Professor Bernard Harris
Social Work and Social Policy (Subject)
Personal statement
My research is concerned with various aspects of the social history of health and welfare since circa 1700. I have worked on a wide range of topics within this field, including work on the history of height, morbidity and mortality; unemployment and poverty; the relationship between statutory and voluntary welfare provision; and the origins and development of the British welfare state.
Prize And Awards
- International Conference on the History of Insurance in a Global Perspective Best Paper Award
- Recipient
- 22/7/2022
- Fellow of the Acdemy of Social Sciences
- Recipient
- 20/10/2016
- PROSE Award for Excellence in Economics (2011)
- Recipient
- 2011
Qualifications
I was awarded a BA (Hons) in History by the University of Cambridge in 1983 and obtained my PhD (also in History) from Birkbeck College, London, in 1989.
I held a Temporary Lectureship in the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Bristol from 1987 to 1991, when I joined the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Southampton. I joined the School of Applied Social Sciences (now the School of Social Work and Social Policy) at the University of Strathclyde in September 2013.
Publications
- The legacy of voluntarism : charitable funding in the early NHS
- Harris Bernard, Cresswell Rosemary
- Economic History Review (2023)
- https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13280
- Sickness experience in England, 1870-1949
- Hinde Andrew, Gorsky Martin, Guntupalli Aravinda, Harris Bernard
- Standard of Living Studies in Economic History (2022) (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06477-7_4
- Did statutory insurance improve the welfare of Swedish workers? The statutory workplace accident insurance act of 1916
- Andersson Lars-Fredrik, Eriksson Liselotte, Harris Bernard
- Labor History Vol 63, pp. 210-233 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2022.2070734
- Social security, full employment and voluntary action : the three pillars of William Beveridge's welfare society
- Harris Bernard
- Social Policy and Administration Vol 56, pp. 203-216 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12776
- The 1918/19 influenza pandemic and Covid-19 in Ireland and the UK
- Gorsky Martin, Harris Bernard, Marsh Patricia, Milne Ida
- Historical Social Research Vol 33 (2021)
- Anthropometric history and the measurement of wellbeing
- Harris Bernard
- Vienna Yearbook of Population Research Vol 19, pp. 1-33 (2021)
- https://doi.org/10.1553/populationyearbook2021.rev02
Research Interests
I am currently working on a number of different topics, including the following:
- Various issues associated with the use of anthropometric indicators to study the health and wellbeing of past populations
- The history of sickness and morbidity
- The impact of sanitary intervention on mortality decline (with Andrew Hinde, University of Southampton)
- The comparative history of social policy in the different parts of the UK and the English-speaking world
Professional Activities
- History of the NHS
- Recipient
- 23/8/2023
- Sanitary investment and the decline of mortality in England and Wales, 1817-1914
- Speaker
- 21/2/2018
- Evaluation Panel, Eudaimonia Institute, University of Oulu, Finland (Event)
- Advisor
- 25/10/2017
- International Union for the Scientific Study of Population
- Speaker
- 11/7/2017
- HEDG Workshop on Public interventions, health and population in history and 8th Annual Workshop on Growth, History and Development
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 15/6/2017
- PhD viva
- Examiner
- 26/5/2017
Projects
- Border Crossings: Charity and voluntarism in Britain's mixed economy of health care since 1948
- Harris, Bernard (Principal Investigator) Harris, Bernard (Principal Investigator) Stewart, Ellen (Principal Investigator) Stewart, Ellen (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2020 - 30-Jan-2024
- Border Crossings: Charity and voluntarism in Britain's mixed economy of health care since 1948
- Harris, Bernard (Principal Investigator) Harris, Bernard (Principal Investigator) Stewart, Ellen (Principal Investigator) Stewart, Ellen (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2020 - 30-Jan-2024
- Gender and morbidity: Individual sickness trajectories of women and men in Sweden during the first half of the 20th century (supported by the Swedish Research Council)
- Harris, Bernard (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2018 - 30-Jan-2022
- Equally Safe in Higher and Further Education
- Harris, Bernard (Principal Investigator) McCarry, Melanie (Co-investigator) McGoldrick, Roisin (Co-investigator) Pilkington, Kevin (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2016 - 30-Jan-2019
Contact
Professor
Bernard
Harris
Social Work and Social Policy (Subject)
Email: bernard.harris@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 444 8646