The VOICES project’s Principal Investigator Professor Jane Ohlmeyer and Research Fellow Dr Daniel Patterson took part in a workshop hosted by the University of Sheffield, focusing on women’s history through the lens of court records. Titled “Women and the Courts: New Work and New Approaches”, the workshop brought together leading scholars from across the UK and Ireland to share new research related to women’s experiences in the early modern Anglophone world as well as the evidence of court documents.
Professor Ohlmeyer and Dr Patterson delivered a joint paper “From the Ashes: Recovering Irish women’s lives from Chancery Court Records” which described the unique archival context of early modern Irish women’s history in the wake of the destruction of archives in 1922. They also explored the parallels and divergences between English and Irish Chancery Courts in their functions and jurisdictions in particular as it related to cases involving women.
Professor Ohlmeyer also presented the paper “Hiding in plain sight: Women in early modern Ireland and the VOICES project” at the Sheffield History Research Seminar highlighting the work being undertaken by the VOICES project, encouraging discussion on the importance of creating technologies that can be trusted by historians.
Among the additional highlights of the workshop were presentations on diverse and provocative topics: Professor Amanda Capern (Hull) examined how mentally ill women were treated in the English Court of Chancery; Dr Charmian Mansell (Sheffield) explored the significance of marks and signatures made by semi-literate women as expressions of identity; and Dr Mabel Winter (Oxford) investigated women’s involvement in the milling industry through cases in the English Court of Exchequer.
Professor Ohlmeyer and Dr Patterson’s participation in this workshop highlights VOICES’ commitment to uncovering and amplifying women’s voices throughout history. Their reflections and further details about the workshop are available in a full blog post on the VOICES website.
Read the full blog here.
