Current Research

History of Parliament Research

I first joined the History of Parliament Trust oral history project in 2012 as a volunteer interviewer. I have been managing the oral history project since May 2021, liaising between interviewees, our team of volunteer interviewers and the oral history department at the British Library. I also contribute to the History’s public engagement activities. I have a flexible working pattern of one to two days a week.

Research and Publications

I have used oral history extensively to research aspects of twentieth century British political history, most recently focusing on the intersection of science and politics and the scrutiny of science in Parliament. My broader research interests have led me to use oral history interviews to write about local activism in the Conservative party, parliamentary candidate selection, political ambition in women, women Speakers and campaigning for animal rights in Parliament.

I completed my PhD with the University of Leicester and the British Library in 2022. In this project I explored how organisational change in the British civil service during the 1980s and 1990s was experienced by scientific civil servants who worked in government research establishments. My thesis draws on a series of new oral history interviews which are now deposited for future use in the British Library sound archive.

I have worked for the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and Hansard in the House of Lords. I am on the executive committee of the Study of Parliament Group.

My publications include:

- ''We lost a type of job for a type of person in this country’: changing expectations of working in the UK scientific civil service', Science Museum Group Journal, (forthcoming, Spring 2023)

- ‘Armed with the necessary background of knowledge: the development of British MPs’ capacity to scrutinise and understand science during the twentieth century’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 55 (2), (2022), pp. 167–185

- ‘MPs on the Subject of STEMM: What Can Oral History Tell Us?’, Parliamentary History, 39 (2), 2020, pp. 331–349. (Judged proxime accessit in the Parliamentary History prize essay competition, 2018)

- ‘Science Diplomacy’, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, POST PN–568, 8 February 2018

Photograph (C) Bill Knight