the arrangements are more or less set, the consequences for researchers
and for the future of the Review are still uncertain. The Society needs to be assured that the Review
will remain a world-leading publication in economic and social history and that it produces enough
income to support the Society’s activities. This will influence the next round of negotiations with
Wiley. The future of the monograph may also come under further scrutiny and the Society needs to
maintain its commitment to the three current series it sponsors or co-sponsors.
REF 2020. The Society played a role in the last REF to ensure that there was sufficient expertise on
the History panel in economic and social history and that the Economics panel had a historian
member. The next panel will be recruited during the term of office of the incoming president and
the Society should make a comparable contribution to the preparations. The Society is a very
important channel of communication between HEFCE and members who will be involved in their
own institutions’ preparations to enable researchers better to understand the process, especially in
regard to impact. Co-operation with other learned societies is an important element in this.
It is probable that public funding for research will diminish. The Society has for many years met the
ESRC and AHRC to discuss the funding of research in economic and social history. These meetings
are now larger and involve more learned societies. This is an important part of the Society’s service
to members.
The new government is also unlikely to do much for university funding. The Society has played an
increasingly important role in providing opportunities for new researchers both in the form of
prizes and in the annually-awarded post-doctoral fellowships.
The recent Royal Historical Society survey of historians has revealed that only 20 per cent of
professors of History are women; in Economics it is only 11 per cent. The work that the Women’s
Committee is doing for younger researchers is excellent, but there is more to be done to help
women make progress later in their careers: the gender balance of recruitment to the profession
(at least in History departments) is now much more equal, but women are still under-represented
in promotions.
In the light of the uncertainty about the Society’s future income, the Society should husband its
resources but ensure that it continues to meet its charitable aims.
These British concerns should not detract from the fact that the Society (as evidenced by contributions to
the Review and to the annual conference) is becoming increasingly international, to everyone’s benefit.
If elected president I would like to explore:
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Making closer contacts with the Irish and Scottish societies for economic and social history. We
have many common interests, especially in relation to archives. Different funding regimes and the
possible effects of further devolution in Scotland will have an effect upon the ways in which the
resources upon which we all rely are made available. I would like to propose holding a symposium
of historians from the four nations, especially those representing the Economic and Social History
Society of Scotland and the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland, to explore matters of
common interest both of subject matter and of institutional support.
The Society has an excellent record in supporting new researchers with prizes, fellowships and
occasional grants. We should explore the possibility of a mid-career fellowship. A good many
universities, especially those established after 1992, do not have sabbatical schemes. It is becoming
much harder for historians, especially if they have taken on roles such as head of department,
admissions officer, graduate student officer etc, to set up a new project to the point that they can
apply for external funding. There are obviously legal complexities that would need to be sorted out
and the Society could not commit itself to a full economic costed fellowship but, rather, one on the
lines of the Leverhulme fellowships.
Finally, as a candidate for the presidency I differ in two important respects from most previous presidents:
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Only three women in the 90-year history of the Society have held the presidency.
Presidents have largely been recruited from Russell Group universities. My institution, the Open
University, was founded in 1969 and is aligned with the Robbins Universities for research but its
undergraduate teaching mission—particularly its commitment to open, part-time and distance
learning—corresponds more with the post 1992 universities. It does, however, take post-graduates
on the same basis as conventional universities and is part of the AHRC doctoral training scheme.
Service to the Economic History Society
2014-present
Chair of panel of judges for first monograph prize
2013-14
Representative of Economic History Society on Social History Society Committee
2013
Author of submission to the Office of National Statistics on the future of the census, on
behalf of the Economic History Society, The Royal Historical Society and the Social
History Society
(http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/who-ons-are/programmes-and-projects/beyond-2011/beyond2011-report-on-autumn-2013-consultation--and-recommendations/index.html)
2012, 2010, 2008 Member of panel of judges for first monograph prize
2008-14
Elected member of Council
2015, 2013, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006 Judge for conference new researchers’ sessions
2002, 2006
Organiser of Women’s Committee Workshops 2002, with Pam Sharpe on European
Families, Relationships and Money in Historical Perspective, Institute of Historical
Research, supported by a grant of £1300 from the British Academy to bring speakers
from abroad; 2006 with Katrina Honeyman on Women and Business, Leeds University
2002-8
Chair of the Women’s Committee and ex-officio member of Council and executive
1998-2001
Co-opted member of Council as representative of the Social History Society
Curriculum Vitae: Professor Anne Laurence
Career
2003-present
Professor of History, Department of History, the Open University
2008-12
Head of the Department of History (30 members of staff)
2007
Visiting professor at Department of History, Adelaide University, Australia 3 months
1993-2003
Senior lecturer in History, the Open University
1998-2001
Sub-dean curriculum development, Arts Faculty. Responsible for new curriculum
development and for relations with the BBC (with whom the faculty spent £1 million
p.a. on course-related broadcasting)
1976-1993
Lecturer in History, the Open University
1995, 1996
Month long visiting fellowships at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California
1972-5
DPhil student University of Oxford Faculty of Modern History
1971-2
Research assistant on the History of Oxford University project (and also, part-time,
1975-6)
Qualifications
1981 D.Phil (Modern History: thesis ‘Parliamentary Army Chaplains 1642-51’), University of Oxford
1971 BA (Hons) class II(i), History & Politics, University of York
Teaching
At the Open University I have written and planned distance teaching materials for students at all levels on
early modern Europe, and on 19th and 20th century Ireland. These have been in the form of written
tutorials, audio-visual and on-line materials. I have made more than 20 TV programmes either for
transmission or, nowadays, for distribution by DVD or streaming. I have developed on-line materials to
teach students how to use spreadsheets. Latterly I have been particularly concerned to teach the history of
the four nations of Britain and Ireland and to persuade students that counting and measuring are
appropriate skills for the historian and materially add to our understanding of the past. I have also chaired
the teams that develop these materials over a period of three years in preparation for using the materials
for 10 years.
I have supervised 5 PhDs, been internal examiner for 3 PhDs and external examiner for PhDs at Universities
of Warwick, Northumbria, York, Aberystwyth, Oxford, East Anglia, West of England, UCL, Melbourne
(Australia), Maynooth (Ireland).
Other relevant experience
2012-3
External REF assessor for proposed History submissions for Plymouth University,
Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of the Highlands and Islands
2012-14
Member of AHRC panels (peer review fellowships panel 2012, 2013; moderation panel
research grants 2012, 2014)
2010-present
Member of ESRC Peer Review College
2010-15
One of two academic members of the National Archives User Advisory Group (keeping
the learned societies informed of developments at the archives)
2010-present
Academic reviewer or chair of validation panels for institutions whose qualifications are
validated by the Open University (Hull College, Harrogate College, Craven College
Skipton, Somerset College of Arts and Technology, Ruskin College Oxford)
2008-11
External examiner University of York History BA
2008
Elected academician (now fellow) of the Academy of Social Sciences
2005-2014
Member of AHRC Peer Review College (and strategic reviewer 2010-present)
2005-08
Member of panel of judges for Women’s History Network first monograph prize
2005
External reviewer for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education period
review of History and Art History courses
2004-present
Member of editorial board of Women’s History Review
2004-8
External examiner Northumbria University History BA and MA
2000-6
Academic adviser for 5 BBC-Open University TV series for general transmission on BBC2
and BBC4
1996-2001
Treasurer of the Social History Society and member of the society’s committee and
executive. Chair of meeting between Economic History Society and Social History
Society with ESRC and AHRC 2000
1990
Elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society
1988-1993
One of three editors of journal Bunyan Studies
1983-91
External examiner University of East Asia
1986-9
Conference secretary British Association of Irish Studies
Peer reviewer for: Economic History Review; Women’s History Review; Gender and
History; Journal of British Studies; Journal of the History of Sexuality; Financial History
Review; Accounting, Business and Financial History; Architectural History
Reviewer of academic book proposals for Palgrave Macmillan, Boydell and Brewer,
Oxford University Press, Routledge
Assessor for chairs in History at Leeds University and Queen’s University Belfast
Relevant Publications
A. Laurence (2010), ‘Lady Betty Hastings (1682-1739): godly patron’, Women’s History Review 19 (2),
pp.201-213
A. Laurence, J. Maltby and J. Rutterford (eds.) (2009), Women and their Money 1700-1950: Essays on
Women and Finance, London: Routledge International Studies in Business History, xvii+ pp.309, joint
author of introduction with other editors and author of A. Laurence, ‘Women, banks and the securities
market in early eighteenth century England’, pp.46-58
A. Laurence (2009), ‘Using buildings to understand social history: Britain and Ireland in the seventeenth
century’ in K. Harvey (ed.), History and Material Culture, London: Routledge, pp.103-122
A. Laurence (2009), ‘Les femmes et la transmission de la propriété. L’héritage dans les îles Britanniques au
XVIIe siècle’, XVIIe Siècle 244, pp.435-50
A. Laurence (2008), ‘The emergence of a private clientèle for banks: Hoare’s Bank and some early women
customers’, Economic History Review 61(3), pp.565-86
A. Laurence (2008), ‘Real and imagined communities in the lives of women in seventeenth-century Ireland:
identity and gender’ in S. Tarbin and S. Broomhall (eds.), Women, Identities and Communities in Early
Modern Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.13-27
A. Laurence (2006), 'Women investors, 'that nasty South Sea affair' and the rage to speculate in early
eighteenth-century England', Accounting, Business and Financial History 16 (2), pp.245-264. Winner of the
Basil Yamey prize.
A. Laurence (2006), ‘Lady Betty Hastings, her half-sisters and the South Sea Bubble: family fortunes and
strategies’, Women’s History Review 15, pp.533-540
A. Laurence (2004), ‘Women in the British Isles in the sixteenth century’ in R. Tittler and N. Jones (eds.), A
Companion to Tudor Britain, Oxford: Blackwell, pp.381-399
A. Laurence (2003), ‘Women using building in seventeenth-century England: a question of sources?’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th series 13, pp.293-304
A. Laurence (2003), ‘Space, status and gender in English topographical paintings c.1660-c.1740’,
Architectural History 46, pp.81-94
J. Bellamy, A. Laurence and G. Perry (eds.) (2000), Women, Scholarship and Criticism: Gender and
Knowledge c.1790-1900, Manchester: Manchester University Press, xi+ pp.250. Co-author of introduction
and author of ‘Women historians and documentary research: Lucy Aikin, Agnes Strickland, Mary Anne
Everett Green, and Lucy Toulmin Smith’ pp.125-141
A. Laurence (1994), ‘How free were English women in the seventeenth century?’ in E. Kloek, N. Teeuwen,
M. Huisman (eds.), Women in the Golden Age: An International Debate on Women in Seventeenth Century
Holland, England and Italy, Hilversum: Veloren, pp.127-135
A. Laurence (1994), Women in England 1500-1760: a Social History, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, xvi+
pp.301. Reprinted 1996, 2002; e-book 2013
A. Laurence (1990), Parliamentary Army Chaplains 1642-51, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, Royal
Historical Society Studies in History 59, pp.199
A. Laurence (1988), ‘Cradle to the grave: English observations of Irish social customs in the seventeenth
century’, The Seventeenth Century III, pp.63-84
A. Laurence (1982), ‘Women's work in the English civil war’, History Today, pp.20-25
Research interests
Investors in the early stock market; women, land and wealth 1550-1750; women, the law and social
structures in Britain and Ireland 1550-1750; women historians c.1820-c.1914.