Members of the VAHS’s Transnational Histories Network are engaged in research exploring the history of charity, campaigning and civil society across national borders. They include those listed below, who welcome contact from anyone interested in their specific area of research. If you are interested in joining the network or would like more general information about the network, please contact
Dr Thomas Adam is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington (USA). He specializes in the history of philanthropy in Germany, England, Canada and the United States and the intercultural transfer from the beginning of the nineteenth century up to World War I. Among his recently publications are Buying Respectability: Philanthropy and Urban Society in Transnational Perspective, 1840s to 1930s (2009) and Stipendientiftungen und der Zugang zu hoeherer Bilduing in Deutschland von 1800 bis 1960 (2008). He can be contacted by email at
Dr Kristine Alexander is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in History at the University of Western Ontario (Canada). She is working on a book about the Girl Guides, imperialism and internationalism in interwar England, Canada and India, and is also interested in children and philanthropy during the First World War. She can be contacted via academia.edu or at
Anna Bocking-Welch is a research student supervised by Dr Elizabeth Buettner at the University of York (UK). She is currently working on her doctoral thesis, which is on the topic of ‘Local, National, and Global networks: Voluntary Public Engagement with the British Empire and Commonwealth During an Era of Decolonisation’. She can be contacted either via academia.edu or at
Dr Georgina Brewis is a Research Officer at the University of London’s Institute of Education and Research Associate at the Institute of Volunteering Research (UK). Since her PhD on ‘An imperial ideal of service: Britian and India before 1914′, she has been engaged in research on student volunteering, international volunteering and NGOs. She is publicity secretary for the VAHS and you can be contacted via twitter, academia.edu or at
Dr Tom Crook is Senior Lecturer in Modern British History at Oxford Brookes University (UK). His research focuses on formation of the modern liberal governance in the nineteenth century, especially in the area of public health. This is something he is increasingly considering in transnational and ‘trans-local’ perspective. He can be contacted at
Dr James Crossland is Lecturer in Modern History at Murdoch University (Australia). His work on the International Committee of the Red Cross is part of his on-going research into the diplomatic relationship between non-government institutions and military/political bodies in times of conflict and the problems of balancing the implementation of International Humanitarian Law with ‘military necessity’. He can be contacted on +61 8 9360 2024 or at
Professor Virginia Crossman is Professor of Modern Irish History at Oxford Brookes University (UK). She has researched and published on rural unrest, poverty, local government, health and welfare in Ireland’s past. She is Director of the Centre for the History of Welfare and is interested in placing her research in a wider context by exploring policy transfer in European approaches to welfare. She can be contacted at
Dr Ruth Davidson completed her PhD in 2011 at Royal Holloway, University of London (UK), which focused on the London suburb of Croydon to explore the post-suffrage networks of women involved in philanthropic, campaigning and social organisations. Her research on civil society activism in the early twentieth-century restructuring of women’s citizenship has increased recognised the importance of not only local, but also national and international networks, such as the Quaker Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom . She can be contacted by email at
Professor Barry Doyle is Head of History, English, Languages and Media at the University of Huddersfield (UK) where he is currently establishing a Centre for the History of Public Health and Medicine. His research focuses on urban governance and the development of urban institutions in the nineteenth and twentieth century with a particular interest in hospitals and hospital politics. He is currently completing a book for Chatto & Pickering on The Politics of Hospital Provision in Early Twentieth Century Britain. He is also undertaking comparative research into the development of hospital systems in England and France in the nineteenth and twentieth century, with a special focus the pre-welfare state system. He can be contacted at
Dr Tanya Evans is a Research Fellow in History at Macquarie University (Australia). Her work examines the social and cultural history of family and poverty since the eighteenth century. Her current project is a transnational history of motherhood in early colonial Australia and Britain. She can be contacted at
Dr Mark Freeman is Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow (UK). His research focuses on poverty, Qaukerism and adult education in modern Britain. He can be contacted via twitter or at
Dr George Campbell Gosling is a Research Associate at Oxford Brookes University (UK), where he recently completed his PhD on ‘Charity and Change in the Mixed Economy of Healthcare in Bristol, 1918-1948′. His postdoctoral research examines the history of medical charity and social work in Britain and beyond. He is also a VAHS committee member and editor of its weekly blog. He can be contacted via twitter, academia.edu or at
Professor Norbert Götz is Professor of History at Södertörn University (Sweden), where he works to strengthen the international networks of the Institute of Contemporary History. His research interests lie in European civil society and welfare regimes, with a particular focus on the Nordic and Baltic regions. He can be contacted at
Dr Matthew Grant is a Senior Lecturer in History at Teesside University (UK). He is the author of After the Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain, 1945-68 (Palgrave, 2010) and editor of The British Way in Cold Warfare (Continuum, 2009). His current research examines the role of the cold war on domestic life in Britain, in particular the role of voluntary action in shaping the home front history of the conflict. You can hear a podcast of his 2010 VAHS seminar and he can be contacted at
Dr Peter Grant is Lecturer in Voluntary Sector Management at Cass Business School, City University London (UK). His work has focused on grantmaking and governance in the voluntary sector, while his historical interests include charity during the First World War. He is Chair of the VAHS and can be contacted at
Professor M.H.D. (Marco) van Leeuwen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands). He is currently working on three relevant projects: Giving in the Golden Age on Dutch charity 1550-1820; national campaigns for good causes worldwide, 1950-present; and mutual aid in the Netherlands 16th-20th centuries. His publications include The Logic of Charity: Amsterdam, 1800-1850 (2000). He can be contacted by email at
Dr Carmen M. Mangion is a lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London (UK) and a Researcher on The Birkbeck Pain Project. She is the author of Contested Identities: Catholic Women Religious in nineteenth-century England and Wales (2008) and has edited with Laurence Lux-Sterritt a collection of essays entitled Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200-1900. Her current research looks at nineteenth-century Catholicism and health care in Britain and examines the transnational links between women’s religious institutes. She is a VAHS committee member and can be contacted at
Professor Dominique Marshall is Acting Chair of History at Carleton University (Canada). Her research and writing focuses on the history of humanitarian aid and children’s rights in Québec, Canada and the wider world. She can be contacted by email at
Dr Ian Miller is an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin (Ireland). His research focuses upon the history of science and medicine in both Britain and Ireland, c.1800-1950. Aspects of his current and future research focus upon the role of voluntary groups in managing nutritional problems within working class communities and in relieving the impact of unemployment upon health. He can be contacted at
Dr Glen O’Hara is Reader in the History of Public Policy at Oxford Brookes University (UK). The primary focus of his research is governance and national identity in postwar Britain. He is also interested in transnational relations and policy transfers, such as those between Britain and Scandinanvian welfare regimes. He can be contacted via twitter or at
Dr Kevin O’Sullivan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College Dublin (Ireland) and presently Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham (UK). Following his first book on Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire (Manchester University Press, 2012), he is working on another: ‘The Humanitarian International: Aid, NGOs and Western Society, 1968-85’ – a history of international development NGOs in Britain, France and Ireland that examines the impact of humanitarianism on European culture and society. He can be contacted by e-mail at
Dr Melanie Oppenheimer is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities at University of New England (Australia). She has researched volunteering during the Second World War in Australia, Britain and Canada. She is currently working on a history of the Australian Red Cross and can be contacted at
Dr Andrea Pass recently completed her D.Phil at Magdalen College, University of Oxford (UK) on ‘British women missionaries in India, c.1917-1950′, focusing on the high-Church Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the evangelical Church Missionary Society. It examines the background and training of the women in Britain as well as their experiences and the services proided by these societies in India. She can be contacted via academia.edu or at
Professor Margaret Tennant is Honorary Research Professor at Massey University (New Zealand) and is currently working on a history of the New Zealand Red Cross. Her publications include The Fabric of Welfare: Voluntary Organisations, Government and Welfare in New Zealand, 1840-2005 (2007), and she was one of the leaders of the New Zealand leg of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project over the mid-2000s. She can be contacted via academia.edu or by email at
Dr Patricia Toucas-Truyen is an associate researcher at the Centre d’histoire sociale du XXe siècle (Paris I-Sorbonne, France), and a member of the editorial board of the Recma, revue internationale de l’économie sociale. Her work has included several books and numerous articles on the history of the social economy (mutual aid and cooperatives), primarily in France. She can be contacted by email at
Dr Ian Willis is an Honorary Fellow in History at the University of Wollongong (Australia). He has an interest in volunteering and local studies, particularly the Australian wartime homefront. He is active in, and an advocate for, the community sector. He can be contacted at
