Clare Gittings obituary

My sister Clare Gittings, who has died of a stroke aged 71, was a sympathetic student from her teenage years of the way that society treats death. At 16, she published a successful guide, Brasses and Brass Rubbing (1970), that recorded its many forms – from skeletons to the “wild man of the woods”. After an MLitt at Oxford University (1978), she wrote a pioneering study, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England (1984), showing how death shifted from a social event often celebrated by “merry mourners” to a less communal approach. Clare had a wide knowledge of church memorials, and was especially interested in those verses written with genuine emotion by the widow rather than by a scholar or priest. Her studies were offset by a lively approach to humanity. “Very splendid”, was her invariable comment on the impressive or the unusual. She was a cheerful talker with family and friends and a much-loved aunt. Born in Chichester, West Sussex, Clare grew up in an intensely literary environment with her parents, the biographers Robert Gittings and Jo Manton. She went to Midhurst grammar school, then took a degree in English and American studies at the University of East Angli