In 2023, I published my first academic article in Cultural and Social History . It was called Group Petitioning and the Performance of Neighbourliness in the West Midlands, 1589-1700 and you can read it here.

It looked at petitions from ordinary groups of people about everyday matters. I was keen to explore the process of forming a group to put a petition together.

I created a database of 192 petitions from Staffordshire and Worcestershire, all written between 1589 and 1700. Because the database covered such a long period of time, I was able to map change over the course of (more than) a century. As time went on, some subtle trends emerged: people were more likely to sign a petition with their name, for instance. You might think that’s a logical progression, as literacy improved over the course of the 17th century. However, this far outstripped growth in literacy. So, by 1700, it looks like people wanted to make themselves stand out as individuals within a petitioning group.

The act of forming a petitioning group was a social one. It was neighbourly, yes; but it wasn’t fully altruistic. If Jane signed Anne’s petition, she was doing Anne a favour; and as early modern England had an ‘economy of obligation’, Jane could rely on Anne to support her in future matters.

The article was referenced in Brodie Waddell’s article in Journal of British Studies, The Popular Politics of Local Petitioning in Early Modern England. Read that here. It was also included in Urban History, here (final paragraphs).