Joan Thirsk

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Irene Joan Thirsk CBE (born June 19, 1922 in London as Irene Joan Watkins , † October 3, 2013 ) was a British historian . Her research focus was on agricultural history .

Life

Irene Joan Thirsk was born in north London in 1922 to William Watkins and his wife Daisy (née Frayer). There she grew up and attended the Camden School for Girls . She studied modern languages at Westfield College of the University of London , evacuated at this time to Oxford. Because of her knowledge of the German language , she worked in Bletchley Park from 1942 to 1945 . Here she met her future husband, the librarian Jimmy Thirsk. After the Second World War she decided to study history. She did her PhD with RH Tawney at the London School of Economics . In 1951 she became a Research Fellow in the Department of English Local History at the University of Leicester and did research on the local history of the county of Lincolnshire , as well as on agricultural history. In 1965 she replaced William George Hoskins as a reader at the University of Oxford . There she continued her academic career until her retirement in 1983.

In 1967 she published volume 4 of the book series The Agrarian History of England and Wales , which covered the period from 1500 to 1640. She later became the main editor of the book series, which was completed under her leadership in 2001. Between 1974 and 1975 she gave the Ford Lectures . The lectures she gave in this context formed the basis of the book Economic Policy and Projects published in 1978 .

Thirsk wrote regularly in the Agricultural History Review of the British Agricultural History Society and was its editor from 1964 to 1972. In 1974 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy . Since 1982 she was a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1994 she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire . She was also awarded eight honorary doctorates .

Thirsk was married and had two children, a son and a daughter.

Publications (selection)

  • English Peasant Farming (1957)
  • The Agrarian History of England and Wales , Volume 4 (1967)
  • with JP Cooper (Ed.): Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents (1972)
  • Economic Policy and Projects (1978)
  • Alternative Agriculture (1997)
  • Rural Economy of England (2003)
  • Food in Early Modern England (2007)
  • (Ed.): Hadlow: Life, Land and People in a Wealden Parish 1460-1600 (2007)

literature

  • RC Richardson: Joan Thirsk (obituary) . In: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society . tape 159 , no. 3 , 2015, p. 343-348 .
  • Christopher Dyer, Paul Slack: Irene Joan Thirsk, 1922–2013 . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy . tape XIV , 2015, p. 573-596 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Joan Thirsk. American Philosophical Society, accessed November 20, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Thirsk, Joan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thirsk, Irene Joan (full name); Watkins Irene Joan (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 3rd October 2013