Liz Woolley
Liz Woolley
Liz Woolley is a professional local historian working on the history of Oxford and Oxfordshire, mainly in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. She is particularly concerned with social and architectural history and is an experienced speaker, guide, researcher and writer. In relation to SOFO her interests include the social impact of conflict on local communities, women and children. She is also keen to assist in the promotion of the Trust’s collections to adult learners and to local history researchers.
Liz has lived in Oxford since 1984 and has a wide network of contacts within the Oxfordshire local history and higher education communities. She has an MSc in English Local History from the University of Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education and in 2010 became a part-time tutor there. She is Treasurer of the Oxfordshire Local History Association and Secretary to the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society’s Listed Buildings Sub-Committee.
Local history publications and research interests
• “Industrial Architecture in Oxford, 1870 to 1914” Oxoniensia, Vol LXXV, forthcoming (May 2011).
• “‘Disreputable housing in a disreputable parish’?: Common Lodging-houses in St. Thomas’, Oxford, 1841 - 1901” Midland History, Vol 35, no 2, Autumn 2010.
• MSc thesis (2009):Disreputable Housing in a Disreputable Parish: Common Lodging-Houses in St Thomas’, Oxford, 1841-1901.
• MSc research (2008/09): Child labour in the industrial revolution, with particular emphasis on Oxfordshire;
The social history of architecture, 1870 to 1914, with particular emphasis on the industrial buildings of late Victorian and Edwardian Oxford.
• “Osney: a Railway Enclave?” Oxfordshire Local History, Vol 8, no 3, Spring 2008.
• “In the Footsteps of the Past” Oxford Times, Limited Edition Magazine, February 2008.
St Thomas the Martyr Parochial School: An Early Twentieth-century Model School in an Impoverished City Parish. Oxfordshire Architectural & Historical Society essay prize winner 2007.