Gayle Davis

Prof Davis (she/her) is currently deputy head of History and their exam board convenor. She has published widely on the social history of medicine, and in particularly the interface between reproductive health, clinical practice and the law in post-1950 Britain. She recently completed an AHRC-funded project with Professor Sally Sheldon (PI) of Kent Law School, 'The Abortion Act (1967): A Biography'.

Gayle’s research interests include:

• Social history of medicine
• Histories of reproductive health and sexuality
• Madness and psychiatry
• Death.

Her research projects have included:

• The Abortion Act (1967): A Biography (See https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abortion-act-1967/9830E2B4CC30278A6CD5EFF98C93EB02) (AHRC funded)
• The Social, Medical and Political Response to Infertility in Later Twentieth-Century Scotland (Wellcome Trust funded)
• Health, Sexuality and the State in Scotland, 1950-1980 (Wellcome Trust funded)
• The Scottish Way of Birth and Death: Vital Statistics, the Medical Profession and the State, 1854-1970 (See http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/scottishwayofbirthanddeath/) (Wellcome Trust funded)

Gayle’s recent publications include:

• Sally Sheldon, Gayle Davis, Jane O'Neill and Clare Parker, The Abortion Act 1967: A Biography of a UK Law (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
• Jessica Campbell and Gayle Davis, '"A Crisis of Transition": Menstruation and the Psychiatrisation of the Female Lifecycle in Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh', Open Library of Humanities, 8:1 (2022).
• Sally Sheldon, Jane O'Neill, Clare Parker and Gayle Davis, 'Too Much, Too Indigestible, Too Fast? The Decades of Struggle for Abortion Law Reform in Northern Ireland', Modern Law Review​​​, 83:4 (2020).
• Christabelle Sethna and Gayle Davis (eds), Abortion Across Borders: Transnational Travel and Access to Abortion Services (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).
• Sally Sheldon, Gayle Davis, Jane O'Neill and Clare Parker, 'The Abortion Act (1967): A Biography', Legal Studies, 39:1 (2019).
• Gayle Davis and Tracey Loughran (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History: Approaches, Contexts and Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).