Clare Gittings 1954-2025
Just before Christmas, Clare Gittings – known to many of us as a historian of early modern death - died from a severe stroke. Her classic work, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England (1984, re-published 2023) charted how modern concern with the individual gradually alienated death from English society; the greater the emphasis on personal uniqueness, the more intense the anguish when an individual dies. Always interested in how the past illuminates the present, she collaborated with scholars from other disciplines such as archaeology, sociology and anthropology, and was instrumental in British death studies emerging in the 1990s as a truly interdisciplinary field.
Clare taught about death through paintings, especially portraits. While always making clear she was not an art historian, much of her working life involved teaching people to ‘read’ paintings and what they tell us about life and death. A passionate, enthusiastic and inspiring teacher, she taught thousands of primary school children on school visits to the National Portrait Gallery where she worked for many years as Education Officer, and dozens of university students (on Masters degrees in Death & Society at the Universities of Reading and Bath) who simply adored her. She was the perfect co-editor (with Peter Jupp) of Death in England: an illustrated history (1999).
In her twenties she had worked as a primary school teacher and also worked in teacher training with Voluntary Service Overseas in the Maldives. Latterly in retirement she engaged in local historical research in Hertford where she and Malcolm lived.
As well as a valued colleague and teacher, Clare was for several of us a dear friend. She was an integral part of the establishment of CDAS and we greatly valued and appreciated her ongoing support for the centre and its members. As Malcolm puts it, ‘Clare touched many hearts across her different fields.’
If you would like details of Clare’s funeral please contact Kate Woodthorpe (k.v.woodthorpe@bath.ac.uk).