Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

Profile

June Purvis's research and teaching relates to women's and gender history in Modern Britain (19th and 20th centuries). Her specialisms are women's biography and the suffragette movement in Edwardian Britain which she teaches as a Third Year Special and Optional subject to undergraduates as well as to postgraduate level. She is interested in supervising postgraduate students who wish to study aspects of women's/gender history in Modern Britain. For the past ten years, June Purvis's research has focused on the women's suffrage movement on which she has published extensively. Her recent book Emmeline Pankhurst: a biography (2002) received critical acclaim. June Purvis is also the Editor for the internationally renowned journal Women's History Review, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Qualifications

• BA Hons (Leeds University) Sociology
• MEd (Manchester University)
• PhD (Open University) History of Education
• Fellow of Royal Historical Society

Research Clusters

• Women's and Gender Studies

Discipline Areas

• Cultural Studies
• Film Studies
• History
• Media Studies
• Politics and Public Administration 

Teaching Areas

• Suffrage Autobiographies (MA)
• Group Research Project (Year 3 History)
• Special Subject on Women's Suffrage (Year 3 History)
• Women's History Britain, 1850-1945 (Year 2 History)

Research CV

Present Research

Women's auto/biographies and the suffragette movement in Edwardian Britain, including a biography of Christabel Pankhurst, the Chief Organiser of the Women's Social and Political Union.

Publications

• 2012 (with Francisca de Haan, Margaret Allen,and Krassimira Daskalova (eds.)) Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the Present (Routledge).
• 2012 ‘Fighting the double moral standard in Edwardian Britain: suffragette militancy, sexuality and the nation in the writings of the early twentieth-century British feminist Christabel Pankhurst’ in Francisca de Haan, Margaret Allen, June Purvis, Krassimira Daskalova (eds.) Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the Present (Routledge). 
• 2012 'Anti-Suffragette Postcards' in BBC History Magazine (and podcast) August 2012.
• 2010 'No vote. Poor pay. Little hope. Every women in 1910, Why the world had to change'. Daily Mirror article commemorating International Women's Day
• 2010  Women's History Review, Special Issue on International Feminisms, edited by Ann Taylor Allen, Anne Cova and June Purvis, Vol 19, No 4
• 2010 Olive Banks, Entry for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• 2009 The power of the hunger strike, BBC History Magazine, pp.36-40
• 2009 "Christabel Pankhurst and the struggle for suffrage reform in Edwardian Britain", in Irma Sulkunen, Seija-Leena Nevala-Nurmi and Pirjo Markkola (eds), Suffrage, Gender and Citizenship: International Perspectives on Parliamentary Reforms (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), pp. 278-98
• 2009 "Pankhurst, Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia", entry in International Encyclopedia and Protest, ed. Immanuel Ness (Oxford Blackwell, 2009), pp. 2595-6
• 2008 Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960), suffragette, political activist and writer, Gender and Education, Vol 20 No 1
• 2008 Olive Banks  (1923-2006): an appreciation, Women's History Review, Vol 16 No 2, 2007, 137-143, reprinted in British Journal of Sociology of Education Vol 29, No 4, July 2008, pp.363-8, Special Issue: Olive Banks (1923-2006)
• 2007 'The Pankhursts and the Great War', in A. Fell and I. Sharp (eds) The Women's Movement in Wartime: International Perspectives 1914-1919 (Palgrave/Macmillan) pp.141-157, ISBN 0230019668
• 2006 'The strident echo of Miss Hissey', Times Higher Education Supplement 6 August
• 2006 'The Pankhurst Family' in Encyclopedia of Modern Europe: Europe 1789 to 1914 Ed J. Merriman & J. Winter, pp.125-30, ISBN 9780684313597  
• 2005 'Writing Suffragette History: the contending autobiographical narratives of the Pankhursts', (with Maureen Wright) in The Suffragette and Women's History: Special Issue of Women's History Review edited by June Purvis, Vol 14. No.3, March, pp.405-33, ISSN 0961-2025 
• 2005 'The Pankhurst women and the writing of women's history', in Barbara Caine, Mary Spongberg and Ann Curthoys (eds) Companion to Women's History Writing, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.400-403 
• 2004 Entry on Emmeline Pankhurst, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, and also online, Founding Editor Colin Matthew, Second Editor Brian Harrison, Current Editor Lawrence Goldman, pp.571- 577, ISBN 0-19-861412-8
• 2004 Entry on Christabel Pankhurst, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, and also online, Founding Editor Colin Matthew, Second Editor Brian Harrison, Current Editor Lawrence Goldman, pp.567- 571, ISBN 0-19-861412-8 
• 2004 Entry on Hannah Mitchell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, and also online, Founding Editor Colin Matthew, Second Editor Brian Harrison, Current Editor Lawrence Goldman, pp.402-3, ISBN 0-19-861412-8 
• 2003Emmeline Pankhurst: a biographical interpretation, in Words as Deeds, Literary and Historical Perpectives on Women's Suffrage (Part Two) edited by AnnHeilman, Special Issue of Women's History Review, Vol 12. No. 1,  Mar, pp.73-102, ISSN 0961-2025 
• 2002 Emmeline Pankhurst: a biography, Routledge, 464pp, ISBN 0-415-23978-8
• 1999Votes for Women (ed.with Sandra Holton), Routledge, pp.297
• 1998 The Women's Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives (ed.with Mary Joannou), Manchester University Press, pp.227 
• 1995Women's History Britain, 1850-1945 (ed.) , UCL Press, pp.341
• 1994Researching Women's Lives from a Feminist Perspective (ed.with Mary Maynard), Taylor and Francis, pp.217 
• 1991A History of Women's Education (translated into Japanese), Open University Press, pp.159 
• 1989Hard Lessons: The Lives and Education of Working-Class Women in Nineteenth-Century England , Polity Press, pp.308 
• Numerous articles on history of women's education and on women's suffrage in such journals as Gender and Education , History of Education , European Journal of Women's Studies and Women's History Review as well as articles in The Times Higher .

Grants Received

• Various small grants, including conference grants, from the British Academy, and an AHRB Research Leave award.

Other Professional Activities

• Invited to give a special talk focusing of the experiences of the suffragettes in Edwardian Britain at The Women’s Library, 8 December 2011.
• Appeared in 'Find My Past' on Yesterday TV, 8 December 2011. 
• Invited to speak on The Suffragettes at The Times Literary Cheltenham Festival, Thursday 13 October 2011. 
• Interviewed in Paris on 10 May for a film to be shown in the autumn on Arte, the Franco-German TV Channel, about the suffragettes in Edwardian England.
• Plenary Address 'Emmeline Pankhurst in the Aftermath of Suffrage, 1918-1928' at an International Conference on The Aftermath of Suffrage: What Happened After the Vote Was Won?, held on 24 and 25 June 2011, at the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield.  Forthcoming edited book by Julie Gottlieb and Richard Toye.  
• Editor of Women's History Review.
• Editor of Studies on Women and Gender Abstracts.
• Member of Editorial Boards of Rethinking History.
• Editor for a Books Series on Women's and Gender History with Routledge.
• Member of the Steering Committee of Women's History Network (UK), as well as the Chair of its Panel of judges for a Book Prize.
• Secretary/Treasurer of the International Federation for Research in Women's History.
• Member of a Panel of judges for The Times Higher Young Academic Author of the Year.
• Regular book reviewer for The Times Higher.