Professor Jonathan Barry

My research is on the middling sort and on provincial society and culture in England from 1500 to 1840, with particular emphasis on Bristol and the South West, on towns, and on religious and medical history, including the history of witchcraft. I am happy to supervise on most aspects of early modern history, with particular interest in urban, regional, medical, religious or intellectual history. I have recently completed a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator award in Medical Humanities, leading a research project (with Dr Peter Elmer) on 'The Medical World of Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland c.1500-1715' (2012-18), from which several articles have been published and three books are in preparation. I co-edit the series Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic and Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, and two of my books have recently appeared in the former series, Witchcraft and Demonology in South-West England 1640-1789 (2012) and Raising Spirits (2013). I am a general editor of the Bristol Record Society, and I have recently edited or co-edited its volumes for 2012, 2017 and 2018. I am co-organiser of the Pre-Modern Towns Group. I am currently co-supervising 7 doctoral students, including two overseas students with scholarship and a Wellcome-funded mature student. I retired on 31 December 2020 so I am now an Emeritus Professor at Exeter, as well as holding a guest professorship at LMU in Munich (2021-3) where I now live.

Current position: Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History. I

I was a History undergraduate at Cambridge and spent a year at Harvard before starting a doctorate at Oxford in 1978 under the supervision of Keith Thomas on the cultural life of Bristol 1640-1775. From 1982 I was a researcher at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine in Oxford, assisting Charles Webster, as well as teaching part-time at Brasenose College. In 1985 I became a Lecturer in History at Exeter. I have been active in the Society for the Social History of Medicine, the Pre-Modern Towns Group and in regional/local history at south-western and national level. In 1995 I became Head of the then Department of History and Archaeology. In 1998 I became founding Head of the School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies, and was re-elected for a further five years from 2003. In 2005 the School expanded to become the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, under my Headship (until 31 July 2008). I was then Dean of Taught Programmes of the University 2008-12. I helped to found the Centre for Medical History at the University (with Prof. J. Melling) in 1997, and I am currently its co-Director. In 2012 I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award in Medical Humanities for a five-year project with Dr Peter Elmer on 'The Medical World of Early Modern England, Ireland and Wales c.1500-1715' which (with a one-year extension) ran until August 2018. I will be retiring on 31 December 2020, when I shall be moving to Munich (where I will be a guest professor at LMU 2021-3), but I will remain an Emeritus Professor at Exeter and continue some doctoral supervision for the next few years.

Series editorships

Bristol Record Society (since 2012)

Co-editor, Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic (since 2005)

Co-editor, Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine (since 2018)

Exeter Studies in History, University of Exeter Press, 1989-2000.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Routledge, 1991-7.

External activity

Member of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Social History of Medicine (1986-96)

Member of the Southern History Society committee (1991-8).

Member of Council of Devon and Cornwall Record Society (1993-2003)

Member of Board of Centre for Regional History, University of West of England (1998-)

Member of the editorial board of the Cambridge Urban History of Britain (1990-9)

External examiner for BA programme in Economic and Social History at Leicester (1994-7).

External examiner for MA programmes at Goldsmiths and Royal Holloway, London (1997-2001).

External assessor of History programmes at Roehampton Institute (1998).

External for PhD and MPhil awards (since 2000) at Durham, Bristol, Oxford, UCL, Cambridge, Trinity College Dublin.

QAA Institutional Auditor/Reviewer 2003-12

Historical consultant to Devon County Council, the Museum of Bristol and the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery

Referee for promotions committees, grant awards (AHRC, Wellcome, Leverhulme, etc), publishers (OUP, Yale, Routledge, Palgrave, Manchester UP, etc), journal articles (Albion, Historical Journal, Social History of Medicine, History, etc)

I am happy to supervise on most aspects of early modern history, with particular interest in urban, regional, medical, religious or intellectual history. I like to supervise jointly with a colleague, holding joint supervisions and so ensuring that the student gets the benefit of broad support. This has included cross-disciplinary supervision with colleagues in English and Classics and I am keen to maintain this, both at Exeter and as part of the AHRC's DTP programme with other universities in the consortium. I retired on 31 December 2020 so i am now an Emeritus Professor at Exeter, as well as holding a guest professorship at LMU in Munich (2021-3) where I now live, so I am unlikely to take on further research students unless there are exceptional reasons to do so, but I shall see my current students to completion.

I am currently co-supervising students working on:

• Astrology and medical practice in England c.1580-1700 (Wellcome funded)
• Fairies and healng in medieval and early modern England (Canadian scholarship)
• Law, gender and society in early modern India (Commonwealth scholarship)
• The trading community of Exeter c.1450-1580
• Thomas Vaughan and early modern alchemy
• Women travellers in Europe c.1780-1840
• Bankruptcy in eighteenth century England

For my previous research students, see the section on 'research students' in this profile.

Series editorships

Co-editor, Cultures of Magic, Palgrave, since 2005. (6 volumes currently contracted to appear 2006/8)

Exeter Studies in History, University of Exeter Press, since 1989.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Routledge, 1991-7.

External activity

Member of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Social History of Medicine (1986-96)

Member of the Southern History Society committee (1991-8).

Member of Council of Devon and Cornwall Record Society (1993-2003)

Member of Board of Centre for Regional History, University of West of England (1998-)

Member of the editorial board of the Cambridge Urban History of Britain (1990-9)

External examiner for BA programme in Economic and Social History at Leicester (1994-7).

External examiner for MA programmes at Goldsmiths and Royal Holloway, London (1997-2001).

External assessor of History programmes at Roehampton Institute (1998).

External for PhD and MPhil awards (since 2000) at Durham, Bristol, Oxford, UCL.

QAA Institutional Auditor since 2003

Historical consultant to Devon County Council, the Museum of Bristol and the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery

Referee for promotions committees, grant awards (AHRC, Wellcome etc), publishers (OUP, Yale, Routledge, Palgrave, Manchester UP, etc), journal articles (Albion, Historical Journal, Social History of Medicine, History, etc)