Annie Abram (1869–1930) was a British historian of medieval life. She was made a

Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...

fellow in 1911.

Life

Abram was born in

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell () is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an ancient parish from the mediaeval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The well after which it was named was redisco ...

in 1869 and her mother died shortly afterwards. Abram went to study and take the tripos at

Girton College, Cambridge Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status ...

under William Cunningham and

Ellen McArthur Ellen Annette McArthur (1862–1927) was a British economic historian. Born on 19 June 1862 in Duffield, Derbyshire, McArthur was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where she later became the tutor in history. In 1893 she became the first ...

. As she was a woman, a Cambridge degree was denied to her. She went to study further in Dublin where she was awarded a degree in 1906 and she was awarded a doctorate by the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

in 1909.Janet Sondheimer, ‘Abram, Annie (1869–1930)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 11 March 2017
/ref> She went on to teach at both Girton and

Westfield College Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

s, and she may have assisted at her father's law publishing firm in London. Abram died unmarried in

Aldrington Aldrington is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, previously part of the old borough of Hove. For centuries it was meadow land along the English Channel stretching west from the old village of Hove to the old mouth of the River Adur, and i ...

in 1930. Some of her papers are at her alma mater.

Books

Her first book was published in 1909, and was entitled ''The Effects Produced by Economic Changes Upon Social Life in England in the Fifteenth Century''. She later published her second book ''Social Life in England in the Fifteenth Century'' in 1913 which used

misericords A misericord (sometimes named mercy seat, like the biblical object) is a small wooden structure formed on the underside of a folding seat in a church which, when the seat is folded up, is intended to act as a shelf to support a person in a par ...

in part as a source.Girton College Archive, Cambridge
Personal Papers of Annie Abram
GCPP Abram In 1919 she published her third and final book, ''English Life and Manners in the Later Middle Ages'' summarising medieval society based on her own research of primary sources. The book covers the time from the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

which started in 1348 and goes on to include the whole of the fifteenth century.review of English Life and Manners in the Later Middle Ages
Google, Retrieved 11 March 2017

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abram, Annie 1869 births 1930 deaths People from Clerkenwell British historians Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge