Vice Principal, St Hilda's College

Tutorial Fellow in History, St Hilda's College
Associate Professor in Early Modern History, History Faculty

Before arriving at St Hilda’s in 2006, Hannah Smith studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, taught at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and was an RCUK Academic Fellow at the University of Hull. She was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2008.

Hannah Smith works on Britain in the period 1660 to 1760 and, in particular, the history of political culture and history of gender. She has recently completed a book about the British army and politics from 1660 to 1750 and has co-edited a collection of essays on civilians and war in early modern Europe. She continues to pursue a research interest in the early Georgian monarchy, the subject of her first book, through co-editing a new edition of Lord Hervey’s Memoirs of the Reign of King George II. Her interest in gender history is reflected in a co-edited volume of essays about religion and women in Britain from 1660 to 1760 and research on eighteenth-century aristocratic libertinism. She is working on a project about gender and equestrianism, currently focusing on the development of riding schools.

Armies and Political Change in Britain, 1660-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2021).

‘Court Culture and Godly Monarchy: Henry Purcell and Charles Sedley’s 1692 Birthday Ode for Mary II’, in: Politics, Religion and Ideas in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain: Essays in Honour of Mark Goldie ed. Justin Champion, John Coffey, Tim Harris and John Marshall (Boydell, 2019), 219-237.

‘The Hanoverian Succession and the Politicisation of the British Army’, in: The Hanoverian Succession: Dynastic Politics and Monarchical Culture ed. Andreas Gestrich and Michael Schaich (Ashgate, 2015), 207-226.

‘Susanna Centlivre, ‘Our Church’s Safety’ and ‘Whig Feminism’’, in: Religion and Women in Britain, 1660-1760 ed. Sarah Apetrei and Hannah Smith (Ashgate, 2014), 145-161.

Religion and Women in Britain, 1660-1760 co-edited with Sarah Apetrei (Ashgate, 2014).

Civilians and War in Europe, 1618-1815 co-edited with Erica Charters and Eve Rosenhaft (Liverpool University Press, 2012).

‘The Army, Provincial Urban Communities, and Loyalist Cultures in England, c.1714-50’, Journal of Early Modern History 15 (2011), 139-158.

‘Politics, Patriotism, and Gender: the Standing Army Debate on the English Stage, circa 1689-1720’, Journal of British Studies 50 (2011), 48-75.

‘Hephaestion and Alexander’: Lord Hervey, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the Royal Favourite in England in the 1730s’, with Stephen Taylor, English Historical Review 124 (2009), 283-312.

‘‘Last of All the Heavenly Birth’: Queen Anne and Sacral Queenship’, Parliamentary History 28 (2009), 137-149.

'Mary Astell, 'A Serious Proposal to the Ladies' (1694) and the Anglican Reformation of Manners in Late-Seventeenth-Century England', in: Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith ed. Michal Michelson and William Kolbrener (Ashgate, 2007), 31-47.

Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714-1760 (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

'The Idea of a Protestant Monarchy in Britain, 1714-1760', Past and Present, 185 (2004), 91-118.

'English 'Feminist' Writings and Judith Drake's 'An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex' (1696)', Historical Journal, 44 (2001), 727-747.