Richard M. Smith

Richard Michael Smith (born January 3, 1946 ) is an English historical geographer.

Life

After completing his undergraduate studies at University College London , he received his PhD from St Catharine's College (Cambridge) . After a year as a speaker for population studies at Plymouth Polytechnic University , he took a lectureship in historical geography at the University of Cambridge from 1974 to 1976 . He then moved to the Cambridge Group for Population and Social History and was its deputy director. From 1981 to 1983 he was a member of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge for two years, but left it in 1983 to begin a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. During his time at All Souls, he was initially a lecturer in population history at the University of Oxford. From 2003 to 2011 he was Professor of Historical Geography and Demography and from 2007 to 2010 Head of the Geography Department at Cambridge.

His research focuses on the history of marriage, mainly in medieval Europe, peasant inheritance practices and common law, welfare practices and their demographic correlates in medieval and early modern England and in urban historical epidemiology.

Fonts (selection)

• Bastardy and its comparative history. Studies in the history of illegitimacy and marital nonconformism in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, North America, Jamaica and Japan . Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 0-7131-6229-5 .
• Land, kinship, and life-cycle . Cambridge 1984, ISBN 0-521-26611-4 .
• The world we have gained. Histories of population and social structure. Essays presented to Peter Laslett on his 70th birthday . Oxford 1986, ISBN 0-631-13871-4 .
• Life, death and the elderly. Historical perspectives . London 1991, ISBN 0-415-05742-6 .

Web links

• Richard M. Smith BA, MA, PhD, FBA