Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Research Fellows

Hannah Newton

Hannah Newton

Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow
College Post-Doctoral Researcher at St John's College, Cambridge

Email: hn268@cam.ac.uk

I am a social historian of early modern England, specialising in the experiences of illness, childhood, and the emotions. I joined the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in 2011, as a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow. My postdoctoral project is about recovery and convalescence from illness in early modern England, c.1580–1720. This project developed out of my doctoral studies, which I undertook at the University of Exeter in 2006–2009/10, on the subject of 'the sick child in early modern England'. A revised version of this thesis has recently been published by Oxford University Press.

Postdoctoral Project (2011–2014)

'Better by Degrees': Recovery from Illness in Early Modern England, 1580–1720

This project is about recovery from illness in England between approximately 1580 and 1720. There are four main aims: firstly, to ask how doctors and laypeople defined, understood, and explained the process of recovery. Secondly, to explore the care, management, and treatment of the recovering patient. The third aim is to unveil the experience of recovery from the patient's viewpoint, taking an emotional, spiritual, social, and physical perspective. Fourthly, the project investigates the experience of the patient's family and friends – how did they respond emotionally to the recovery of a loved one? Drawing on a wide variety of manuscript and printed sources, the project sheds light on a range of historical issues, such as concepts of the body, emotions, and cure, and the links between religion and medicine in the early modern period.

Publications

Hannah Newton, 'The Sick Child in Early Modern England'

Books

Articles

  • 'Children's Physic: Medical Perceptions and Treatment of Sick Children in Early Modern England, c. 1580–1720', Social History of Medicine, 23 (2010), 456–74
  • '"Not a Sadder Creature in the World": Parent's Grief in Seventeenth-Century England', BBC History Magazine, 11 (2010), 62–65
  • '"Very Sore Nights & Days": The Child's Experience of Illness in Early Modern England, c. 1580–1720', Medical History, 55 (2011), 153–182
  • [In preparation] '"Loving in their Lives": Sibling Relationships in Early Modern England', Journal for the History of Childhood and Youth (the Journal has invited a submission)

Book Reviews

  • [in press 2012–13] Miller, Naomi, and Yavneh, Naomi, Gender and Early Modern Constructions of Childhood (2011), reviewed in Women's History Review
  • [in press 2012–13] Stolberg, Michael, Experiencing Illness and the Sick Body in Early Modern Europe, translated by Leonhard Unglaub and Logan Kennedy (2011), reviewed in Social History of Medicine
  • [in press 2012–13] Withey, Alun, Physick and the Family: Health, Medicine and Care in Wales, 1600–1750 (2011), reviewed in Social History
  • Curth, Louise Hill, The Care of Brute Beasts: A Social and Cultural Study of Veterinary Medicine in Early Modern Medicine (2010), reviewed in Social History of Medicine, 24 (2011), 515–16
  • Dijkhuizen, Jan Frans van, and Karl A.E. Enenkel (eds), The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture (2008), reviewed in Medical History, 54 (2010), 279–80
  • Mortimer, Ian, The Dying and the Doctors: The Medical Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England (2009), reviewed in Local Population Studies, 84 (2010), 116–17
  • Poole, Rosemary, 'A Truly Happy and Affectionate Family': Life Among the Denmans, Crofts and Baillies 1733–1847 (2008), reviewed in Medical History, 55 (2011), 262–63
  • Woods, Robert, Children Remembered: Responses to Untimely Death in the Past (2006), reviewed in Medical History, 53 (2009), 324–25
  • Crawford, Patricia, Parents of Poor Children in England, 1580–1800 (2010), reviewed in Women's History Review (advance access November 2011)
  • Peterson, Kaara L., Popular Medicine, Hysterical Disease, and Social Controversy in Shakespeare's England (2010), reviewed in Social History of Medicine (advance access August 2011)

Public Engagement

  • [forthcoming] 16 July 2012: New Forest Mothers' Union, Brockenhurst: '"With Great Care & Pains": Caring for the Sick Child in Early Modern England'
  • 'A Spoonful of Sugar or a Bitter Blocker?', University of Cambridge Research Discussion
  • Article in the BBC History Magazine: '"Not a Sadder Creature in the World": Parent's Grief in Seventeenth-Century England', 11 (2010), 62–65
  • Podcast interview for the BBC History Magazine: 'The Sick Child in Early Modern England', October 2010
  • Presentation to the paediatrics department of the Royal United Hospital, Bath: 'Miniature Patients? Children's Medicine in Early Modern England, c.1580–1720' (16 December 2010)

Conference and Seminar Papers

Date; conference title and institution; title of paper

  • 1 February 2012: Interdisciplinary Early Modern Seminar at the University of Cambridge: '"Cur'd in a Different Manner": Children's Medicine in Early Modern England, c.1580–1720'
  • 1 November 2011: Early Medicine Seminar at the University of Cambridge: '"Nott a Sadder Creature in the World": Parental Grief in Early Modern England, 1580–1720'
  • 5–16 September 2011: 'Sick of Being Sick': Medical History Workshop for Postgraduates, at the University of Oxford: Question and Answer Panel about postdoctoral research and book contracts
  • 2–3 July 2011: 'The Language of Illness and Pain', Birkbeck College, London: '"On the rack": The Child's Experience of Pain in Early Modern England, c.1580–1720'
  • 29 June–1 July 2011: Anglo-American Conference, London: 'The Sick Child Recovered: The Recovery of Children from Illness in Early Modern England'
  • 28 April–1 May 2011: American Association for the History of Medicine Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 'Tender Humours: Treating the Sick Child in Early Modern England, c. 1580–1720'
  • 14 March 2011: Guest Lecture at the Centre for Medical History, UCL, to MA students: 'The Experience of Childhood Death in Early Modern England'
  • 3 March 2011: History of Medicine Unit Seminar Series at Birmingham University: '"Tender Humours": Children's Medicine in Early Modern England, c.1580–1720'
  • 9–10 September 2010: 'In Sickness and in Health: Postgraduate Medical History Workshop', at the University of Exeter: '"Greedily suckt up": The Child's Experience of Medicine in Early Modern England, c.1580–1720'
  • 23–24 August 2010: '"The Burthen of the Mortal Body": Life, Death, Sickness and Health in the Early Modern Period', at the University of Exeter: '"Poore I poore I": The Child's Emotional and Spiritual Response to Pain and Sickness in Early Modern England'
  • 15–17 July 2010: Future of Medical History, Wellcome Trust Centre for Medical History, at UCL: '"Cruelly Afflicted": The Challenge of Accessing Children's Experiences of Illness in Early Modern England'
  • 26 November 2009: Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter: 'Children's Physic: Medical Perceptions and Treatment of Sick Children in Early Modern England'
  • 29 September 2009: Women's Studies Group Seminar Series at Stuart House in London: '"Nott a sadder creature in the world": Mothers' and Fathers' Emotional Responses to their Children's Deaths in England, 1580–1720'
  • 8 July 2009: Early Modern Studies Conference at Reading University: '"Exceedingly rapt up in joy": Children's Emotional Responses to Death in England, 1580–1720'
  • 25–26 June 2009: History Lab (postgraduate wing of the IHR), 'Places and Spaces Conference': 'Eternal Places: Children's Emotional Responses to Death in Early Modern England'
  • 13 June 2009: Charity & Community Conference at Roehampton University: 'Sick Children's Experiences of Charitable Care in Early Modern England'
  • 26–27 May 2009: Humanities and Social Sciences Postgraduate Annual Conference at the University of Exeter: '"Exceedingly rapt up in joy": Children's Emotional Responses to Death in England, 1580–1720'
  • 28 January 2009: Work in Progress Seminar at the Wellcome Unit for Medical History, UCL: 'Just a Spoonful of Sugar: Children's Medicine in England, 1580–1720'
  • 5 July 2008: Gender, Health, and Medicine in Historical Perspective at the University of Exeter: 'Miniature Patients? Medical Perceptions of Children's Constitutions, Bodies, and Minds in England, 1580–1720'
  • 6 June 2008: Medical History Workshop at the University of Exeter: 'The Sick Child in Early Modern England, 1580–1720'
  • 31 January 2008: The Institute of Historical Research Postgraduate Seminar in Senate House, London: 'Tending the Tender: Caring for the Sick Child in England, 1580–1720'
  • 21 January 2008: The Wellcome Unit Seminar Series at the University of Oxford: 'Tending the Tender: Caring for the Sick Child in England, 1580–1720'
  • 14 November 2007: The Early Modern Seminar Series at the University of Exeter: 'Tending the Tender: Caring for the Sick Child in England, 1580–1720'
  • 2 October 2007: The Rural Medicine Seminar Series at Oxford Brookes University: 'Tending the Tender: Caring for the Sick Child in England, 1580–1720'
  • 4 January 2007: The British Society for the History of Science Postgraduate Conference, at the University of Durham: 'The Emotional Responses of Children and their Parents to Illness in Early Modern England'

Teaching

I delivered the following modules at the Universities of Exeter and Bath Spa:

  • 'Gender and Society in Eighteenth-Century England' (2010–11)
  • 'Tudor and Stuart England: A Social History' (2009–10)
  • 'Marriage and Family in England, 1500-1800' (2009)
  • 'History Foundation Course' (2006–2008)

I am currently supervising Part II, Paper 2 (Early Medicine) for the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

I would be happy to supervise topics relating to the medical, social, or cultural history of early modern England.