20 Facts About Margaret Spufford

Margaret Spufford was Professor of Social and Local History at the University of Roehampton from 1994 to 2001.

Margaret Spufford later returned to university and studied in the Department for English Local History at the University of Leicester.

Margaret Spufford graduated in 1963 with a Master of Arts degree, having achieved a distinction.

Margaret Spufford remained to complete post-graduate research and completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1970.

Margaret Spufford began her academic career as a research fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, in 1969.

Margaret Spufford was initially a senior research associate at the History faculty.

Margaret Spufford continued teaching a large group of doctoral students, who called themselves 'The Spuffordians' and came to her from as far away as Canada, California, Australia and Japan because of her reputation, based on her publications.

Margaret Spufford spent two terms in Japan, the second as guest of the Japan Academy, overseeing a cooperative research project on local history in Japan.

Margaret Spufford started publishing in 1960 and had already published two smaller books and ten articles before her most influential book Contrasting Communities was published in 1974.

Margaret Spufford later extended her work on education and literacy from rural England to other parts of Europe.

Margaret Spufford herself contributed an introductory chapter, a small book in itself, summarising her particular views on the importance of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Margaret Spufford was a profoundly religious person and became an oblate of the Anglican Benedictine Malling Abbey in West Malling.

Margaret Spufford wrote a notable book, Celebration, on the problem of pain and Christian belief, out of her own experience and that of her daughter.

Margaret Spufford set up a hostel for students who were so disabled that they would not otherwise have been able to come to university.

Margaret Spufford had struggled with physical health issues for all her adult life.

Margaret Spufford survived cancer and high and labile blood pressure.

Margaret Spufford was diagnosed with vascular dementia and Lewy bodies dementia in autumn 2011.

Margaret Spufford then became too ill to complete the revision of her Clothing of the Common Sort which was prepared for publication by her co-author, Dr Susan Mee, the last of her many research students.

Margaret Spufford was awarded a higher doctorate, Doctor of Letters, by the University of Cambridge in 1986.

Margaret Spufford was given Honorary Doctorates by the Open University and the University of Keele.