My first encounter with Helen Taylor Whilst researching my M.A. dissertation on the feminist Irish nationalist, Anna Parnell, a brief reference to Helen Taylor in a newspaper piqued my interest. It was written in 1909 by the Irish nationalist Jennie…
Author: Lisa Berry-Waite
Call for Papers: Women’s History Scotland Annual Conference
Women’s History in Scotland: Then and Now Friday 18th September 2026; Online via Zoom Women’s History Scotland are delighted to announce a call for papers for a one-day conference taking place on Friday 18th September 2026. This conference will be…
Chronicling a Forgotten War Front: Dorothy Newhall’s Diary – Carol Coles
On the 30 September 1918, sanitary inspector Dorothy Newhall wrote in her diary; ‘Terrible excitement today! Peace terms sign with Bulgaria to evacuate Serbia!’[i] Dorothy was on a brief visit to Salonika (now Thessaloniki) when she wrote this entry and…
Hidden Heroines: Secret Stitching on the Home Front – Esther Dobson and Dr Elspeth King
‘Not all heroes wear capes’, a common refrain during and since the Covid pandemic, but the ideas behind that phrase go back much further and certainly played a part in the Home Front during the Second World War. Churchill instructed…
Anna Maria Garthwaite: One of the few 18th century British female silk designers – Elizabeth Strange
This blog post focuses on Anna Maria Garthwaite who was a silk designer in 18th century England. A silk designers’ purpose was to create designs that showed weavers what colours and decoration they should weave on their loom. Anna specialised…
A three-generation family story through Gwent Archives’ collection – Bec Howarth
Whilst preparing social media content for LGBTQ+ history month I came across the Welsh County LGBTQ+ timelines. Scanning the Newport timeline, one individual caught my eye – Amelia Vella. The timeline wrote how Amelia’s mother, Fanny Vella, was in the…
The Prejudice of Welfare for Women Under the Poor Laws – Shagnick Bhattacharya
In April 1818, Catherine Macknally, described in the parish records of St Andrew, Plymouth, as a ‘common prostitute’, was apprehended while wandering and begging with her two illegitimate children—both under two years of age.[1] Examined before two justices of the…
‘The Finding Katherine Project’: a window into the life of Scottish suffragist, Katherine Walker Lindsay – Katherine Ingram
I first learned of Katherine Walker Lindsay in early 2025 when I was examining the letter books of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Society for Women’s Suffrage (GWSSWS), a branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS),…
‘A Word to the Wives’: Spousal Letters and the Politics of Persuasion, 1959-74 – Harvey Bone and Tabatha Burden
During a seven-week internship at the University of Oxford, undergraduates Harvey Bone and Tabatha Burden worked on a project researching and assessing data from the 1959 and February 1974 elections, feeding into ongoing work being done by Dr. Lyndsey Jenkins…






