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About Me

I am Lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Sunderland. I teach on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses that focus on British social, cultural and political history since 1750.

My research focuses primarily on the international activism of British women during the interwar period, particularly the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Women’s Co-operative Guild. I am interested in the British women’s movement after suffrage in 1918.

Research projects: 

Feminism, Pacifism and Internationalism: The British Women’s International League, 1915-1935

My PhD research sheds light on the British Women’s International League (WIL), an organisation that campaigned for peace, disarmament and international law, alongside goals for women’s rights. Having formed part of an international association – the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom  – WIL offers a unique perspective on the women’s movement and the interplay between activism at local, national and international levels. My project engages with the broader historical themes of citizenship, class and social activism. It makes a distinct contribution to the historiography on the British women’s movement by considering the influence of internationalism on activism.

I am currently revising my research for publication as a monograph and writing a journal article on the internationalism of the Women’s Co-operative Guild

British Ex-Service Students and the Rebuilding of Europe, 1919–1926

As Research Associate, I conducted archival research on case-study institutions in London and the North East to research the impact of the First World War on university students. This project was funded by the AHRC Everyday Lives at War Engagement Centre at the University of Hertfordshire and led by Dr Georgina Brewis at University College London and Dr Daniel Laqua at Northumbria University. We worked in collaboration with the National Union of Students and the North East branch of the Workers Educational Association. We have shed light on the government’s grant scheme for ex-service students and student attempts to foster dialogue and reconciliation in the aftermath of the conflict.

We have disseminated our findings through blog posts, a pop-up exhibition and workshops. We are currently working on a couple of journal articles based on this research.

Recent Publications

Chapters & Articles: 

‘Building a ‘New International Order’: International Women’s Organizations and the Union of International Associations’ in Daniel Laqua, Wouter Van Acker and Christophe Verbruggen (eds), The Representation of Global Civil Society in Word and Deed: Histories of the Union of International Associations [London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2019].

‘Antimilitarism, Citizenship and Motherhood: the formation and early years of the Women’s International League (WIL), 1915–1919’, Women’s History Review [online February 2017].

Book Reviews:

Review of Cathy Hunt, National Federation of Women Workers, 1906–1921 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) in Economic History Review, vol. 68, no. 2 (2015), pp. 739–740.

Blog Posts: 

Series of blog posts on the history of the National Union of Students (2017) https://www.nus.org.uk/en/who-we-are/our-history/wwi-and-the-foundation-of-nus/ 

Entry on Ethel Williams for ‘Mapping Radical Tyneside’ project http://radicaltyneside.org

Blog posts on Ethel Williams for ‘Reflections on Newcastle’ HLF project https://reflectionsofnewcastle.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/ethel-williams-an-activist-on-tyneside/

Media Coverage

Social Media

@sarah_hellawell

Country Focus

United Kingdom

Expertise by Geography

British Isles, England, United Kingdom, Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

20th century

Expertise by Topic

Gender, Higher Ed, Local & Regional, Women, World War I