author
Barbara Bradby Hammond
1873–1961
A pioneering English social historian, she helped reshape how readers understood the lives of workers during enclosure and the Industrial Revolution. Her books, written with John Lawrence Hammond, brought ordinary people to the center of history.
1 Audiobook
The village labourer, 1760-1832 A study in the government of England before the Reform Bill
by J. L. (John Lawrence) Hammond, Barbara Bradby Hammond
About the author
Born Lucy Barbara Bradby in 1873, Barbara Hammond became one of the best-known English social historians of her time. She studied at St Andrews and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she was noted for exceptional academic success before turning to historical writing.
She is most closely associated with the books she wrote with her husband, John Lawrence Hammond. Together they produced influential works on labor and social history, especially the well-known Labourer trilogy, which examined how enclosure and industrial change affected working people in Britain.
Hammond's writing helped popularize a form of history that looked beyond kings and ministers to the experiences of ordinary men and women. She died in 1961, but her work remains an important part of the tradition of social history.