As we reach the end of a particularly challenging year for so many different reasons, the Christmas break provides a timely opportunity to recharge our batteries. The end of the calendar year also offers a moment to reflect on those who have supported us both at home and work.
This December is especially poignant for everyone at the Wilberforce Institute as, having seen the loss of Professor Trevor Burnard, a dear former director, we now have to say goodbye to a member of the team who has been with us since we began. Dr Judith Spicksley is retiring after almost twenty years of involvement in the Institute. In this blog we salute her for this long-standing support during which time she proved to be a key member of the team and a tireless advocate of our fight for social justice.
Judith was no stranger to the Institute or its people when she joined the staff formerly for the first time in 2007 on a Nuffield Fellowship. A triple graduate of Hull, she had been taught and supervised on the Economic and Social History programme by our founding director (Professor David Richardson) and founding Deputy Director (Professor Mike Turner). Having been invited to a gathering of researchers about the Institute at the University in 2005, she was literally involved with its research direction from the beginning.
Judith held positions at the universities of Cambridge (2005 to 2007) and York (2010-2017), and was awarded a number of fellowships over the course of her academic career - from the Economic and Social Research Council (2001-2004), the Nuffield Foundation (2007-2010), and the Leverhulme Trust (2018) - before securing a Lectureship in Economic History in the Institute in 2018. Her pioneering research, recently accepted for publication by Cambridge University Press, provides an entirely new perspective on why societies sanctioned unfreedom in the past, and why slavery, as we know it, had to be abolished. Judith became a key part of the scholarly community, both at home and abroad, conducting research in several languages, delivering papers in Africa, North America and Europe, and helping organise conferences, symposia and workshops.
Alongside her academic research, Judith was keen to supporting fellow academics, especially postgraduate researchers and early career fellows at Hull and further afield, in her role as Secretary of the Economic History Society’s Womens Committee. Closer to home Judith mentored, both formally and informally, the Institute’s PhD students. She led two University of Hull PhD research clusters, the first on forced child migration and the second on contemporary slavery. Both enabled the Institute to attract six brilliant PhD students who flourished under Judith’s care and support. As a result, she was nominated for the 'Most outstanding contribution to the Postgraduate student experience’ award at the Inspired in Hull Awards 2023.
Judith has also organised our annual lecture programme since 2009. Ever the consummate host, she ensured speakers from across the UK and further afield always found a supportive environment to share their research. From organising travel, to an endless set of perceptive questions, to post-event hospitality, Judith became the intellectual and social glue that has made us a key centre for slavery studies.
As Judith’s longest serving colleague (we met in 2007) it falls to me to thank her here for her endless care, support, friendship and advice. A true pillar of our team, she has also been a dear friend whose support has been steadfast. Each and every one of the team, both past and present, wish you every success for the future.
Thanks, duck, for everything!!
Nick
Dr Nick Evans, Deputy Director, Wilberforce Institute