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Pat Thane MA (Oxon), PhD (LSE), FBA

Leverhulme Professor of Contemporary British History
Director, Centre for Contemporary British History
Convenor, MA in Contemporary British History

Vice President of the Royal Historical Society 2005-8; Chair of the Social History Society 2002-08; Member of the Peer Review Colleges of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council 2002-08; Co-Manager History and Policy http://www.historyandpolicy.org.

Selected Publications

  • Britain's Pensions Crisis. History and Policy (OUP/British Academy, 2006) ed. with Hugh Pemberton and Noel Whiteside.
  • The Long History of Old Age ed (Illustrated), Thames & Hudson, London, 2005. Also published as A History of Old Age, Getty Museum, LA, 2005 and Das Alter. Eine Kulturgeschichte, Primus Verlag.Darmstadt, 2005.
  • 'What difference did the vote make? Women in public and private life in Britain since 1918', Historical Research (May 2003)
  • Cassell's Companion to Twentieth Century Britain (2001)
  • Old Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present Issues (Oxford University Press, 2000)
  • Women and Ageing in British Society since 1500, co-edited with Lynn Botelho (Longman, 2001)
  • Labour's First Century: a Centenary History of the Labour Party, co-edited with D. Tanner and N. Tiratsoo (2000)
  • The Foundations of the Welfare State (2nd edn., Longman, 1996)

Work in progress

  • Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? Unmarried Motherhood in Modern England. (with Tanya Evans)
  • Smashing the Glass Ceiling? Female Graduates of Girton College, 1920-2000. (with Amy Erickson and Kate Perry).

Areas of research supervision

  • women's and gender history
  • demographic history
  • social and economic policy
  • history of the Labour party since early 20th century

Theses recently supervised include

  • Katharine Bradley 'Poverty and Philanthropy in East London, 1918-59: the university settlements and the urban working classes', 2006. (now Lecturer in Social History, University of Kent).
  • Vanessa Chambers '"Cross my Heart and Hope to die". Popular Belief and British Society, 1900-51.', 2007 (now Research Fellow, University of Exeter).
  • Helen McCarthy 'The League of Nations Union and the Re-shaping of the Public Sphere in Britain Between the Wars' , 2008 (now Junior Research Fellow, St John's College, Cambridge)
  • 'The long sexual revolution: British women, sex and contraception in the long 20th century', by Dr Hera Cook (now Lecturer in History, University of Birmingham)
  • 'Young women, employment and the family in inter-war England', by Dr Selina Todd (now Lecturer in History, University of Manchester)

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