John Purvis

Biographic Data

ID224676
NAMEJohn Purvis
GIVEN NAMESJohn
FAMILY NAMEPurvis
SIGNATUREPURVIS J
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Portsmouth
ORCID0000-0001-6118-2475
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS88
TOTAL CITATIONS222
AUTHOR COUNT88
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1936
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX5

  • Remembering Muriel Rose Allen, MBE (1931–2024)

    John Purvis, June PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2026

    This obituary of the late Muriel Allen (1931–2024) explores how, despite being born into a large, poor working-class family in London and receiving a limited education, she rose to become a philanthropist and, in 1984, the first woman to be appointed prison governor of a men’s prison in the UK: Kingston prison, Portsmouth, Hampshire. Up to 1984, only men had been governors of prisons for male inmates, but Muriel Allen decided to test the 1975 UK …

  • Dale Spender (1943-2023)

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2024

    This appreciation looks at the life of Dale Spender (1943–2023), an Australian feminist scholar and activist who helped to establish the interdisciplinary field of Women’s Studies. She wrote over 30 books, most of them published in the UK to which she moved in the mid-1970s in order to study for her PhD at the Institute of Education, University of London. A radical feminist, her contribution to the development of women’s history in the UK and USA…

  • Congratulations to Rachel Reeves who, in 2024, becomes the first woman to be Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2024

    On 4th July 2024 a general election was held in the UK and the Labour Party, which had been in opposition for fourteen years, won a landslide victory, winning 411 seats while the Conservatives won

  • Earthquake in Turkey and Syria February 2023

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2023Cited by: 1

  • Standing with the women, men and children in Ukraine

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2022Cited by: 1

    This Editorial expresses our solidarity with the people of Ukraine, a sovereign, democratic state that was invaded illegally by Russia on 24 February 2022 by the orders of President Vladimir Putin. A brutal war is being waged against the Ukrainians, indiscriminately killing innocent civilians and children and razing city centres to the ground

  • Antonia Raeburn (1934-2021)

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2022

    Antonia Raeburn (1934–2021) was the author of a well-known book titled The Militant Suffragettes, published in 1973, which gave an account of the suffragette struggle in Edwardian Britain for the parliamentary vote for women. The book was important in that it focused on the rank-and-file members of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded in 1903 by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst together with some local socialist women, and incl…

  • Thanks to our Supporters during this Covid-19 Pandemic

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2021

    This Editorial expresses thanks to all those who have worked hard for Women’s History Review under the challenging conditions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020. A big thank you to

  • The women's suffrage movement in Britain and Ireland

    John Purvis, June HannamARTICLEWomen s History Review2020

    The articles in this Special Issue were first presented at a conference held in Portsmouth, UK, 31st August–1st September 2018, to mark the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act which, for the first time, granted to certain categories of women aged 30 and over the parliamentary vote. They expand our knowledge about the women’s suffrage campaign in Britain and in Ireland in a number of ways, offering biographical essays on neglect…

  • Did militancy help or hinder the granting of women's suffrage in Britain

    John Purvis, June PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2019Cited by: 1

    This Viewpoint is one of three discussing the question of whether the ‘militant’ tactics of the suffragettes, as member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) were called in Edwardian Britain, helped or hindered the granting of women’s suffrage. In this contribution, it is suggested that militancy embraced a broad range of behaviours, both legal and illegal, that were central to the WSPU campaign and to the granting of the parliamentary…

  • Congratulations to Laura Goffman

    John Purvis, June PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2019

  • Christabel Pankhurst

    John Purvis, June PurvisBOOKChristabel Pankhurst2018

    Together with her mother, Emmeline, Christabel Pankhurst co-led the single-sex Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded in 1903 and soon regarded as the most notorious of the groupings campaigning for the parliamentary vote for women. A First Class Honours Graduate in Law, the determined and charismatic Christabel, a captivating orator, revitalised the women’s suffrage campaign by rousing thousands of women to become suffragettes, as WS…

  • Representing, Remembering and Rewriting Women's Histories of the First World War

    Maggie Andrews, Alison S Fell et al.ARTICLEWomen s History Review2018Cited by: 1

    persuasively argued, in the British popular imagination the First World War is associated with mud, barbed wire, the trenches and the Tommy on the Western Front. 1 Perhaps inevitably, therefore, public commemoration of the war has often been dominated by a focus on the men in the armed forces, who risked or lost their lives for causes that at the time may or may not have seemed heroic, noble or simply unavoidable

  • A Glass Half Full'? Women's history in the UK

    John Purvis, June PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2018

    This article offers an overview of the development of women's history in the UK over the last twenty years or so. It is noted that over this period women's history has expanded massively, an expansion that has cut across national boundaries and drawn in scholars from other disciplines than History. Eight themes in women's history are identified as being prominent during this time—a focus on the modern period (post 1780), a strong empirical bent, …

  • The Women's Party of Great Britain (1917-1919)

    John Purvis, June PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2016Cited by: 1

    This article discusses the Women's Party, founded by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst in November 1917 at a time when Britain was still fighting in World War One. It examines the origins and aims of the Women's Party which, with the slogan ‘Victory, National Security and Progress’, conflated the winning of the war with the women's cause. It is contended that global politics on the world stage as well as local politics at home shaped the agenda o…

  • Remembering Jo Cox (1974-2016)

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2016

    This appreciation remembers the life of Jo Cox, a British Member of Parliament (MP), who was brutally murdered on 16 June 2016. A Labour Party feminist, Jo campaigned for women’s rights around the world. After graduating from the University of Cambridge in 1995, she became a political adviser for various MPs and then worked for Oxfam, the Maternity Mortality Campaign, Save the Children and the National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Chi…

  • Connecting Women's Histories

    Barbara Bush, John Purvis et al.ARTICLEWomen s History Review2016

    The articles in this Special Issue are drawn from some of the contributions to a conference held at Sheffield Hallam University, UK, from 29 August to 1 September 2013 titled ‘Women's Histories: the local and the global’. The articles reflect on diverse aspects of the entangled histories of women across the world, mainly, but not exclusively, during the twentieth century. They explore the range of ways in which women's history, international hist…

  • The Church of England Votes for Women Bishops, 14th July 2014

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2014

    This brief Editorial reflects on 14th July 2014, the day when at long last the General Synod of the Church of England voted to allow women to become bishops. It has taken at least a century of campaigning, particularly by determined women, for this to happen

  • Congratulations to Jo Gill, University of Exeter

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2014

  • The Official Opening of The Women's Library@LSE, 12 March 2014

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2014

    This editorial offers some reflections on the Official Opening of The Women's Library, on 12 March 2014, in its new home at the London School of Economics and Political Science

  • Researching Women's Lives From A Feminist Perspective

    John Purvis, Mary Maynard et al.BOOKResearching Women's Lives from a…2013Cited by: 149

    Women's studies is a rapidly expanding field with a tremendous growth in the number of London courses available. As a result of this there has been increasing debate about the nature of feminist research. Can a specifically feminist methodology be identified? Which research methods are most appropriate in feminist work? What is the difference between a feminist approach and other forms of scholarship.; "Researching Women's Lives" explores these i…

  • Remembering Emily Wilding Davison (1872-1913)

    John Purvis, June PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2013Cited by: 1

    This editorial reflects on the life of Emily Wilding Davison (1872–1913), a suffragette in Edwardian Britain, who died on 8 June 1913 after running on to the race course at the Derby, four days earlier, and trying to grab the reins of the King's horse, Anmer. Rather than seeing her as a suicidal fanatic, it is suggested that she was a sensible, level-headed, religious woman, a risk-taker who probably did not intend to die

  • What Was Margaret Thatcher's Legacy for Women

    John Purvis, June PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2013

    This article considers the legacy for women of Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013), Britain's first and to date only woman prime minister. It is suggested that although Thatcher had to struggle against many of the sexist prejudices of her day to achieve her political ambitions, she was no feminist. The hard ladder up which she had climbed was drawn up and not extended to other women. Yet for some women, such as the Spice Girls, she was the pioneer of t…

  • Gendering the Historiography of the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian Britain

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2013Cited by: 2

    The historiography of the British women's suffrage campaign is contested ground. This article, written by a feminist historian, contributes to the debate by offering some reflections on the writing of the history of the suffragette movement in Edwardian Britain during the twenty years or so that it has been the focus of her research. In particular, it critiques the gendered ‘masculinist’ approaches to the writing of the suffragette pasts and disc…

  • Urgent

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2012

  • Remembering Julia Swindells (1951-2011)

    John PurvisARTICLEWomen s History Review2012