Dr Mabel Winter
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
AHRC Research Associate
- Profile
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I am Research Associate on the AHRC-funded project ‘The Politics of the English Grain Trade, 1314-1815'. In 2021, I was a research associate on the AHRC-funded project ‘The Cultural Lives of the Middling Sort: writing and material culture, 1560-1600’.
I previously completed my PhD at the University of Sheffield, which has recently been published as a monograph with Palgrave Macmillan entitled Banking, Projecting and Politicking in Early Modern England: The Rise and Fall of Thompson and Company, 1671-1678.
- Qualifications
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- PhD History, University of Sheffield, 2016 - 2021
- MA Historical Research, University of Sheffield, 2016
- BA (Hons) History (First Class), University of Sheffield, 2015
- Research interests
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Broadly speaking, I work on the social, economic, and cultural history of early modern England. My doctoral work focussed on the relationship between commerce, politics, and economics through the lens of a late-seventeenth-century financial institution. My thesis and monograph take a microhistorical approach, examining the institution of Thompson and Company, the social networks of its partners, the identity of its creditors, and the events and circumstances that led to its collapse. It situates the reconstructed institution within the wider commercial, financial, and political contexts of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, using the evidence accrued to question the traditional narrative of financial and commercial development, credit systems, the relationship between economics, finance, commerce and politics, and the place of risk and strategy in gendered relations, credit, and social status.
A subsequent project taken up in conjunction with the ‘Middling Culture’ project, which examines the relationship between the urban ‘middling’ sort and public services in provincial England in the period 1540 to 1640, through a case study of water provision in three urban centres. I am interested in the commodification of resources, technological development, notions of skill and ‘expertise’, and the financing and management of urban infrastructure projects.
These same research interests are reflected in my work on ‘The Politics of the English Grain Trade’, in which I am investigating the legal and social history of the grain trade, its technological development, and its cultural associations.
- Publications
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Books
- Banking, Projecting and Politicking in Early Modern England. Springer International Publishing.
Journal articles
- The collapse of Thompson and Company: credit, reputation, and risk in early modern England. Social History, 45(2), 145-166.
- Public services and the urban middling sort: the provision of water in Bristol, Chester and Ipswich, 1540–1640. Urban History, 1-19.
- Banking, Projecting and Politicking in Early Modern England. Springer International Publishing.
- Grants
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Awards:
- PhD scholarship: AHRC White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities
- Teaching activities
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University of Sheffield Teaching Assistant:
- HST112 Paths from Antiquity to Modernity
- HST115 The 'Disenchantment' of Early Modern Europe, c. 1570-1770
- HST247 A Protestant Nation? Politics, religion and culture in England 1558-1640
- Publications and conferences
Conference and seminar papers:
- ‘Institutional trust in an era of interpersonal credit? The evidence from Thompson and Company’, Bookkeeping, intermediation and financial organizations in early modern Europe, Uppsala University, Sweden (5-6 December 2019)
- ‘The Collapse of the Bank of Thompson & Company: Finance, banking, and politics in seventeenth century London’, Social History Society Conference at the University of Lincoln (10-12 June 2019)
- ‘‘The great Player and Thompson, &c., find by demonstration they are not so powerful as they made themselves’: Politics, power, and economics in seventeenth-century England’, Society for Renaissance Studies Conference at the University of Sheffield (3-5 July 2018)
- ‘“Marvell’s Friends in the City” revisited: The Bank of Woollchurch Market, clandestine politics, and early Whig movements’, South-Central Renaissance Conference, Exploring the Renaissance, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA (12-14 April 2018)
- ‘The Bank at Woollchurch Market and England’s ‘Financial Revolution’’, Economic History Society Annual Conference at Keele University (6-8 April 2018)
- ‘Politics, Commerce, and Banking in Seventeenth-century England: The Case of Thompson & Company 1670-1677’, Connections in Commerce and Consumption at the University of Sheffield (15-16 September 2017)
- ‘The Case of Thompson & Company: commerce, banking, and politics in the late seventeenth century’, CHORD Conference, Retailing and Distribution in the Seventeenth Century, at the University of Wolverhampton (7 September 2017)
- Friendship: ancient ideals in the early modern world, York Cabinet of Curiosities Conference (15th October 2015)