Alex Wakelam
@awakelam.bsky.social
Economic Historian of Debtors' Prisons, Women's Work, the Census, and Fertility (1700-1921)
University of Cambridge PDRA @camunicampop.bsky.social
University of Cambridge PDRA @camunicampop.bsky.social
Reposted by Alex Wakelam
Birmingham, my home city, is a fantastic city, with fantastic people- a success story. It has its problems, like anywhere. But the obsession the online right has with it is as transparent as it gets.
October 7, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Birmingham, my home city, is a fantastic city, with fantastic people- a success story. It has its problems, like anywhere. But the obsession the online right has with it is as transparent as it gets.
Ah the Victorian period, when it was more important to save a few pennies on a second sheet of paper than for the recipient of your letter to be able to read what you’d written
September 4, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Ah the Victorian period, when it was more important to save a few pennies on a second sheet of paper than for the recipient of your letter to be able to read what you’d written
Loving all the various “this is what causes low birth rates” posts tonight when we still haven’t fully worked out what caused them to start declining IN 1850 (when kids were still very much at work and there was no easy contraception)
I do love my kids, but so much of this can be explained by them being unavoidably bloody hard work and if you no longer have the structural need for free labour, and can easily control your fertility, this explains about 90% of this
It’s actually kind of hilarious, no matter your politics whatever you want to happen seems to have zero effect on birth rates
September 2, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Loving all the various “this is what causes low birth rates” posts tonight when we still haven’t fully worked out what caused them to start declining IN 1850 (when kids were still very much at work and there was no easy contraception)
Begging 19th Century writers to just be normal for five minutes was apparently a fools errand.
I'm several pages in and none the wiser at what should be a mild complaint about an aspect of Bradford society c.1820: 'Tweedle, Tweedle, Tweedle, Some Catgut to my Feedle' (??)
I'm several pages in and none the wiser at what should be a mild complaint about an aspect of Bradford society c.1820: 'Tweedle, Tweedle, Tweedle, Some Catgut to my Feedle' (??)
August 28, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Begging 19th Century writers to just be normal for five minutes was apparently a fools errand.
I'm several pages in and none the wiser at what should be a mild complaint about an aspect of Bradford society c.1820: 'Tweedle, Tweedle, Tweedle, Some Catgut to my Feedle' (??)
I'm several pages in and none the wiser at what should be a mild complaint about an aspect of Bradford society c.1820: 'Tweedle, Tweedle, Tweedle, Some Catgut to my Feedle' (??)
Reposted by Alex Wakelam
Seeing a lot of critical responses from medievalists about this BBC 1066 thing. As an early modernist, just to say that I'm happy to confirm that medieval people were indeed covered in dirt all the time and did all sound like they were in the Wurzels.
August 27, 2025 at 6:24 AM
Seeing a lot of critical responses from medievalists about this BBC 1066 thing. As an early modernist, just to say that I'm happy to confirm that medieval people were indeed covered in dirt all the time and did all sound like they were in the Wurzels.
There is no better feeling when travelling abroad than your phone magically picking up Eduroam
August 9, 2025 at 1:02 PM
There is no better feeling when travelling abroad than your phone magically picking up Eduroam
I maintain that early modern historians remain the most whimsical historians
July 25, 2025 at 6:52 PM
I maintain that early modern historians remain the most whimsical historians
Reposted by Alex Wakelam
Followed by 'Jewish Credit, Debt, and Economic Integration in Eighteenth-Century London', by @awakelam.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....
July 21, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Followed by 'Jewish Credit, Debt, and Economic Integration in Eighteenth-Century London', by @awakelam.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....
Reposted by Alex Wakelam
Campop blog #50: In 2021, 76% of UK women with children at home were employed: a century earlier about the same % were engaged in 'home duties'. @awakelam.bsky.social explores patterns and implications from the 1921 census
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...
The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, CambridgeHome Duties in the 1921 Census « Top of the Campops: 60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death...
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk
May 29, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Campop blog #50: In 2021, 76% of UK women with children at home were employed: a century earlier about the same % were engaged in 'home duties'. @awakelam.bsky.social explores patterns and implications from the 1921 census
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...
'Miss Ashworth ... sang the air "Pious Orgies" tastefully and correctly', sometimes its ok to acknowledge the meaning of a word has changed without trying to work out what it used to mean using a work laptop. (Todmorden and Hebden Bridge Weekly Advertiser 8th March 1862)
May 22, 2025 at 9:31 AM
'Miss Ashworth ... sang the air "Pious Orgies" tastefully and correctly', sometimes its ok to acknowledge the meaning of a word has changed without trying to work out what it used to mean using a work laptop. (Todmorden and Hebden Bridge Weekly Advertiser 8th March 1862)
Loved getting to chat debt imprisonment with Layton Williams, one of the nicest human beings I've ever met, on Who Do You Think You Are? last night even if I only had bad news for him
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
May 13, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Loved getting to chat debt imprisonment with Layton Williams, one of the nicest human beings I've ever met, on Who Do You Think You Are? last night even if I only had bad news for him
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
Went to Rome. Got threatened by a mirror. 10/10
April 8, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Went to Rome. Got threatened by a mirror. 10/10
Standing in a non-moving queue and the American behind me is loudly asking “why are they just making us and here like this”. ITS BECAUSE WE LIKE IT THAT’S WHY.
April 4, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Standing in a non-moving queue and the American behind me is loudly asking “why are they just making us and here like this”. ITS BECAUSE WE LIKE IT THAT’S WHY.
Taxi driver just turned up the radio volume dramatically because The Script came on and I think this must be some sort of crime
March 13, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Taxi driver just turned up the radio volume dramatically because The Script came on and I think this must be some sort of crime
Feeling a lot of affinity with this church advert(?) outside the office every time I look at the news
March 13, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Feeling a lot of affinity with this church advert(?) outside the office every time I look at the news
"A man's ruling passion is to eat' - the Leeds Times in 1841 was really speaking my language
March 3, 2025 at 10:44 AM
"A man's ruling passion is to eat' - the Leeds Times in 1841 was really speaking my language
If I were attending this conference and was introduced to any moustachioed Belgian academics, I would run as fast as I could away from the train
Now here's an attractive CFP: Railway Aesthetics: Experiencing Locomotion across Media and Cultures. Takes place ON THE TRAIN Vienna-Bucharest-Istanbul, 10-13 September 2025. Deadline for submissions: May 2, 2025 call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/02/...
February 13, 2025 at 8:52 AM
If I were attending this conference and was introduced to any moustachioed Belgian academics, I would run as fast as I could away from the train
Trying to decide if I should go to Wakefield archives solely to find out what the hell is in this box.
January 31, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Trying to decide if I should go to Wakefield archives solely to find out what the hell is in this box.
I can always tell if the undergraduates have returned by whether the heating has been switched on yet.
The undergraduates, dear reader, have not yet returned.
The undergraduates, dear reader, have not yet returned.
January 20, 2025 at 10:39 AM
I can always tell if the undergraduates have returned by whether the heating has been switched on yet.
The undergraduates, dear reader, have not yet returned.
The undergraduates, dear reader, have not yet returned.
Was wondering if the Spanish Flu stopped British couples from ... "reconnecting" after the First World War.
No. No it did not.
(data estimated from age given in years and months in the 1921 Census minus nine months)
No. No it did not.
(data estimated from age given in years and months in the 1921 Census minus nine months)
January 14, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Was wondering if the Spanish Flu stopped British couples from ... "reconnecting" after the First World War.
No. No it did not.
(data estimated from age given in years and months in the 1921 Census minus nine months)
No. No it did not.
(data estimated from age given in years and months in the 1921 Census minus nine months)
Setting up for my annual Christmas tradition: crying for 130 minutes while watching It’s a Wonderful Life
December 24, 2024 at 4:45 PM
Setting up for my annual Christmas tradition: crying for 130 minutes while watching It’s a Wonderful Life
Aren't we all Mr Matthew Moncrieff Pattison
December 19, 2024 at 9:46 AM
Aren't we all Mr Matthew Moncrieff Pattison
Another morning of the endless quantitative historian battle: have I discovered something new and interesting or am I secretly just bad at maths?
December 18, 2024 at 9:49 AM
Another morning of the endless quantitative historian battle: have I discovered something new and interesting or am I secretly just bad at maths?
'However, as the Jewish population of London grew and proliferated it probably became more difficult over time to attribute such negative characteristics to Abraham next door with whom one could certainly do business.'
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
December 12, 2024 at 2:26 PM
'However, as the Jewish population of London grew and proliferated it probably became more difficult over time to attribute such negative characteristics to Abraham next door with whom one could certainly do business.'
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Really hope Ridley Scott shows the same deliberate disdain for historians in the Beatles film as he did in Napoleon. Can’t wait to see Ringo leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Borodino.
December 11, 2024 at 12:55 PM
Really hope Ridley Scott shows the same deliberate disdain for historians in the Beatles film as he did in Napoleon. Can’t wait to see Ringo leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Borodino.