About the Project

Alternative Healers, 1834-1948, is a three-year research project based in the UK, jointly funded by the ESRC and AHRC and run by project staff at the Universities of Hertfordshire and Nottingham Trent. Its aim is to investigate the ‘unofficial’ medical economy in England and Wales between two key pieces of social legislation – the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the National Health Service Act of 1846. Join us as we explore who was providing these services, what they were actually offering, and why so many people chose to use them in an age of so-called medical enlightenment. We will also be looking at the ways that people chose to treat themselves, from folk remedies to family recipes, and from kitchen physic to hedgerow medicine. Use the links above to find out more about the project and keep up to date with the latest blogs.

Project Team

Professor Owen Davies:

  • Owen is one of Britain’s foremost experts on magic, witchcraft and folklore, including popular medical practices. He is currently Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire and Vice-President of the Folklore Society, and his recent publications include The Art of the Grimoire (YUP, 2023) and Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernatural in the Age of the Asylum (OUP, 2023). 

Professor Steven King:

  • Steve is one of the leading figures in the history of British and European welfare. Among many other things, his work has focused on the histories of disability, popular medicine and sickness in pauper narratives. He is currently Professor of Economic and Social History at Nottingham Trent University and his recent publications include Sickness, Medical Welfare and the English Poor (MUP, 2018) and Writing the Lives of the English Poor (MQUP, 2019).

Dr Debora Moretti:

  • Debora was for many years an archaeologist, but is currently a Research Associate on the Alternative Healers project based at the University of Hertfordshire. In 2018 she completed a PhD on witchcraft and shamanic practices in early-modern Italy which will soon be published as a full-length monograph. Her recent publications include ‘The Circulation and Exchange of Ideas, Myths, Legends and Oral Traditions in the Witchcraft Trials of Italy’, in M. Montesano (ed.), Folklore, Magic and Witchcraft (Routledge, 2021).

Dr Peter Jones:

  • Peter was Lecturer in the History of Medicine at Oxford Brookes University between 2008 and 2011, since when has worked on a number of research projects in British social history. He is currently a Research Associate on the Alternative Healers Project based at Nottingham Trent University, and his recent publications include In Their Own Write: Contesting the New Poor Law, 1834-1900 (MQUP, 2022 – as co-author, with S. King, P. Carter, N. Carter and C. Beardmore) and ‘Looking Through a Different Lens: Microhistory and the Workhouse Experience in 19th Century London’, Journal of Social History, 55:4 (2022).