The Medlicott Medal 2024 will be awarded to Professor Catherine Hall

Catherine Hall is Emerita Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London. She has a long-established academic record in feminist history and empire and post-colonial history. She was a professor of history at UCL during a key development period and was the principal director of two key research projects that led to the creation of the Legacies of British Slave Ownership Centre, also at UCL. The outcome of those projects and the centre was the creation of a database that was the culmination of a huge research project which enabled anyone of any background, race or identity to explore their own personal connections to the slave societies of the Caribbean.

Her contribution to history and to the understanding of an individual’s own relationship to the people and communities of the past is one of the most important for modern history. Through her work and collaboration over the decades she has been responsible for helping to establish feminist and gender history in the UK. She then went on to create one of the most ambitious, yet important research projects on the histories of race and slavery for modern historians. Importantly all of her work is not just for the world of universities but is fundamental in shaping public discourse and knowledge about daily life and interpersonal relations, across time and in the present, for all those living in modern Britain. 

She was born in Kettering, but her family moved to Leeds when she was three years old. She is widely reported as growing up in a nonconformist household with radical left parents. This helped to shape her way of questioning the world and how the past is interpreted and presented. She studied at Sussex University and Birmingham before going on to work at Northeast London Polytechnic, Essex University and later at UCL.

In preparation for her talk at the awards evening in July when she will be presented with the medal, we caught up with her to talk about her career – you can read the interview below.

HA Members can register interest to attend the Medlicott lecture on 10 July in Central London, subject to availability. Please email ceo@history.org.uk quoting your HA Membership number.