Announcing the Meikle Studentship in Scottish History

The School of History, Classics and Archaeology is very grateful to Professor Meikle for bequeathing funds to support Scottish History.  Thanks to her generosity, we are creating a new PhD Studentship, covering home fees and a stipend at the UKRI rate for three years. Applications for the studentship will shortly be invited from applicants for full-time, on-campus PhD study, in a subject relating to Scottish History, beginning in 2027-28.

Maureen Meikle was twice a graduate of the University of Edinburgh in History, completing her PhD in 1989 with a thesis entitled ‘Lairds and Gentlemen: A Study of the Landed Families of the Eastern Anglo-Scottish Borders, circa 1540-1603’. A revised version of her thesis appeared as A British Frontier? Lairds and Gentlemen in the Eastern Borders, 1540-1603 (2004).

Professor Meikle was Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Sunderland from 1995 to 2009, and then Professor of Early Modern History at Leeds Trinity University until her retirement in 2018.  As well as continuing her research in early modern Scottish history, she worked on the history of north-eastern England, co-authoring with Christine M. Newman Sunderland and its Origins: Monks to Mariners in 2007. In 2013, Professor Meikle published a magisterial summation of her expertise in sixteenth-century Scottish history, The Scottish People, 1490-1625.  She was a pioneer in Scottish women’s history, and at the time of her death was writing a biography of Anna of Denmark, the consort of James VI and I.

On retiring from Leeds Trinity University, Professor Meikle settled in Edinburgh, maintaining her links with the north-east of England as a vice-president of the Surtees Society.  She was an Honorary Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, and a regular participant in research seminars and conferences.

Her bequest will give future PhD students the opportunity to follow in Professor Meikle’s footsteps, by pursuing new research in Scottish History.  The studentship will contribute to the School’s other research activities in Scottish History, including the regular seminar series and the Fennell Forum and Lecture for 2026-27.