Our People
Dr Kate Tiller OBE
Emerita/Emeritus Fellow, Fellow
Reader Emerita in English Local History
OBE, DL, BA, PhD Birmingham, MA Oxford, FSA, FRHistS
Founding Fellow 1990; Reader Emerita in English Local History; Visiting Fellow in English Local History, University of Leicester; Visiting Professor in History, University of Suffolk; Deputy Lieutenant of Oxfordshire. Appointed OBE for services to local history in the New Year’s Honours, 2019. Elected 1990; Senior Tutor 1994-6; Dean of Degrees 1995/6; Vice-President 1997/8; Emerita Fellow 2003
Kate Tiller is a Founding Fellow of the College. As Director of Studies in Local History at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education she planned and implemented the University’s first graduate degree course specifically designed for part-time students, the MSt (now MSc) in English Local History, introduced in 1993. Its students have played a major part in Kellogg’s development. In 1995 English Local History was one of three subjects included in the University’s first, pilot project for part-time research degrees, bringing Kellogg some of its earliest doctoral students. In 2001-2 the University made the part-time DPhil permanent. Kate Tiller was closely involved in securing practical support for part-time students through access to University library and IT facilities and financial support, including Kellogg’s first Graduate Studentship scheme.
Her academic fields are British social and local history, with particular research interests in English rural change post-1750, and in religion and community in Britain since 1730. She also writes on the academic practice of local history, with current interests in local histories of the 20th century and of remembrance and community. She continues to teach and supervise Master’s and DPhil students.
Recent publications include:
Religious Census Returns 1851 for Berkshire, Berkshire Record Society, 14 (2010), lx +133pp.
‘Chapel people in 1851: the example of Berkshire’, in C.Skidmore (ed.), Changing faces of chapel and chapel people (Chapels Society, Miscellany 2, 2010).
‘ The Place of Methodism. A study of three counties ‘ [ Berkshire. Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire], in P.Forsaith and M.Wellings (eds), Methodism and History (Oxford 2010).
‘Civil War 1642-1649’; ‘Early Modern Shops and Shopkeepers’; ‘Agriculture 1750-1970’; ‘Labouring Lives’; ‘Education in the Nineteenth Century’; ‘Church and Chapel in 1851’; and (with Chris Gilliam) ‘Poor Relief 1834-1948’; in K.Tiller and G.Darkes (eds), An Historical Atlas of Oxfordshire (2010, reprinted 2012).
‘ Local History and the Twentieth Century: an overview and suggested agenda’, in International Journal of Regional and Local Studies, Vol. 6 No.2 (2011).
‘Local History in England’ and ‘Local History in Ireland’ in C. Kammen and A .H. Wilson (eds), Encyclopaedia of Local History (Alta Mira Press, US, 2013)
Remembrance and Community: war memorials and local history (British Association for Local History, 2013)
‘Local History and the First World War’, in Past and Future, 15 (Institute of Historical Research, Spring/Summer 2014)
Ewelme School: a history and guide (Friends of Ewelme School, 2014)
Ewleme Church: a history and guide (Friends of Ewelme Church, 2013, updated reprint 2020) 24pp.
‘Anniversaries, war and local history’, in History News, Winter 2015 (American Association of State and Local History)
Parsonages ( Bloomsbury Shire Publications, 2016).
‘Priests and people: changing relationships in south Oxfordshire, 1780-1920’ in People, Places and Context (Berkshire Local History Association, 2016)
‘Patterns of Dissent: The Social and Religious Geography of Nonconformity in Three Counties’, International Journal of Regional and Local History, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2018), pp. 4-31
‘How to read a chapel’, The Chapels Society Journal, 3 (2018), pp.3-23
[The First Christopher Stell Memorial Lecture]
‘Oxford Diocese, Bishop Wilberforce and the 1851 Religious Census’, Oxoniensia, Vol. 83 (2108), pp.101-108.
‘Local History and the First World War: the centenary experience’, The Local Historian, Vol. 49, No.2, pp.90-107.
English Local History: an introduction ( Revised and updated 3rd edition, 307pp.) Published by Boydell and Brewer, August 2020.
Reviews have been undertaken in 2018-21 for the following journals: History, International Journal of Regional and Local History, Family and Community History, Midland History and Landscape History.
‘The American Association for State and Local History: US-UK links and comparisons’ in Local History News 137 (2020), pp. 11-12.
‘Communities of dissent: Methodist people, places and environments, 1850-1914’, Wesley Historical Society annual lecture 2021, in Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 63.6 (2022), 255-74..
‘ Communities of Dissent, 1850-1914: the Heyday of Chapel?’, in C.Skidmore and K.Tiller (eds), Communities of Dissent (Chapels Society, 2023), pp.3-24.
C.Skidmore and K.Tiller (eds) , Communities of Dissent 1850-1914 (Chapels Society Journal, Vol. 4, 2023), 151 pp.
‘Dennis Mills: an overview of his work and legacy’ in Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, Vol.53 (2023, for 2019), pp.21-28. [ Reflects on the relationship of his work to the historiography of local history and the challenges it poses in taking local history forward.]
Reviews have been undertaken for journals including Economic History Review, History, International Journal of Regional and Local History, Family and Community History, Midland History, Landscape History, Journal of Historical Geography, Southern History.
In 2023/4 she is editing and writing for an updated and expanded new edition of the Historical Atlas of Oxfordshire.
Other activities
Kate Tiller is a trustee of the Oxfordshire Record Society, chair 2017-23 and Honorary life vice-president, 2023. She serves on the on the editorial board of the International Journal of Regional and Local History (since 2023 the journal of Histories of People and Place). She is a member of the Council of the Chapels Society and was Project Director for the Family and Community History Society’s recent research network on Communities of Dissent. This resulted in a 2022 conference and a book published in 2023.