Advisory group

History & Policy has an expert advisory group with experience spanning history, politics, government, charities, business and the media. This group advises us on our aims and activities.

Peter Baldwin is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His work deals broadly with the development of the modern state across much of the European continent and, most recently, the US. He is the author of The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare State, 1875-1975 (Cambridge 1990), Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930 (Cambridge, 1999) and Disease and Democracy: The Industrialized World Faces AIDS (California, 2005).

David Bates is Director of the Institute of Historical Research where the History & Policy pilot project is based. He is a leading specialist on British and northern French history from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. His main books are Normandy before 1066 and Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I (1066-1087). He is currently writing a new biography of William the Conqueror for Yale University Press.

Chris Bowlby studied history at Cambridge and Harvard. He has worked for the BBC since 1988: at the World Service, as a foreign correspondent, and as a presenter and producer of documentaries for Radio 4 and Radio 3. In recent years he has been a regular presenter on Radio 4, specialising in history. He also writes for The Times and BBC History Magazine.

David Cannadine is the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor of British History at the Institute of Historical Research, specialising in modern British history from 1800 to 2000. He has published extensively on aspects of social, cultural, political and imperial history from this period, with a particular focus on the British aristocracy, urban development and the structure of power in British towns, issues of class in Britain and the themes of cultural expression and ceremony both within Britain and its empire. His most recent book is Mellon: An American Life (Penguin, 2006). David frequently speaks and writes on the historical context of current politics and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's A Point of View.

Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey received an honours degree from Oxford University and after some years in journalism and publishing founded the Chadwyck-Healey publishing group in 1973. He ran it until it was sold to ProQuest in 1999. Chadwyck-Healey published reprints, microforms, CD-ROMs and on-line via the Internet in the humanities and social sciences for libraries all over the world. There were Chadwyck-Healey companies in the UK, USA, France and Spain and Chadwyck-Healey was the largest publisher of both English and German literature in electronic form. Now retired, Sir Charles is a director of openDemocracy.net, writes and takes photographs and invests in start-up companies.

Frank Field worked as Director of the Child Poverty Action Group From 1969-79, during which time it became one of the premier pressure groups in the country. From 1974-1980 he was also Director of the Low Pay Unit. In 1979, Frank was elected Member of Parliament for Birkenhead. He served as Shadow Education and Social Security spokesman under the leadership of Michael Foot and later took up the chairmanship of the Social Security Select Committee, continuing in this role up to 1997. From 1997-1998 he was Minister for Welfare Reform in Tony Blair's first cabinet. He served as a member of the Public Accounts Committee between 2002 and 2005. He now chairs the Pension Reform Group.

Chris Harvie is Member of the Scottish Parliament representing mid-Scotland and Fife for the Scottish National Party. He serves as Parliamentary Liaison Officer in the office of the First Minister Alex Salmond. He is also Emeritus Professor of British and Irish Studies at the University of Tuebingen. Chris has written widely on historical and contemporary issues, including: intellectual politics in Victorian England, Scottish nationalism, the British political novel, North Sea Oil and Scotland's transport. His next book Floating Commonwealth: Politics, Technology And Culture On The Atlantic Coast, 1860-1930 will be published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Chris has also made several TV and radio programmes and regularly writes in The Scotsman and The Guardian.

Patricia Hollis has a PhD in modern history and was formerly a senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia. She has written books on women's history and labour history, including Ladies Elect: Women in English Local Government 1865-1914 (Clarendon Paperbacks, 1989) and Jennie Lee: A Life (Oxford Paperbacks, 1998). As a Councillor in Norwich she chaired the housing and finance committees, represented the city on several local authority associations and went on to become leader of the Council. In 1990, Patricia went to the Lords as Baroness Hollis of Heigham. She became a frontbench spokesperson on social security, housing and local government and in 1995 achieved legislation to enable pension sharing on divorce. From 1997 to 2005 she was Minister for Social Security in the Lords, responsible for pensions, family policy, child poverty, disability benefits, and all income related benefits. Since 2005 she has worked on pensions policy for women and serves on various pensions bodies and think-tanks.

Sir Simon Jenkins is a journalist and author. He writes a column twice weekly for The Guardian and weekly for The Sunday Times, as well as broadcasting for the BBC. Previously he wrote columns for The Times and the Evening Standard, both of which newspapers he edited. His career began on Country Life magazine and continued on the Times Educational Supplement, The Economist and The Sunday Times. He served on the board of British Rail and London Transport in the 1980s and was deputy chairman of English Heritage and a Millennium Commissioner. He was Journalist of the Year in 1988 and Columnist of the Year in 1993. His books include works on the press, politics, and architecture, including England's Thousand Best Churches (Penguin 2000) and England's Thousand Best Houses (Penguin 2004) and Thatcher and Sons: a Revolution in Three Acts (Penguin 2007).

Mark Luetchford is a civil servant in Communities and Local Government. He is currently on a two-year secondment to Circle Anglia, a large housing association, as Head of Sustainable Communities. From 2004 - 2007 he co-ordinated the communication of housing, planning and regeneration policy for the Government and wrote speeches for Ministers. Before joining the civil service Mark worked for various charities as a campaigner on issues including landmines, the Western Sahara, genetically modified foods and youth crime. He started working for War on Want in the late 1980s and later worked for Oxfam, the Soil Association and the National Children's Bureau. He has researched the process through which campaigning contributes to the development of policy. Mark also has an interest in the history of overseas development organisations and has written, with Peter Burns, the authorised history of War on Want. He studied Modern History at Oxford and has a Masters in West African History from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Peter Riddell is Chief Political Commentator of The Times. He was worked for The Times since 1991, and previously worked for The Financial Times for 21 years. He is the author of six books on contemporary political history, one of which, Hug Them Close: Blair, Clinton, Bush and the 'Special Relationship' (Politico's, 2004) won the Channel 4 Book of the Year Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and of the Political Studies Association. He has two Honorary Doctorates. He has served on, and chaired, various inquiries into British politics and chairs the Hansard Society, the leading non-partisan charity for promoting understanding of Parliament.

Richard Roberts is Director of the Centre for Contemporary British History at the Institute of Historical Research, where the History & Policy pilot project is based. Previously a member of faculty at the University of Sussex, Dr Roberts is a highly experienced writer, researcher and teacher. A specialist in economic and financial history, he is author of many books on investment banking and international finance and is currently completing a study of the breakdown of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system in the early 1970s. He is a leading authority on international financial centres, especially Wall Street and the City.

Tessa Stone is the Director of the Sutton Trust, a grant making Trust that aims to improve the life chances of young people by influencing education policy. It funds projects and conducts research ranging across the educational spectrum, including parenting and early-years projects, schemes in primary and secondary schools, and programmes focusing on access to further and higher education, and to the professions.

Before joining the Sutton Trust in 2002 Tessa was a Research Fellow in History and Admissions Tutor of Newnham College, Cambridge. Her research interest is the role of women in military service in the Second World War, and she has published a number of articles on this theme.

David Willetts is Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills and has been the Member of Parliament for Havant since 1992. He was Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2001-2005 and has worked at HM Treasury, and the Number 10 Policy Unit. He served as Paymaster General in the last Conservative Government. He is a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation and a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies as well as Senior Adviser to Punter Southall, actuaries. David has written widely on economic and social policy.

back to top