John Hatcher Biography

John Hatcher is Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Cambridge, Vice-Master of Corpus Christi College, and will shortly become Chairman of the Faculty of History.

For many years he was editor of the 'Economic History Review', the leading international journal in the field.

John Hatcher graduated from the London School of Economics, where he obtained a B. Sc (Econ) with First Class Honours while studying as an evening student and working as a salesman for J&J Colman & Co. He stayed on to complete a Ph. D and then taught at the University of Kent before moving to Cambridge.

John Hatcher has written a host of books and articles on the social and economic history of medieval and early modern England. His publications range from a history of the British coal industry, to acclaimed surveys of English history from the Norman Conquest to the Black Death, to modelling economic development. But he is perhaps best known for his work on population history and the impact of Black Death and other diseases in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. His notable books and articles in this field include 'Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348-1530', 'England in the aftermath of the Black Death',and 'Mortality in the fifteenth century'.