Dr. Schreiber explores charity and relief in 16th Century England and Scotland

Grant Schreiber's dissertation, “‘For ye haue the poore alwaies with you’: Experiments in Charity in post-Reformation Oxford and Aberdeen, 1560-1640,” challenges prevailing national narratives about the development of poor relief schemes in the aftermath of the religious changes of the sixteenth century in England and Scotland. Using civil, religious, and financial records, it compares experimentation with new forms of charity in the cities of Oxford and Aberdeen in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The dissertation analyzes changes in institutional charity, regularized relief, discipline and correction, and times of crisis in the two cities and concludes that the level of success in each runs counter to traditional historiography, underscoring the need to understand early modern poor relief in its local social, political, and economic contexts.

Grant's defence was held on Monday, January 5, 2026 at the University of Guelph — the first day back of the Winter 2026 semester! His supervisors were Dr. Susannah Ferreira and Dr. Cathryn Spence with internal/external member, Dr. James Fraser, all from the University of Guelph. The external examiner was Dr. Carrie Euler, University of Central Michigan.

"Applying for teaching positions and postdocs, working to publish articles and a monograph based on my dissertation, are current projects," remarks Dr. Schreiber. "I am also hoping to develop a digital humanities project on poor migration in early modern Scotland and England, based in part on my doctoral research."

Over his career at Guelph, Grant was engaged in the community, helping to organize the 30th annual Tri-U graduate history conference in 2024 that was held at Guelph. He has also presented at other conferences, including at Tri-U conferences. He has a forthcoming article to be published in Scottish Archives based on a section of his colloquium paper.