Dr Jessica Ayres

Researcher | Historian | Archive professional

My research, publications and talks

Here you will find more out about my areas of research interest, and output, including published pieces of work, citations, and talks I have given.  

I completed my PhD at the University of York in 2023. My thesis, Women in London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1720, focused on the ways that women navigated and interacted with corporate and civic institutions, and explored the relationship between administrative process and record keeping.

Women in London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1720, Unpublished PhD thesis, 2023.

  • Professional Sustainability: the Level 7 Apprenticeship – Archives and Records Association Annual Conference, 2024
  • Working Widows in Seventeenth-Century London – The London Archives, September 2024
  • Finding Women in London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1720 – Archives for London, September 2023
  • Mothers as Guardians in London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1720 – Foundling Museum, January 2023
  • Mothers as Guardians in London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1720 – Mothers and Fathers in the Pre-Modern world c.1000-1800, University of Cambridge, April 2022
  • Women in the Financial Records of London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1694 – Economic History Society Annual Conference, University of Cambridge, April 2022
  • Widows and Credit in the London Court of Orphans’ Probate Inventories, 1660-1720 – Women, Money and Markets 1600-1900, University of Zurich, June 2021
  • Chains of Obligation: Widows, Money and Credit in London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1720 – Cabinet of Curiosities Autumn-Term Colloquium, University of York, October 2020
  • The Women of London’s Court of Orphans and the Orphan Act, 1682-1694 – History Lab, Institute of Historical Research, January 2021
  • Women’s Petitions to London’s Court of Orphans, 1660-1740 – Female Experience in Early Modern England, University of Auckland, November 2020