Dr Danae Tankard
Reader in Social History
About
I joined the University of Chichester in 2009.
Between 2005 and 2016, I worked at the Weald and Downland Living Museum, initially as a research associate on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University of Reading (2005-2008) and subsequently in a part-time capacity as the museum’s social historian.
In these roles, I worked on aspects of rural social history, from circa 1300 to 1900, including housing, households, material culture and social structure.
I have a broad range of research interests, as reflected in my publications. However, since moving to Sussex, the focus of most of my own work has been on aspects of the social and cultural history of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Sussex.
My PhD (Birbeck, University of London, 2002) was on ‘Attitudes to Death in England c1480-1560’.
Professional
I currently teach:
- A Social History of Early Modern England (L5)
- The Cultural History of Death (L6)
- Commerce and Consumption in Early Modern England (L6)
I coordinate the L5 compulsory module Approaches to Research and the L5 Work Placement module.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a council member of the Sussex Record Society and an editorial board member of Sussex Archaeological Collections.
Key Publications
Monographs
Factionalism and Dissent in an English City: Chichester, 1678-1685 (Routledge, 2025).
Clothing in 17th-century Provincial England (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020).
Houses of the Weald and Downland: People and Houses of South-East England, c1300-1900 (Carnegie, 2012).
Edited Primary Sources
The Parliamentary Surveys of the City of Chichester, 1649-1650 (Sussex Record Society, 2025).
Research Articles and Essays
‘”On the domestic habits and mode of life of a Sussex gent”: The Rev. Edward Turner & the Stapleys of Hickstead Place’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 160 (2022), 1-18.
‘The House’ in A Flather (ed), A Cultural History of the Home in the Renaissance (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), 59-81.
‘”A garden to every cottage”: cottage gardens and the nineteenth-century agricultural labourer’, The Agricultural History Review 67:2 (2019), 227-248.
‘Housing and social status in early seventeenth-century Chichester: a case study of the parish of All Saints in the Pallant’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 157 (2019), 213-228.
‘”Flowered silk is little worn but gold and silver striped is much worn”: metropolitan clothing consumption in late seventeenth-century Sussex’ in T Dean, G Parry & E Vallance (eds), Faith, Place and People in Early Modern England: Essays in Honour of Margaret Spufford (Woodbridge, 2018), 153-174.
‘”Buttons no bigger than nutmegs”: the clothing of country gentlemen, c1660-1715’, Cultural and Societal History 14:1 (2017), 1-16.
‘Late sixteenth-century domestic wall painting: an example from Fittleworth, West Sussex’ Sussex Archaeological Collections 154 (2016), 195-208.
‘”They tell me they were in fashion last year”: Samuel and Elizabeth Jeake & clothing fashions in late 17th century London & Rye’, Costume 50:1 (2016), 20-41.
‘Giles Moore’s clothes: the clothing of a Sussex rector, 1656-1679’, Costume 49.1(2015), 32-54.
‘”I think myself honestly decked”: attitudes to the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth-century England’, Rural History 26:1 (2015), 1-17.
‘”A pair of grass-green woollen stockings”: the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth-century Sussex’, Textile History 43:1 (2012), 5-22.
‘The regulation of cottage building in seventeenth-century Sussex’, The Agricultural History Review 59:1 (2011), 18-35.
Research
I am a social and cultural historian of 17th and early-18th-century Sussex.
My publication outputs are characterised by micro-analyses investigating the social, material and spatial worlds of early modern people.
I have recently completed a monograph on late seventeenth-century Chichester entitled Factionalism and Dissent in an English City: Chichester, 1678-1685, published in Routledge’s ‘Microhistories’ book series (2025).
I am currently working on a book about an obscure Sussex gentleman who never went anywhere but kept interesting things in his pockets.
PhD Supervision
I would be interested in supervising PhD students working on aspects of English social and cultural history between c1600 and c1900.
Research Output
Articles
Tankard, D. (2019) 'A garden to every cottage': cottage gardens and the nineteenth-century agricultural labourer. Agricultural History Review, 67 (2). ISSN 0002-1490
Tankard, D. (2017) '"Buttons no bigger than nutmegs": the clothing of country gentlemen, c1660-1715. Cultural and Social History, 14 (1). pp. 1-16. ISSN 1478-0046 10.1080/14780038.2016.1237410
Tankard, D. (2016) 'They tell me they were in fashion last year': Samuel and Elizabeth Jeake and clothing fashions in late seventeenth-century London and Rye. Costume, 50 (1). pp. 20-41. ISSN 0590-8876 10.1080/05908876.2015.1129857
Tankard, D. (2015) Giles Moore's clothes: the clothing of a Sussex rector, 1656-1679. Costume, 49 (1). pp. 32-54. ISSN 0590-8876 10.1179/0590887614Z.00000000062
Tankard, D. (2015) 'I think myself honestly decked': attitudes to the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth-century England. Rural History, 26 (1). pp. 17-33. ISSN 0956-7933 10.1017/S0956793314000211
Tankard, D. (2012) "A pair of grass-green woollen stockings": the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth-century Sussex. Textile History, 43 (1). pp. 5-22. ISSN 1743-2952 10.1179/174329512X13284471321082
Tankard, D. (2011) The regulation of cottage building in seventeenth-century Sussex. Agricultural History Review, 59 (1). pp. 18-35. ISSN 0002-1490
Tankard, D. (2010) The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, 1970 to 2010. The Local Historian, 40 (4). pp. 281-291.
Books
Tankard, D. (2019) Clothing in 17th-Century Provincial England. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London, UK. ISBN 9781350098404
Tankard, D. (2012) Houses of the Weald and Downland: People and Houses of South-East England c. 1300-1900. Carnegie Publishing, Lancaster. ISBN 9781859362006
Other department members
Alison MacLeod
Visiting Professor in Creative Writing
