Professor Pat Hudson

Overview

Research

I have advanced and changed my field in the following areas:

• The formation of fixed and circulating capital during the industrial revolution and the development and role of the wool textile industry in the process of industrialisation
• Proto-industrialisation (the nature and socio-economic impact of pre factory manufacturing), local history and micro history
• The diversity of regional experience during industrialisation and the dynamic created by intra- and inter-regional specialisation and trade
• Critiquing conventional measures of industrialisation and comparative economic growth and change over time, particularly historical applications of national income accounting, GDP, the Gini coefficient
• The historiography of economic and social history in relation to time and space, particularly highlighting anachronistic and ethnocentric analysis.

My current work includes:

• Critiquing the preoccupation with economic growth in economic history, instead  emphasising distribution (income and capital inequalities) and sustainability, particularly in relation to the historiography of industrialisation.
• Debating the role of slavery in British industrialisation and in the development of the British economy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
• A new history of the Welsh woollen industry melding economic and social history with material history and the history of artefacts and communities
• The evolution of the British economy since the medieval period

Recent research dissemination (selected)

• Slavery, capitalism and the industrial revolution, University of Chicago 2021
• Economic history and the anthropocene, Boston (2017)
• The Piketty Opportunity, International Inequalities Institute, LSE (2017)
• Micro history and global history at the University of Warwick (Venice and Warwick) (2016, 2018)
• Economic change in global history, ENIUGH Conference, Budapest (2017)
• Welsh woollens, Pasold Anniversary Lecture, Museum of London (2016)
• Material history, Hobsbawm Memorial Conference, University of London (2014)
• Industrialisation, Tawney Memorial Lecture, Economic History Society, 2014 (podcast at ehs.org.uk)
• Industrial Revolution, Melvin Bragg’s In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 (2010) (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wqdc7): created huge debate
• British industrialisation at the University of Peking, Beijing (2009)
• Choice and habit, plenary lecture, Economic History Society of Japan, Tokyo (2005)

Wider professional contributions

• Economic History Society: Honorary Vice President since 2004; President 2001- 2004; Council member 1987-93 and since 1995; Trustee since 1995; Joint founder of the Women’s Committee, 1987
• Assessor for Economic History Society Post Graduate Fellowships at the IHR (five occasions)
• Economic History Review: Book Reviews editor 2004-7
• Pasold Research Fund: Director 2006-2011; Chair of the Governors 2011-2017. Governor since 2011. Textile History: Book Reviews Editor 2009-11
• Academy of the Social Sciences: Founding Academician 1999-2017
• HEFCE: Member of Expert Advisory Group, Research Excellence Framework 2007-9
• HEFCE/SHEFC/HEFCW: Research Assessment Exercise 2008, panel member for History; Research Recognition Exercise 2001, panel member for history
• Institute of Historical Research: Advisory Council 2004-9; Academic Advisory Panel 2002-8
• Museum of London: Academic Advisory Panel 2017-2021
• ESRC: History Subject Panel, Research Recognition Exercise, 2003; Member of virtual college of ESRC for History, Anthropology and Sociology, 1999-2002; grant application referee (more than 30 occasions)
• SHEFC: assessor for postgraduate training courses in history in Scottish universities, 1997
• External Assessor for Chairs in Economic History: European University Institute 2018; University of Oxford 2016; University of Leicester, 2012; 2015
• London School of Economics: Consultant for TLAC reviews of teaching and learning, 2003-5
• Leverhulme Trust: research grant application referee (eight occasions)
• Christs College, Cambridge: Assessor for Junior Research Fellowship Competition, 2011
• Research Excellence Framework 2014: Consultant (2011-2014) for London School of Economics (Economic and Social History); Goldsmiths (History); Hertfordshire (History); Hull (History); Manchester Metropolitan University (History); Sheffield Hallam (History); Swansea University (History); University of South Wales (History); University of Warwick (History)
• REF 2021: Consultant for Universities of Hertfordshire, South Wales, Central Lancashire
• Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull, consultant 2022-3
• External Examining 1989-2010: Universities of Leicester, York, Exeter, St Andrews, Bristol, Glasgow, London School of Economics, Open University, Manchester Polytechnic. M.Phil. and Ph.D. dissertations, Universities of Leicester, Sheffield, Warwick, Liverpool, Oxford, St. Andrews, Lancaster, Manchester, Cardiff and Cambridge

Grants and honours include:

• Elected Fellow of the British Academy 2022
• British Academy Research Readership 1993-95; ESRC Senior Research Fellow, 2000-03
• Research Grants from Pasold Research Fund (4), Nuffield Foundation, British Academy (3), Leverhulme Trust, ESRC (3), British Centre, Göttingen; Economic History Society (4) and Universities of Liverpool. Cardiff and Manchester

Publications

Books (*monographs, +edited collections, # textbooks)

• *Slavery, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023) jointly with Maxine Berg
• +Reinventing the Economic History of the Industrial Revolution (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) pp. 328. Edited with Kristine Bruland, Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello
• #History by Numbers: an introduction to Quantitative Approaches, (London, Bloomsbury 2017) pp. 339. (This is a completely rewritten and expanded version of the book of 2000 with the same title). Jointly authored with Mina Ishizu.
• +The Routledge Handbook of Global Economic History, (London, Routledge 2016) pp. 471. ed. with Francesco Boldizzoni.
• +The Contradictions of Capital in the twenty first Century: the Piketty Opportunity, (Newcastle, Agenda Publishing 2016) pp. 300. ed. with Keith Tribe.
• +Eheschliebungen im Europa des 18. Und 19. Jahrhunderts: Muster und Strategien , Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, Gottingen 2003 pp. 330 ed. with Christophe Duhamelle and Juergen Schlumbohm.
• +Living Economic and Social History: Essays to mark the 75th anniversary of the Economic History Society (Glasgow, Economic History Society, 2001) pp. 480.
• #History by Numbers: an introduction to quantitative approaches (London, Edward Arnold, 2000) pp. 278.
• *The Industrial Revolution (London, Edward Arnold, 1992) pp. 239. Translated into five languages.
• +Women's work and the family economy in historical perspective (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990), pp. 299. ed. with W. R. Lee.
• +Regions and industries: a perspective on the industrial revolution in Britain (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp. 277.
• *The Genesis of Industrial Capital: a study of the West Riding wool textile industry, c. 1750-1850 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986) pp. 345. Re-published in paperback, 2002.
• +Manufacture in town and country before the factory (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, reprinted 1986) pp. 213. ed. with M. Berg and M. Sonenscher. Re-published in paperback, 2002.
• The West Riding wool textile industry: a catalogue of business records from the sixteenth to the twentieth century (Eddington, Pasold, 1975) pp. 560.

Journal articles:

• ‘Inégalité et histoire’,  Revue d’Histoire Moderne &Contemporaine 4, 2021 25-46
• ‘Slavery, Atlantic trade and Sills: a response to Mokyr’s Holy Land of Industrialiism’, Journal of the British Academy 9, 2021 259-81 (jointly with Maxine Berg)
• ‘Correspondence and commitment: British traders’ letters in the long eighteenth century’, Cultural and Social History 11, 4, 2014, 527-54
• ‘Closeness and Distance’ Cultural and Social History 7, 3, 2010, 375-385
• 'Two textile townships c. 1660-1820: a comparative demographic analysis' Economic History Review, LIII, 4, 2000, 706-741, jointly with S. A. King
• 'A new history from below: the maturing of local and regional history' The Local Historian, 20, 4, 1995, 209-222. reprinted in R. C. Richardson ed., The changing face of English local history (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000) 162-178
• 'Growth and change: a reply to Crafts and Harley' Economic History Review XLVII, 1, 1994, 147-149. Jointly with Maxine Berg
• 'Rehabilitating the industrial revolution' Economic History Review XLV, 1 1991, 24-50. Jointly with Maxine Berg (This article also appears in translation in Estudis D'historia Economica 2, 1992, 7-36 and in Les Cahiers d'Encrages III, 3, 1991, 6-23)
• 'William Hart, cooper: a respectable artisan in the industrial revolution' The London Journal 7, 2, 1981, 144-160 and 8, 1, 1982, 63-75. Both jointly with Lynette Hunter
• 'Proto-industrialisation: the case of the West Riding wool textile industry', History Workshop Journal, 12 1981, 34-61 (reprinted in D. T. Jenkins ed., The textile industries which forms volume 8 of R. A. church and E. A. Wrigley eds., The iIndustrial rRevolutions (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993. It has also appeared in translation in a Japanese anthology.)
• 'The role of banks in the finance of the West Riding wool textile industry, c. 1780-1850', Business History Review LV, 3, 1981, 379-402
• 'Some aspects of nineteenth century accounting development in the West Riding textile industry', Accounting History, 2, 2, 1977, 4-22 (reprinted in two collections of key articles on accounting history)

Book chapters

• ‘An Outlook ‘wrapped up in flannel’: The Wool Textile Industry in Wales in the Early Twentieth Century’,  in Kristine Bruland, Anne Gerritsen, Pat Hudson and Giorgio Riello eds., Reinventing the Economic History of the Industrial Revolution, (Montreal and Kingston,  McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) 87-103
• ‘Reinventing the Economic History of the Industrial Revolution: an introduction’  in Kristine Bruland, Anne Gerritsen, Pat Hudson and Giorgio Riello eds., Reinventing the Economic History of the Industrial Revolution, (Montreal and Kingston,  McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) 3-22 (jointly with the other editors)
• ‘Industrial History, Working Lives, Nation and Empire, viewed through some Key Welsh Woollen Objects’ in John Arnold, Matthew Hilton and Jan Rüger eds., History after Hobsbawm; writing the past in the twenty first century, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017), 160-183.
• ‘Economic History in Britain: the ‘first industrial nation’(sole author); ‘Global economic history: towards and interpretive turn’ and ‘Culture, power and contestation: multiple roads from the past to the future’(jointly with Boldizzoni) in Pat Hudson and Francesco Boldizzoni eds.The Routledge Handbook of Global Economic History, (London, Routledge 2016), 17-34, 1-14, 431-450 respectively.
• ‘Goals and Measures of Development: The Piketty Opportunity’ in Pat Hudson and Keith Tribe eds., The Contradictions of Capital in the twenty first Century: the Piketty Opportunity, (Newcastle, Agenda Publishing 2016), 249-282.
• ‘The British Industrial revolution: a view from the industrialising north’ in Chris Wrigley ed., The Industrial Revolution: Cromford, the Derwent Valley and the Wider World (Cromford, Arkwright Society 2015 21-40.
• ‘Slavery and the British industrial revolution’ in Catherine Hall, Nick Draper and Keith McClelland eds, Emancipation and the Remaking of the British Imperial world (Manchester, Manchester University Press 2014) 36-59.
• ‘Une nouvelle approche des industries rurales et du processus d’industrialisation en Grande- Bretagne’ in J.-M. Minovez, C. Verna et L.Hilaire-Pérez, Les industries rurales dans l’Europe médiéval et modern (Toulouse 2013), 245-64.
• ‘The historical construction of gender: reflections on gender and economic history’ in Francesa Bettio and Alina Verashchagina eds., Frontiers in the Economics of Gender (London, Routledge, 2009), 21-42.
• ‘Numbers and words: quantitative methods for scholars of texts’ in Gabriele Griffin ed., Research Methods for English Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, revised 2013), 131-155.
• Preface and bibliographical commentary for 1996 revised edition of T. S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution (Oxford University Press, Oxford) i-ix, 130-135.
• 'A sense of place: industrialising townships in eighteenth century Yorkshire' in R. Leboutte ed., Proto-industrialisation: recent research and new perspectives, (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1996) 181-210 (jointly with S. A. King).
• 'Proto-industrialisation in England' in M. Cerman and S. C. Ogilvie eds., European proto-industrialisation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996) 49-56 also in German in in M. Cerman and S. C. Ogilvie eds, Proto-industrialisierung in Europa: Industrielle Produktion vor dem Fabrikszeitalter (Vienna, 1994) 61-78.
• 'Economics and history' in Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner and Kevin Passmore eds., Writing history: theory and practice (London: Arnold, 2003) 223-242 (revised version, London: Arnold, 2009). New edition, Bloomsbury 2019. forthcoming.
• ‘Marriage in two English textile manufacturing townships in the eighteenth century’ in Christophe Duhamelle, Juergen Schlumbohn and Pat Hudson eds, Eheschliesbungen im Europa des 18. Und 19. Jahrhunderts (Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, Gottingen, 2003) 157-186.
• 'Industrial organisation and structure’ in R. Floud and P. A Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain vol. 1 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 28-56.
• ‘Land markets, credit and proto-industrialisation in Britain and Europe’ in Simonetta Cavaciocchi ed., Il Mercato della Terra Secc. Xiii-XVIII., (Prato: Istituto Datini, 2003) pp. 721-741.
• 'Regionalgeschichte in Grosbritannien. Historiographie und Zukunftsaussichten' in S. Brakensiek und A. Flugel eds., Regionageschichte in Europa. Methoden und Ertrage der Forschung zum 16. bis 19. Jahrhundert, (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 2000) 1-16.
• 'Linghilterra e la prima rivoluzione industriale' in Valerio Castronovo ed., Storia dell'economia mondiale vol 3 L'eta della rivoluzione industriale (Rome, Editori Laterza, 1999) 241-265.
• 'Landholding and the organisation of textile manufacture in Yorkshire rural townships' in Maxine Berg ed. Markets and Manufactures in early industrial Europe (London, Routledge, 1990) 89-127.
• 'The regional perspective', 1-38 and 'Capital and credit in the West Riding wool textile industry, c. 1750-1850', 69-99 in Pat Hudson ed., Regions and industries: a perspective on the industrial revolution in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
• 'From manor to mill: the West Riding in transition', in Maxine Berg, Pat Hudson and Michael Sonenscher eds., Manufacture in town and country before the factory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, reprinted 1986) 124-144.