Publications

Book

Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women, by Mari Takayanagi and Elizabeth Hallam Smith (The History Press, 2023). More information on Necessary Women at History Press; buy Necessary Women on Amazon! Review in The House Magazine: Compelling: Baroness O’Grady reviews ‘Necessary Women: The Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women’.

FORTHCOMING JULY 2024: Women’s Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years: Not for Want of Trying, edited by Erika Rackley, Rosemary Auchmuty and Mari Takayanagi (Bloomsbury). [Joint editor and contributor of four chapters]

Blogposts

PSA Parliaments blog: Necessary Women: pioneering women working in Parliament, January 2024

Women’s History Network blog:

Parliament’s UK Vote 100 blog:

History of Parliament blog:

Parliamentary Archives blog:

ARA Blog, June 2023: Necessary Women: uncovering stories of women in the archives

ARA Learning Blog, Mar 2021: Learn Live with Parliament – Votes for Women!

University of Reading Astor100 blog, July 2020: Remembering Astor in Parliament

Oxford Human Rights Hub, Feb 2018: The Representation of the People Act 1918 – A Democratic Milestone in the UK and Ireland

Royal Mint, Feb 2018: The Representation of the People Act 1918: 100 Years

Imperial War Museum, Feb 2018: An Innovation: Girl Porters in the House of Commons

Womanthology, March 2017: Telling the story of Parliament, women and the vote from the 18th century to the present day through Vote 100

Articles

‘Degrees for Women: The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919′, Education & Activism: Women at Oxford 1878-1920 (Oct 2020).

‘Marking 100 Years of Women in the Law’, Law Gazette, 11 March 2019.

‘Fifty Years of Women Peers’, History Today, Volume 58 Issue 6, June 2008.

Academic journal articles

‘Astor the Fairy Godmother: The Intoxicating Liquor Act 1923’, Open Library of Humanities Journal, Volume 6, issue 2 (2020). DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.567

‘Suffrage and Smoke: The UK Parliamentary Archives’ Challenges in Caring for Collections Housed in the Palace of Westminster’, Studies in Conservation, 65:sup1, pp.301-306 (2020) [Co-author with Meagen Smith] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00393630.2020.1780373

‘Voice and Vote: Delivering a major public exhibition in a 800-year-old hall’, pp.45-52 in Social History in Museums Journal, volume 44 (spring 2020)

‘Sacred year or broken reed? The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919’, Women’s History Review (2019), DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2019.1702782

‘”Does the right hon. Gentleman mean equal votes at 21?” Conservative Women and Equal Franchise, 1919-1928’, in Women’s History Review ,volume 28 (2019)

‘Women and the Vote: the Parliamentary Path to Equal Franchise 1918-1928’, Parliamentary History special issue marking 100 years of the Representation of the People Act 1918, edited by Stuart Ball, volume 37 issue 1, 2018

‘Voice and Vote: Women’s Place in Parliament’, pp. 9-16 in Social History in Museums Journal, special issue on the Centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 in Museums, vol 42 (2018) [Co-author with Melanie Unwin]

‘The Home Front in the “Westminster Village”: women staff in Parliament during the Second World War’, in Women’s History Review special issue on Home Fronts: Gender, War and Conflicts, volume 26, 2017

‘Women staff in the “Westminster Village” during the First World War’, in Women’s History – Journal of the Women’s History Network, volume 2 issue 2, summer 2015

‘A Changing House: the Life Peerages Act 1958’, Parliamentary History, Volume 27 Issue 3, October 2008.

Contributions to edited collections

‘Suffrage Centenaries’ in The Routledge Companion to British Women’s Suffrage, edited by Krista Cowman (forthcoming, Routledge, July 2024).

‘The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919; its origins, passage and significance for working women’, in The Evolution of the Gender Pay Gap: A Comparative Perspective, edited by Frances Hamilton and Elisabeth Griffiths (Routledge, 2023).

‘The UK Parliament as a historical space for women’, in Parliament Buildings: the architecture of politics in Europe, edited by Sophia Psarra, Claudia Schrag Sternberg and Uta Staiger (UCL Press, 2023). Open access PDF of Parliament Buildings

‘Representation of the People Act 1918’ and ‘Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919’, in Women’s Legal Landmarks edited by Rosemary Auchmuty and Erika Rackley (Bloomsbury, 2019).

Voice and Vote: Celebrating 100 Years of Votes for Women (History of Parliament Trust/St James’ House, 2018) – editor and contributor

August 2018: articles in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography  on:

  • Florence May [Jean] Winder (1909-2006), first permanent woman Hansard reporter
  • Hannah Frances Mary [May] Court (1880-1944), House of Lords Accountant
  • Janet Landells McEwan (1860-1920), one of the first women Parliamentary candidates
  • Alice Theresa Lucas (1853-1924), first Conservative woman Parliamentary candidate
  • Survey article on the first seventeen women who stood for Parliament in the 1918 general election

”’One of the most revolutionary proposals that has ever been put before the House”: the passage of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918′, chapter for Labour, British Radicalism and the First World War, edited by Lucy Bland and Richard Carr (Manchester University Press, 2018)

Contributor on Parliament and women in The Story of Parliament: Celebrating 750 years of Parliament in Britain by the History of Parliament Trust (St James’s House, 2015) – read the e-book via the History of Parliament website

September 2014: Two articles published in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography :

  • Midwinter [married name Midwinter-Vergin], Kathleen Margaret [Kay] (1909–1995), first female clerk in the House of Commons and United Nations official
  • Ashworth [married name Jewill-Rogers], Mary Howard [May], (1863–1928),
    businesswoman and official typist to the Houses of Parliament
Aftermath of Suffrage

‘They have made their mark entirely out of proportion to their numbers’: Women and Parliamentary Committees, c.1918-1945’ chapter in The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender, and Politics in Britain, 1918-1945, edited by Julie Gottlieb and Richard Toye (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). A review is here.

Victoria Tower Treasures from the Parliamentary Archives, joint author. December 2010. Read a blog review

Thesis

My PhD thesis ‘Parliament and Women c.1900-1945’ (2012) is available on the King’s Research Portal.

Other

Contributor to History Rocks! Women in Law (2019), a children’s book by the splendid Guy Fox History Project.

Contributor to Rachel Kolsky, Women’s London: A Tour Guide to Great Lives (2018).

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