Heleen French
Biographic Data
| ID | 281210 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heleen French |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heleen |
| FAMILY NAME | French |
| SIGNATURE | FRENCH H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Exeter |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5101-4782 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The farce of the commons? Corporate rights, political wrongs and common-pool resources in English towns, 1835–1870
The 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act reconfigured political representation in English towns from a 'franchise' system (based on rights of corporate freedom) to a property-based ratepaying electorate. This shift also undermined the rights of freemen to urban common lands and resources, which were linked to pre-existing forms of representation. This issue links directly to debates in economic history about use-rights and the …
Revolution and continuity? Reassessing nineteenth-century moorland reclamation through palaeoecological and archival research
The upland moorlands of Britain are environmentally and culturally important ecosystems. Yet, our understanding of historical attempts to ‘reclaim’ these landscapes is often based upon incomplete accounts of agricultural ‘improvement’. Studies of historical landscape change have frequently focused on singular ‘revolutionary’ moments due to the limitation and biases of surviving historical sources, which has created a contemporary fixation on ‘rev…
The Wild West of England’
Recent research emphasises parallels between agrarian enclosure campaigns in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain and Ireland, and neo-colonial discourses. Both used the 'wasteful' under-exploitation of land by indigenous populations as moral justifications for its appropriation for capitalist agriculture. Focusing on reclamation campaigns on Exmoor, a former royal forest in south-west England, sold by the Crown in 1818, this article shows h…
Gender and Rural History
The aim of this debate article is to promote a discussion of a historiographical nature (not ideological, not political) about the meaning, place and role of gender in both the rural past and the rural historiography. The discussion revolves around a variety of questions, ranging from the relevance, the opportunity and the very history of the use of gender category in rural history, to the analysis of gender (im)balances in the community of histo…
K evin S iena . Rotten Bodies
Rotten Bodies provides a tour of some familiar historical sights, but in a new interpretative vehicle. In the last two decades, historians such as Tim Hitchcock, Robert Shoemaker, Jeremy Boulton, and Alysa Levene have delved into the lived experiences of urban and metropolitan poverty and indigence. Others such as Michael Ignatieff, John Beattie, or Simon Devereaux have considered the causes and consequences of the rapid construction of new priso…
Bastardy in Butleigh
Early academic histories of non-marital motherhood often focused on the minority of mothers who had several illegitimate children. Peter Laslett coined the phrase ‘the bastardy prone sub-society’ to describe them. More recent qualitative research has questioned the gendered perspectives underlying this label, and emphasised the complex, highly personal processes behind illegitimacy. By locating the social experience of illegitimacy, particularly …
The 'remembered family' and dynastic senses of identity among the English gentry c .1600-1800
This article examines the gentry's understanding of lineage and ancestry in England in the period c.1600–1800. This period has been described as one of intense elite interest in genealogy and ancestry, spurred by social mobility into the gentry and accompanying impulses towards integration and differentiation. However, this article focuses on informal memoirs and family histories to argue that the much more truncated ‘remembered family’ (the line…
Male Anxiety Among Younger Sons of the English Landed Gentry, 1700–1900
Younger sons of the gentry occupied a precarious and unstable position in society. They were born into wealthy and privileged families yet, within the system of primogeniture, were required to make their own way in the world. As elite men, their status rested on independence and patriarchal authority, attaining anything less could be deemed a failure. This article explores the way that these pressures on younger sons emerged, at a crucial point i…
The First Century of Welfare
Detailed case-studies of poverty and poor relief outside towns are rare for seventeenth-century England. Detailed seventeenth-century case-studies of social history north of the Trent are rarer still. Consequently, Jonathan Healey’s research on poor-relief systems in Lancashire is doubly welcome, and represents a substantial contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between regional economic and social systems, and relief legi…
West Country Households 1500–1700
"West Country Households 1500–1700." International Journal of Regional and Local History, 11(1), pp. 56–57
The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400–1600, by Spencer Dimmock
Beneath its relatively innocuous title, this book conceals an impassioned defence of the theories of Robert Brenner about the origins of agrarian capitalism between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. Spencer Dimmock is the truest of true believers in Brenner’s interpretation, and the first two-thirds of the book are taken up with a detailed recapitulation and extension of Brenner’s work. The final third applies Dimmock’s version of Brenner…
HIV stigma and disclosure experiences of people living with HIV in an urban and a rural setting
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains a highly stigmatised condition for people living with HIV (PLWH) and people living close to them (PLC) globally. The research objectives for this study were to explore and describe how HIV stigma and disclosure experiences impact the lives of PLWH and to explore whether there are differences between experiences in urban and rural settings. A qualitative approach was followed and participants were selecte…
How dependent were the ‘dependent poor’? Poor relief and the life-course in Terling, Essex, 1762–1834
Despite the volume of research on the Old Poor Law, only in the last two decades have detailed local studies begun to assess the impact of relief payments across the life-courses of individuals. Their conclusions have been mixed. While many have found that the rural labouring poor of southern England were increasingly frequent recipients of poor relief after the 1780s, recent studies have indicated that ‘dependence’ on relief was generally interm…
The Memory of the People
Journal Article The Memory of the People: Custom and Popular Senses of the Past in Early Modern England, by Andy Wood Get access The Memory of the People: Custom and Popular Senses of the Past in Early Modern England, by Andy Wood(Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2013; pp. 396. £19.99). Henry French Henry French University of Exeter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 130, Issue…
An irrevocable shift
Nearly every conceivable aspect of the old poor law in England appears to have been studied. Yet some fundamental questions about parish-level provisioning remain hard to answer. These include the amount that people received from the parish, from all sources, each week; how the balance between types of payments shifted over the period, and (correspondingly) within the individual life-course; the range of services or supplements that such individu…
Gender, War and Politics
Experiences of people living with HIV and people living close to them of a comprehensive HIV stigma reduction community intervention in an urban and a rural setting
HIV stigma remains high globally. Although there is a selection of HIV stigma reduction interventions discussed in the literature, there is a paucity of research about the effectiveness of these interventions. This study aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the experiences of people living with HIV (PLWH) and people living close to them from six designated groups during and after having undergone a comprehensive HIV stigma reduction communi…
Peopling polite landscapes
Poltimore House, near Exeter, Devon, was the seat of the Bampfylde family from the mid-sixteenth century until the 1920s. The AHRC-funded knowledge transfer project 'Community and Landscape: Transforming Access to the Heritage of the Poltimore Estate' researched the changing relationship between house and setting through a public heritage initiative that promoted the co-creation of knowledge with local groups. Research techniques included analysi…
Joanne Bailey. Parenting in England, 1760-1830
Journal Article Joanne Bailey. Parenting in England, 1760–1830: Emotion, Identity, and Generation. Get access Joanne Bailey. Parenting in England, 1760–1830: Emotion, Identity, and Generation.New York: Oxford University Press. 2012. Pp. xiii, 277. $125.00. H. R. French H. R. French University of Exeter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 118, Issue 3, June 2013, Pages 928…
The Politics of Provisions. Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, c. 1550-1850
John Bohstedt, The Politics of Provisions. Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England,c. 1550–1850 (2010), xi + 312 (Ashgate, Farnham, £65.00/$119.95). This volume draws together m...
Man's EstateLanded Gentry Masculinities, 1660-1900
One of the first in-depth studies of masculinity within a particular social group - the landed gentry - over a time span of several hundred years *Provides a new conception of the process of change in gender identities over time *Covers a time period that spans existing divides between eighteenth and nineteenth-century studies *Moves away from a reliance on printed literature, and focuses in detail on gentry correspondence *Concentrates on subjec…
Warwickshire hearth tax returns
Lost Londons
Law, politics, and society in early modern England – By Christopher W. Brooks
How Bedfordshire Voted, 1685–1735
The Search for the ‘Middle Sort of People’ in England, 1600–1800
The ‘middle sort of people’ is a social group that has been the subject of increased historical research in the last decade. Many studies have been written, and many definitions offered of the group, its identity, and its membership. As a result, these overlapping groups and contrasting methods of definition have caused the nature and identity of the group to remain elusive. This study charts the evolution of the historiography of the ‘middle sor…
Upon your entry into the world’
Compared with studies of earlier and later centuries, discussion of masculinity in the ‘long’ eighteenth century has often concentrated on typifying discourses abstracted from conduct literature, or by reference to gender values expressed in prosecutions and publications relating to ‘deviant’ sexualities. Less attention has been given to identifying private understandings of masculine norms embedded in family correspondence. This study identifies…
An irrevocable shift
Nearly every conceivable aspect of the old poor law in England appears to have been studied. Yet some fundamental questions about parish-level provisioning remain hard to answer. These include the amount that people received from the parish, from all sources, each week; how the balance between types of payments shifted over the period, and (correspondingly) within the individual life-course; the range of services or supplements that such individu…
English individualism refuted-and reasserted
Earls Colne first came to the notice of historians through Macfarlane's study of its seventeenth-century vicar, Ralph Josselin, and then Macfarlane's use of evidence from the village in his The origins of English individualism (1978). This article presents preliminary results drawn from a computer-based reconstruction of the copyhold land market, 1546-1750, to contest Macfarlane's reading of the family-land bond in the manor. The familial possess…
Ingenious & learned gentlemen' social perceptions and self-fashioning among parish elites in Essex, 1680-1740
Alan Everitt's well-known characterization of parish elites as the 'pseudo'-gentry has precluded further study of their social aspirations and identity. Recent research has emphasized the varied nature of literary definitions of gentility, but has not examined their relationship to social practice. This study focuses ona network of parish rulers and vestrymen in rural Essex, and their social and intellectual self-fashioning through the pursuit of…
The land market of a Pennine manor
The quantitative study of English land markets in the three centuries after the close of the middle ages is still in its infancy. The medievalists, exploiting the conveyances of customary tenants recorded in manorial court rolls, have shown how issues such as the devolution of land within families, the frequency with which land was sold and the behaviour of the land market at moments of demographic or economic stress can be addressed by the analy…
Male Anxiety Among Younger Sons of the English Landed Gentry, 1700–1900
Younger sons of the gentry occupied a precarious and unstable position in society. They were born into wealthy and privileged families yet, within the system of primogeniture, were required to make their own way in the world. As elite men, their status rested on independence and patriarchal authority, attaining anything less could be deemed a failure. This article explores the way that these pressures on younger sons emerged, at a crucial point i…
Social Status, Localism and the 'Middle Sort of People' in England 620-1750
Journal Article SOCIAL STATUS, LOCALISM AND THE 'MIDDLE SORT OF PEOPLE' IN ENGLAND 1620–1750 Get access H. R. French H. R. French University of Central Lancashire Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 166, Issue 1, February 2000, Pages 66–99, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/166.1.66 Published: 01 February 2000
The farce of the commons? Corporate rights, political wrongs and common-pool resources in English towns, 1835–1870
The 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act reconfigured political representation in English towns from a 'franchise' system (based on rights of corporate freedom) to a property-based ratepaying electorate. This shift also undermined the rights of freemen to urban common lands and resources, which were linked to pre-existing forms of representation. This issue links directly to debates in economic history about use-rights and the …
Experiences of people living with HIV and people living close to them of a comprehensive HIV stigma reduction community intervention in an urban and a rural setting
HIV stigma remains high globally. Although there is a selection of HIV stigma reduction interventions discussed in the literature, there is a paucity of research about the effectiveness of these interventions. This study aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the experiences of people living with HIV (PLWH) and people living close to them from six designated groups during and after having undergone a comprehensive HIV stigma reduction communi…
The land market of a Pennine manor
The quantitative study of English land markets in the three centuries after the close of the middle ages is still in its infancy. The medievalists, exploiting the conveyances of customary tenants recorded in manorial court rolls, have shown how issues such as the devolution of land within families, the frequency with which land was sold and the behaviour of the land market at moments of demographic or economic stress can be addressed by the analy…
Ingenious & learned gentlemen' social perceptions and self-fashioning among parish elites in Essex, 1680-1740
Alan Everitt's well-known characterization of parish elites as the 'pseudo'-gentry has precluded further study of their social aspirations and identity. Recent research has emphasized the varied nature of literary definitions of gentility, but has not examined their relationship to social practice. This study focuses ona network of parish rulers and vestrymen in rural Essex, and their social and intellectual self-fashioning through the pursuit of…
The Search for the ‘Middle Sort of People’ in England, 1600–1800
The ‘middle sort of people’ is a social group that has been the subject of increased historical research in the last decade. Many studies have been written, and many definitions offered of the group, its identity, and its membership. As a result, these overlapping groups and contrasting methods of definition have caused the nature and identity of the group to remain elusive. This study charts the evolution of the historiography of the ‘middle sor…
Social Status, Localism and the 'Middle Sort of People' in England 620-1750
Journal Article SOCIAL STATUS, LOCALISM AND THE 'MIDDLE SORT OF PEOPLE' IN ENGLAND 1620–1750 Get access H. R. French H. R. French University of Central Lancashire Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 166, Issue 1, February 2000, Pages 66–99, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/166.1.66 Published: 01 February 2000
English individualism refuted-and reasserted
Earls Colne first came to the notice of historians through Macfarlane's study of its seventeenth-century vicar, Ralph Josselin, and then Macfarlane's use of evidence from the village in his The origins of English individualism (1978). This article presents preliminary results drawn from a computer-based reconstruction of the copyhold land market, 1546-1750, to contest Macfarlane's reading of the family-land bond in the manor. The familial possess…
Forests and Chases of England and Wales c.1500?c.1850
The Middle Sort of People in Provincial England, 1600-1750
This title will appeal to scholars and students of early modern social and economic history in England.
The Business of Women
The Culture of Commerce in England 1660–1720 ‐ By Natasha Glaisyer
Trade and Economic Developments, 1450–1550
Upon your entry into the world’
Compared with studies of earlier and later centuries, discussion of masculinity in the ‘long’ eighteenth century has often concentrated on typifying discourses abstracted from conduct literature, or by reference to gender values expressed in prosecutions and publications relating to ‘deviant’ sexualities. Less attention has been given to identifying private understandings of masculine norms embedded in family correspondence. This study identifies…
How Bedfordshire Voted, 1685–1735
How Bedfordshire Voted, 1685–1735: The Evidence of Local Poll Books. Volume 1 1685–1715 . By J. Collett-White . Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 85. Boydell & Brewer . 2006 . xxvii + 287 pp. £25.00 . Printed and manuscript poll books survive in some profusion, mainly for ‘county’ elections, and particularly for the frequent contests that marked the ‘first age of party’ between 1689 and 1715. While a number of these listings of votes and vot…
How Bedfordshire Voted, 1685–1735
Law, politics, and society in early modern England – By Christopher W. Brooks
Warwickshire hearth tax returns
Lost Londons
The Politics of Provisions. Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, c. 1550-1850
John Bohstedt, The Politics of Provisions. Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England,c. 1550–1850 (2010), xi + 312 (Ashgate, Farnham, £65.00/$119.95). This volume draws together m...
Man's EstateLanded Gentry Masculinities, 1660-1900
One of the first in-depth studies of masculinity within a particular social group - the landed gentry - over a time span of several hundred years *Provides a new conception of the process of change in gender identities over time *Covers a time period that spans existing divides between eighteenth and nineteenth-century studies *Moves away from a reliance on printed literature, and focuses in detail on gentry correspondence *Concentrates on subjec…
Peopling polite landscapes
Poltimore House, near Exeter, Devon, was the seat of the Bampfylde family from the mid-sixteenth century until the 1920s. The AHRC-funded knowledge transfer project 'Community and Landscape: Transforming Access to the Heritage of the Poltimore Estate' researched the changing relationship between house and setting through a public heritage initiative that promoted the co-creation of knowledge with local groups. Research techniques included analysi…
Joanne Bailey. Parenting in England, 1760-1830
Journal Article Joanne Bailey. Parenting in England, 1760–1830: Emotion, Identity, and Generation. Get access Joanne Bailey. Parenting in England, 1760–1830: Emotion, Identity, and Generation.New York: Oxford University Press. 2012. Pp. xiii, 277. $125.00. H. R. French H. R. French University of Exeter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 118, Issue 3, June 2013, Pages 928…
Gender, War and Politics
Experiences of people living with HIV and people living close to them of a comprehensive HIV stigma reduction community intervention in an urban and a rural setting
HIV stigma remains high globally. Although there is a selection of HIV stigma reduction interventions discussed in the literature, there is a paucity of research about the effectiveness of these interventions. This study aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the experiences of people living with HIV (PLWH) and people living close to them from six designated groups during and after having undergone a comprehensive HIV stigma reduction communi…
The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400–1600, by Spencer Dimmock
Beneath its relatively innocuous title, this book conceals an impassioned defence of the theories of Robert Brenner about the origins of agrarian capitalism between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. Spencer Dimmock is the truest of true believers in Brenner’s interpretation, and the first two-thirds of the book are taken up with a detailed recapitulation and extension of Brenner’s work. The final third applies Dimmock’s version of Brenner…
HIV stigma and disclosure experiences of people living with HIV in an urban and a rural setting
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains a highly stigmatised condition for people living with HIV (PLWH) and people living close to them (PLC) globally. The research objectives for this study were to explore and describe how HIV stigma and disclosure experiences impact the lives of PLWH and to explore whether there are differences between experiences in urban and rural settings. A qualitative approach was followed and participants were selecte…
How dependent were the ‘dependent poor’? Poor relief and the life-course in Terling, Essex, 1762–1834
Despite the volume of research on the Old Poor Law, only in the last two decades have detailed local studies begun to assess the impact of relief payments across the life-courses of individuals. Their conclusions have been mixed. While many have found that the rural labouring poor of southern England were increasingly frequent recipients of poor relief after the 1780s, recent studies have indicated that ‘dependence’ on relief was generally interm…
History (33 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (27 works) · Sociology (27 works) · Political science (26 works) · Law (22 works) · History (20 works) · Archaeology (15 works) · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (12 works)