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Teaching Interests

Anna teaches on a range of modules on nineteenth and twentieth century British history, as well as study skills and research methods modules. She teaches the following courses on the BA History course:

• HIST 1102: Making of the Modern World
• HIST 1109: Britain Since the Reformation
• HIST 1110: Reconstructing the Past: Academic, Public and Popular History
• HIST 2101: Historical Research
• HIST 3122: Gender, Sexuality and Welfare: The Body in History

She’s currently second supervisor for two PhD students and Director of Studies for an MRes student. Please get in contact if you would be interested in studying for a PhD or MRes in women’s/gender history.

Anna is a Fellow of Advance HE.

Research Interests

Anna’s research interests are broadly in the history of women’s political activism and she’s currently working on three projects on this theme.

The first is ‘Madam Mayor: women’s local activism in England and Wales, 1918—1939’, funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research grant scheme (Grant number SRG22\220061). In this, Anna is exploring the local government careers of twenty women councillors across England and Wales in the interwar period. She is currently developing her first monograph, where she draws on their experiences to argue that, post-enfranchisement, local government was an extremely significant sphere in which women were politically active, and one which has been relatively absent from the existing historiography of women’s politics.

The second is an AHRC Funded Network, ‘Agency and Advocacy: Locating Women’s Grassroots Activism in England and Ireland, 1918 to the present’ (with colleagues from LSBU and the University of Kent). It works with contemporary women’s organisations to use their past histories to ensure their long-term viability.

With Dr Ruth Davidson (QMUL), Dr Lyndsey Jenkins (Oxford) and Farah Hussain (QMUL), Anna is working on two edited collections exploring women and politics in Britain after 1945. The first is a special edition of Women’s History Review, which examines women’s activism in extra-parliamentary organisations after the Second World War. The second is Women, Politics and Power, 1945—1997 currently under contract with Oxford University Press, which will offer a new perspective on women’s participation in formal politics in this period.

While working as an Associate Lecturer between 2020 and 2022, Anna was a Research Fellow on the project ‘Privilege, politics, pragmatism: Lady Denman and the women’s movement, 1914–1954’, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, with Professor Maggie Andrews. She was awarded an Early Career Fellowship by the Royal Historical Society, for a project on early women city councillors in Worcester.

Anna’s PhD examined women’s engagement with politics and public life in the post-enfranchisement era. Between 2016 and 2019, while undertaking her doctorate, she was involved in a number of projects connected to the First World War Centenary commemorations, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Anna is committed to public engagement, drawing on her experience of employment in the heritage sector, and she’s previously worked with BBC Radio 4 and History West Midlands to produce short films and podcasts based on her research. She regularly deliver talks to the public based on her research: recently, she’s spoken at the Black Country Living Museum, the Hay Festival, the National Memorial Arboretum and Tudor House Museum.

Recent Publications

Articles:

(with Maggie Andrews) 'Reading the Silences: Trudie Denman and the women’s movement in the first half of the twentieth century', Women's History Review (advanced access online 2024).

‘“That so ancient a city should have elected a woman as mayor is a sign of the times”: Women and Local Government in Worcester before 1939’, Midland History, Vol. 48, No. 3, (2023).

‘“Work in the Housewives’ Service, just like in the home, seems never to be done”: The ‘practical politics’ of the Women’s Voluntary Service in the Second World War’, Women’s History Review, (advanced access online 2023).

‘Introduction: Homes, Food and Domesticity: Rethinking the Housewife in Twentieth Century Britain’, Women’s History Review, (advanced access online 2023), with Maggie Andrews and Janis Lomas.‘Women and Politics in Smethwick, 1918-1929’, Midland History, Vol. 47, No. 2, (2022).

‘The Missing Two Million: The Exclusion of Working-class Women from the 1918 Representation of the People Act’, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, Vol. 23, No. 1, (2018).

Chapters:

‘A “practical” politics? Suffrage, Infant Welfare and Women’s Politics in Walsall, 1910-1939’, in: A. Hughes-Johnson & L. Jenkins, The Politics of Women's Suffrage: Local, National and International Dimensions, (London: New Historical Perspectives, 2021).

‘Childhood Interrupted: Work and Schooling in Rural Worcestershire’, with M. Andrews, H. Carter, & L. Davies, in: M. Andrews, N. C. Fleming, & M. Morris (eds.), Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Anna has reviewed books for Twentieth Century British History, Women’s History Review and Women’s History Today.

She has also contributed to popular history books on the suffrage movement and women’s history, such as A History of Women in 100 Objects (History Press, 2018) and written for students and general audiences in magazines and journals. She is open to enquiries from similar publications and the media.

Membership of Professional Bodies

• Fellow, Advance HE
• Women’s History Network (steering committee member, 2019—2023); Deputy Convenor 2023—2024
• Associate Fellow, Royal Historical Society
• Member, Social History Society

External Roles

• Visiting Research Fellow, Mile End Institute, Queen Mary, University of London
• Steering Committee member, AHRC Network, ‘Agency and Advocacy: Locating Women’s Grassroots Activism in England and Ireland, 1918 to the present’, London South Bank University
• Peer Reviewer, Women's History Review