Irene Joan Thirsk, CBE, FBA, FRHistS (née Watkins; 19 June 1922 – 3 October 2013[1]) was a British economic and social historian, specialising in the history of agriculture.
In 1952, she joined with H. P. R. Finberg in helping to found the Agricultural History Society, where she welcomed the contributions of folklorists, geographers and farmers.
She also noticed how cloth-making and hand-knitting in proto-industrialisation were more prevalent in regions where pastoralism played an important part (North Wiltshire, South Suffolk or West Yorkshire).
In her Ford Lectures in 1975, published in 1978,[11] she studied the history of important household objects which had been overlooked by her male peers, such as starch, needles, pins, cooking pots, kettles, frying pans, lace, soap, vinegar and stockings.
In 1978, she delivered an influential Stenton lecture[12] on the role of horses in pre-industrial English society, which was cited by Daniel Roche as an important source for his work on the same subject in French history.
[13] Towards the end of her life, she expanded on the inequalities that women historians face in a male-dominated field,[14] by noting that they are more likely to be assigned to tedious and scholarly tasks which benefit other researchers, but rarely their own career.
Her book Alternative Agriculture[19] explores how overlooked cultures like flax, hemp, rapeseed, and woad were cultivated in Early Modern England.
The author tries to dispel the idea that food of that era was dull and monotonous, as there was a wide range of herbs, plants, and animals eaten at that are no longer available today.