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Teaching Interests

Anna has taught on a range of modules on nineteenth and twentieth century British history, as well as study skills and research methods modules. On the BA History course, she currently teaches HIST 3122: Gender, Sexuality and Welfare: The Body in History and supervises dissertation students.

Anna welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD and MRes students whose research interests align with her own.

She is a Fellow of Advance HE.

Research Interests

Anna’s research interests are broadly in the history of women’s political activism. Her main focus at present is her FLF, .

She is also completing her first monograph, which draws on research undertaken as ‘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).

With Dr Ruth Davidson (IHR), Dr Lyndsey Jenkins (Oxford) and Farah Hussain (QMUL), Anna is co-editing Women, Politics and Power, 1945—1997 forthcoming with Oxford University Press, which will offer a new perspective on women’s participation in formal politics in this period.

From 2023 to 2024, she worked on 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), and, while a 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.

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 delivers 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 several museums in Worcester, and has given expert commentary to local and national radio.

Anna is open to enquiries from individuals and organisations interested in working with her on any of these research projects. She also welcomes enquiries from the media.

Recent Publications

Articles:

(with Charlotte Riley, Lyndsey Jenkins et al), ‘Labour Pains: Mothers and Motherhood on the British Left in the Twentieth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, (2025).

(with Ruth Davidson, Farah Hussain and Lyndsey Jenkins), ‘Introduction: Women’s post-war political activism in Britain: priorities, campaigns, and strategies’ Women’s History Review, (2024).

(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, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2025.

‘“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.

External Roles

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