Dr Emma Peplow

Head of Contemporary History

epeplow@histparl.ac.uk

Current Research/Role

I am Head of Contemporary History at the Trust, having joined the History in 2012. Before then, I was Head of Development (October 2019 – March 2022); Assistant Director (January 2018 – October 2019) and Communications and Outreach Officer. Before joining the Trust I was Research Associate at the Marylebone Cricket Club museum, creating an oral history archive on cricket clubs in the UK and Sri Lanka. I have a PhD in International History from the LSE.

I have published and spoken widely on our oral history archive. I am currently overseeing our brilliant volunteers and writing articles on women’s experiences in the Commons and on the practice of elite interviewing. I also recently recorded a podcast with our fantastic oral history interviewer Dr Alex Lock.

Research Interests

My wider research interests include contemporary British politics and oral history methodology, in particular women’s participation in politics and the culture of the contemporary House of Commons. Together with Dr Priscila Pivatto I published an introduction to our archive in 2020 and various academic articles.

Publications

Book

The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs: An Oral History of Parliament (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) [with Priscila Pivatto]

Chapters in Books

‘“Its got to be possible”: Women’s political careers and family lives since the 1960s as told to the History of Parliament Trust’s Oral History Project’, in L. Jenkins, R. Davidson, F. Khanhum Hussain and A. Muggeridge (eds.), Women, Power and Politics in Britain, 1945-1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming) [with P.Pivatto] 

‘Introduction: Blaina Cricket Club and Taking the Field’, in A. Hignell (ed.), The History of Blaina Cricket Club: Little Club, Big Story (Cardiff: St David’s Press, 2012)

Journal Articles

‘Interviewing elites: reflections on sharing authority with parliamentarians’, Oral History (forthcoming) [with P. Pivatto] 

‘A different approach to legislative bodies: reflections on the History of Parliament Oral History Project and laws around abortion’, Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 29 (2021), pp. 157-165 [with P. Pivatto]

‘Life stories from the House of Commons: the History of Parliament oral history project’, Oral History 47:2 (Autumn 2019) [with P. Pivatto] 

‘Taking the Field: Telling the Story of Grassroots Cricket’, Cricket Society Journal (April 2012)‘The Role of Britain in the Berlin Airlift’, History 95:2 (2010), pp. 207-224.

Specialisms: oral history, contemporary British politics, women’s history, contemporary parliamentary history