Denver Gadd, BA History

I joined Roehampton University in the summer of 2023, and I got accepted on to a different course. However, after just one year I decided to switch my course to History.

I had a meeting with the leader of the course, Dr Andrew Wareham, and he accepted me on to the History course. I had a successful first year and then in the spring of my second year began the Applied Humanities module.

I received an email from my lecturer Dr Caroline Sharples regarding a placement opportunity at The National Archives in Kew. After having a meeting with Andrew in Kew I was accepted on to the placement.

I started my placement on 3 March 2026. After obtaining my reader’s card at The National Archives, I gained access to the map room. From there I helped Andrew reading through 1660s documents relating to Chester. We checked the original documents against the draft digital edition to identify any remaining errors, and we looked up women’s names who were not widows or mistresses.

On the following two Tuesdays (10 and 17 March) we undertook research on women in the Hertfordshire 1662-1663 return. We looked at how many widows, mistresses, ladies and other women there with status titles there were, and calculated the mean average of the wealth of each of these categories. We also looked at possible female householders, and realised that around one in ten households were headed by women in the county.

The final day of my placement was for the launch of the Hertfordshire Hearth Tax edition on March 19, and a week later I received confirmation on the Chester 1664 assessment that I am now an officially published author! 

The event occurred on Thursday 26 March at Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies in the old county council building at Hitchin.

The organisation was launched between University of Roehampton and Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies to highlight work of the British Academy Hearth Tax Research Project in partnership with ZIM at Graz on the Hertfordshire Digital Hearth Tax edition 1662-1663.

It began with looking at Hertfordshire documents dating back to the 16^th century. These were very interesting to read and I was blown away by the amount of detail on the documents, in particular the map with the details of all trees.

We had to handle the documents with extra caution as these documents were very old and fragile. Me and several Hertfordshire historians spent 20 minutes looking  at the vast variety of documents. We all had fascinating and engaging conversations about History.

After that we all entered the main library area where we had free refreshments and Hertfordshire History books were on sale. We had time for a quick tea and biscuit and then headed to the lecture space.

The lectures started, when we heard from Chris Bennett, Hertfordshire County Archivist. Chris was nice, well-spoken and humorous. Despite only having 15 minutes, he gave me and the historians a clear history of the archives.

Dr Andrew Wareham, Director of the Hearth Tax Research Project, then discussed the launch of the Hearth Tax Hertfordshire Digital edition. Despite the technical difficulties every historian was fully engaged with the project that Andrew was explaining. After Andrew gave his lecture, he answered questions accurately and precisely. 

We were all very grateful to the hospitality of HALS. Chris commented that he would look at the site on way back home on the train, demonstrating the impact of the website already.

Find out more about opportunities with our BA History here.