Charlotte Macdonald


Charlotte Jean Macdonald is a New Zealand historian. After studying as an undergraduate at Massey University, she earned her PhD from University of Auckland and is now a professor at Victoria University of Wellington.

Early life

Macdonald has a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Arts from Massey University, and a PhD from the University of Auckland.

Professional career

Macdonald is a Professor of History at Victoria University of Wellington. Her areas of expertise include: 19th Century colonies and empires; New Zealand history; gender and women's history; and cultural history of bodies, modernity, sport and spectating. Her work has been marked by innovative approaches to historical research methodology and story-telling. For example, in her 1990 book A Woman of Good Character, she analysed the data connected to the lives of over 4,000 women, in combination with more conventional historical archival work, to understand a large migrant group: single women who came to New Zealand in the 19th century. She has also edited a number of collections of New Zealand women's historical primary material, greatly increasing the availability of such material.
She wrote the entry on 'Women and Men' in New Zealand history.
She was awarded a Marsden Fund grant in 2014 for a project entitled Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Settler: Garrison and Empire in the Nineteenth Century, which has developed into the project. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi in 2017.

Selected works