Kate Tiller
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Kate Tiller OBE DL FSA FRHistS (1949–30 May 2024)[1] was an academic in the History Faculty at Oxford University, Reader emerita in English local history and a founding Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford.[2]
Her academic fields were British social and local history, with particular research interests in English rural change post-1750, and in religion and community in Britain since 1730. She also wrote on the academic practice of local history, with research interests in local histories of the 20th century and of remembrance and community. She taught on graduate and outreach programmes and to supervise Master's and DPhil students in Chartism and Methodism.[2] Her book English Local History: An Introduction, first published in 1987, has been described as "a standard work" on the subject;[1] the third edition was published in 2020.[3]
She served on the Council of the Chapels Society, a registered charity, and was the academic director and coordinator of the "Communities of Dissent" project run by the Family and Community Historical Research Society (FACHRS) between 2017 and 2020.[3]
Tiller chaired the Victoria County History for Oxfordshire from 2003 to 2021.[4] She also chaired the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board (2008-2012) and the Oxfordshire Record Society.[5]
The only woman among the founding fellows of Kellogg College, Oxford elected in 1990, Tiller went on to serve as the college's academic dean, senior tutor and vice president. Tiller planned and implemented the first graduate degree specifically designed for part-time students at the University of Oxford: the Master of Studies in English local history, which began in 1993. Two years later, a part-time DPhil in the same subject began to be offered.[6]
Tiller completed her doctorate on post-Chartist working-class politics at the University of Birmingham in 1979. The same year she joined the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, being appointed a university lecturer in local history in 1984. In 1999 she became reader in English local history.[6]
