Mandy Barrie is a PhD student at University of Greenwich researching the campaigns for women’s suffrage in the (current) boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham in the context of a much wider movement for women’s rights. Her research interests include London history, 19th and 20th century women’s movement, voluntarism and activism. She is a former career civil servant at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport advising on museums, libraries, arts, heritage and tourism. She is also chair of Kilimanjaro Young Girls In Need UK, providing support for young people in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.
Dr George Gosling is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Wolverhampton where he teaches on modern British history, specialising in themes of medicine, charity and welfare to explore wider questions of gender, citizenship and consumerism. His first book, Payment and Philanthropy in British Healthcare, 1918-48 (MUP 2017), explored the complex meanings of payment in the pre-NHS hospital. His current research focus is British charity-run shops since the late eighteenth century, drawing attention to vast number of historic retail operations with aims other than fundraising, building on the co-edited with collection Retail and Community: Business, Charity and the End of Empire (BUP, 2024). His research also encompasses work on blind veterans as craftsmen and shopkeepers after the First World War, the trading history of the Salvation Army, the importance of Christmas in the history of charity retail, and the different pedagogical approaches to introducing university students to archival research.
Dr Mary Clare Martin is principal lecturer and head of the Centre for the Study of Play and Recreation, University of Greenwich, where she has developed courses on the history of childhood and education, as well as in children’s literature and the representation of childhood in literature since 2001. Her research interests are in children and religion, 1740-1870 in Britain; social welfare and female philanthropy; children’s illness, 1700-2000 in Europe, North America, and Australasia; and youth movements, particularly the Girl Guides. She is completing a monograph entitled Free Spirits: Children and Religion, 1740-1870, and has two book projects on children’s illness. Her publications include numerous articles and two edited interdisciplinary journal special issues on play, for Youth and Policy (2013) and Childhood in the Past (2014). She is co-editor (with Hugh Morrison) of Creating Religious Childhoods in Anglo-World and British Colonial Contexts, 1800-1950 (2016). She is leading an interdisciplinary project on multicultural toys, co-convenes two seminars at the Institute of Historical Research, ‘Life-cycles’ and ‘Education in the Long Eighteenth century’ and is co-founding director (with Simon Sleight) of the Children’s History Society
Dr Robert Piggott is a lecturer in history at the University of Huddersfield. His research interests are diverse, but centre on the links between voluntary action and religion in twentieth-century England. Prior to his PhD study, he worked for English Heritage for a number of years, and much of his research has looked at the role of volunteers in managing historic places of worship. However, his recent work is focused on the subject of religion and the National Health Service in its first phase.
Marta Starostina is PhD History Research student at the University of Birmingham. She is writing her thesis about the economic, political, mobility, and promotion aspects of the tourism organisation “Intourist”. Marta has been a member of various volunteer organisations because she loves to make a difference, be part of a community, learn new skills and take on challenges. Currently, Marta is interested to help VAHS with organising events such as conferences, seminars, socials etc.
Meta Zimmeck (Treasurer) – After training as a social historian and carrying out research on the employment of women in clerical and professional occupations, including in the Civil Service, Meta then specialised in research on volunteering, government-voluntary sector relations and organisational management and development. She has carried out quantitative, qualitative and policy-based research for a portfolio of clients in local and central government, academic institutions, voluntary organisations and businesses. She and her colleague, Colin Rochester, are currently working on a study of the production of PPE by voluntary action during the pandemic. She has served for many years on VAHS’s Committee as both chair, treasurer and conference organiser.
We are extremely grateful to Jayne Lacny, Mike Locke, Ellie Munro and Paul Beard for their contributions to the work of the society in recent years as former members of the committee.