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Professor Maria Hayward BA, MA, PhD, LSE

Professor of Early Modern History; Ancient History Co-ordinator; Deputy Head of Department

Professor Maria Hayward's photo

I am a professor of early modern history with a particular interest in early modern textiles and clothing, especially in the context of the Tudor and Stuart courts.

I graduated with a history degree before completing the post graduate diploma in textile conservation at the Textile Conservation Centre (TCC), Hampton Court Palace. After working as a conservator and completing a PhD in History at the LSE, University of London, I worked at the TCC, both at Hampton Court and after it joined the University of Southampton in 1999 and was based on its Winchester campus. During this time, I was Head of Studies and Research, as well as Director of the AHRC Research Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies (2004-2007). In 2004 I was elected as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and in 2008 I transferred to History.

My research focuses on early modern material culture and on textiles and clothing in particular. I am interested in the social and cultural value of clothing and how this can be politically significant, especially in the court context. My research has looked at the individuals engaged in the production of clothing, as well as attempts by monarchs to regulate what their people wore. More broadly I have looked at the role of clothing and furnishings at the Tudor and Stuart courts.

My publications consist of numerous articles, chapters in edited volumes and books, including The 1542 Inventory of Whitehall: The Palace and its Keeper (2004), Tapestry Conservation: Principles and Practice, edited with Frances Lennard (2005) Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (2007), Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England (2009), The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (2012), The 1547 Inventory of Henry VIII: Volume 2 Textiles and Dress, edited with Philip Ward (2012), The First Book of Fashion edited with Ulinka Rublack (2015) and Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite (2020). 

Research interests

Following my PhD thesis on the 1547 inventory of Henry VIII, my research focused upon the court and material culture of Henry VIII. I am engaged in a number of projects that have grown out of this work.

First, I am publishing the three volumes of essays for the 1547 inventory project with Dr Philip Ward. The first has been published, and the second is in press. Second, I have developed an interest in the role of sumptuary law, and this has continued to the present. Third, I have broadened out my focus to consider jewellery, accessories and fur and the role of the Great Wardrobe in the purchase, storage and use of textiles at the Tudor court.  

Alongside this, I continued links to textile conservation with a number of small projects on early modern textile book bindings. Many of these volumes have a court context.

More recently I have developed a second research strand that began with work on the clothing of Charles II and the ways in which the king furnished his many yachts. Since then I have completed a book on the role of dress under the later Stuart kings, ranging from the birth of James VI and I (1566) to the death of James II and VII (1701). Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite drew on archival research in English and Scottish record offices, as well as portraits and surviving textiles from the period. I am currently developing a new project on women in Restoration Scotland. 

In addition, I have a long-standing interest in early modern queenship and this has resulted in chapters on Catherine of Aragon and Catherine of Braganza and I am contracted to write a biography of Catherine of Braganza. 

  • Member of the editorial board for Costume, journal of the Costume Society
  • Trustee of the School of Historical Dress
  • Member of the Pasold Research Fund
  • Trustee of the Christine and Ian Bolt Scholarship Fund, University of Kent
  • Member of the Research Committee, Society of Antiquaries 
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Book Chapters

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I am the module co-ordinator for:

I also undertake dissertation supervision for BA and MA students and supervise MA Individually Negotiated Topics.

Areas where I can offer post-graduate supervision

Late medieval and early modern topics including projects on textiles and dress, queenship, the court and the wider social and cultural context. Also projects on 18th and 19th century clothing. 
 
Current PhD students

  • Charlotte Fletcher – Fashioning the Life Cycle: Clothing the Body from Birth to Death, 1660-1790 (supervised with Dr Julie Gammon) 
  • Megan Isaac – Divinity, Duty and Dress: The Early Material World of Elizabeth I’s Queenship (1533-c.1560) - (supervised with Dr Alice Hunt in English) 
  • Niki Miles – What was the impact of civil war exile, 1643-1653, on Sir Ralph Verney (1613-1696?, (supervised with Dr Julie Gammon) 
  • Rosie Taylor-Davies – What does the Doddershall court mantua and petticoat tell us about the eighteenth-century embroidery trade in London (supervised with Dr Julie Gammon) 
  • Natalie Williams – Border identities in late 16th and early 17th century Britain, (supervised with Prof Mark Stoyle)

Former PhD students

  • Eleanor Houghton – Charlotte Brontë: 'Plainness' and the Language of Dress (supervised with Prof Mary Hammond in English) 
  • Rosie Waine – Refashioning Patriotic Display in Britain and America: Rebellion, Nationhood and Sartorial Culture, c.1745-1825 
  • Chloe McKenzie – Ladies and Robes of the Garter: Kingship, Patronage, and Female Political Agency in Late Medieval England, c.1348-1445. (supervised with Prof Anne Curry) 
  • Louise Fairbrother - Burgesses, Freemen and Strangers: The Organisation of Industry and Trade in Southampton, 1547 to 1603 (supervised with Prof Mark Stoyle)  
  • Juan Pablo Olaberria – Ship design-knowledge in early modern Europe: Royal yachts and the shared knowledge of ship-designers and common shipwrights - (supervised with Prof Dominic Hudson, Ship Science and Dr Julian White wright, Archaeology) 
  • Katarzina Kosior – Becoming a queen in early modern Europe (supervised with Dr Alice Hunt in English)  
  • Fiona Ffoulkes - (supervised with Dr Joan Tumblety) 
  • Tracey Wedge – Constructing splendour: The wardrobe of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester (1532/3-1588), Consumption and Networks of Production – 2015 (supervised with Prof George Bernard) 
  • Rosie Baker - Nineteenth Century Synthetic Dyes: Their History and Identification on Fabric – 2015 (supervised with Prof Andrea Russell in Chemistry) 
  • Kate Strasdin – Fashioning Alexandra: A Sartorial Biography of Queen Alexandra 1844-1925 – 2013 (supervised with Dr Jane McDermid) 
  • Christen Elaine Ericson – Victorian Women and the Meaning of Flowers: An Exploration of Gender and Culture in the Work of Three Female Artists, 1869-1936 2013 (supervised with Prof Mary Hammond in English) 
  • Chris Warren - Professional Pathways for the English Provincial Artist in the Early Nineteenth Century, 2009 (supervised with Dr Annie Richardson, History of Art and Design) 
  • Lee Clatworthy - Henry Temple, First Viscount Palmerston (1676-1757): The Man and his Household Examined Through the Broadlands Estate Papers, 2006 (supervised with Dr Dinah Eastop, TCC)

 

Professor Maria Hayward
Building 65 Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Southampton Avenue Campus Highfield Southampton SO17 1BF United Kingdom

Room Number: 65/2059

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