The OHS is fifty years old this year!
Explore the timeline to discover the Society's own history and achievements over the last half century.
Brenda Corti steps down after many years as journal reviews editor and is replaced by Liz Carnegie.
April – Heritage Lottery Fund grants for some 150 oral history projects since 1997 total £1.5m.
1-2 April – OHS annual conference, ‘Pleasure and danger in the city: urban oral history’ is held in Birmingham. This marks the first conference with Belinda Waterman as OHS Conference Administrator.
Beth Thomas succeeds Alan Ward as OHS Chair.
Click on OHS@50 logo to view in Soundcloud and read a transcript.
Recorded 2011-2015 by Robert Wilkinson for the Oral History of Oral History in the UK, funded by the British Library.
Sheena Rolph joins the Oral History editorial team following the departure of Wendy Rickard.
Members can now join the OHS online.
22-23 June – ‘Talking community histories’ annual OHS conference with London Guildhall University.
Webscribe takes over as the Society’s membership and subscription agents from T G Scott.
December – The founding chairman of the OHS, Theo Barker, dies (obituary OHJ vol.30 no.1 spring 2002).
Jaime Valentine describes how the advice and support of the OHS helped establish OurStory Scotland.
20 April – The first of an occasional seminar series begins with ‘Technology talks: oral history and new media’ at the British Library.
15-16 June – ‘Staging the past: oral history and performance’ annual OHS conference in Milton Keynes in conjunction with Living Archive.
As demand increases for training (200 people were trained in 2001, many working on Heritage Lottery funded projects), more trainers are recruited to the BL/OHS training programme.
Allan Redfern steps down as Oral History’s Education section editor.
Adrienne Wallman reminisces about the Staging the Past Conference in 2002.
Spring 2003, 31, 1 issue of Oral History takes the theme ‘The Interview process’
15-16 June – ‘Transitions’ - OHS annual conference moves to Aberdeen for a joint event in conjunction with the Scottish Oral History Group.
An updated version of the Society’s legal and ethical guidelines, to encompass data protection and freedom of information, is uploaded to the website, authored by Alan Ward.
The British Library begins its ‘Oral history of oral history’ interviewing programme, seeking to document the history of the Society and oral history in Britain. Rob Wilkinson conducts many of the life story recordings.
The autumn issue of Oral History reveals some changes in the editorial team: Lesley Diack becomes Education editor and Michelle Winslow takes over the International News section from Al Thomson.
Cynthia Brown succeeds Graham Smith as OHS Regional Network Co-ordinator.
15 October – thirteenth annual Oral History Seminar, Wessex Film and Sound Archive Cinema, Hampshire Record Office, Winchester
29 November – OHS seminar, ‘Analysing recorded interviews: making sense of oral history’ is held at the British Library, attended by 140.
Jill Liddington replaces Steve Hussey as joint Public History editor for Oral History, and Annette Day replaces Liz Carnegie as Reviews Editor.
14-16 May – OHS committee holds a strategic planning weekend in Toddington, Gloucestershire.
Graham Smith succeeds Beth Thomas as OHS Chair.
12-13 June – Annual OHS conference is held in Bournemouth, ‘Oral history on display: presenting testimonies through museums, virtual displays, multi-media and publication’, OHS Annual conference in conjunction with the University of Bournemouth.
Printing of the journal moves from ukPRINTonline to Russell Press in Nottingham. OHS designer Andy Smith teams up with his partner Denise to form Smith+Bell.
Five more trainers are recruited to the expanding BL/OHS training programme.
November – Funding oral history – OHS seminar with British Library Sound Archive, British Library.
Oral History (vol.33 no.1 spring 2005 ‘Re-presenting the past’) for the first time features a special section on public history and oral history.
1-3 July – ‘Using the war: changing memories of World War Two’ - annual OHS conference marks the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, in association with King’s College, University of London.
22 December – Death of Stephen Peet, founding father of television oral history and longstanding OHS committee member (obituary OHJ vol.34 no.1 spring 2006: ‘His pioneering BBC2 series Yesterday’s Witness is recognised as the world’s first television history series dedicated to living memory’). An OHS/BL seminar, ‘Oral history on television’, at the British Library on 2 December 2006 celebrates Peet’s life and achievements with contributions from Chris Cook and Sukhdev Sandhu.
26 November – Copyright and the Web – Oral History/British Sound Archive seminar, British Library.
Oral History (vol.34 no.1 spring 2006) focusses on trauma and ‘healing’.
17-18 June – ‘Passion, play and the everyday: oral history and the consumer society’, Annual OHS conference with Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, Hillsborough, Sheffield.
Jenny Harding joins the Oral History editorial board as Public History editor as Jill Liddington and Graham Smith step down.
October – The OHS issues its first Media Guidelines with advice for members on dealing with media requests for the reuse of oral history materials.
The autumn issue of Oral History is devoted to ‘War memory’, the first of two issues on the theme of war and conflict.
The OHS Regional Network grows to 41 networkers grouped by region and countries across the UK.
The OHS website is redesigned and revamped under the guidance of Michelle Winslow and Anthony Greenwood.
Heritage Lottery Fund reports that it has awarded more than £49 million to over 2,000 oral history and reminiscence projects, including more than 1,600 programmes that were led by community and voluntary groups.
Over 500 people now attend the BL/OHS training courses annually and two new courses are added on video and theatre. Elspeth Millar becomes training administrator.
Changes to the governance structure of the Society see the creation of an officers’ executive group, a nominations sub-committee, and a new diversity policy (led by Annette Day). Society membership stands at 940.
6-7 July – Annual OHS conference, ‘Making community oral histories’, at London Metropolitan University. Keynote speaker is Al Thomson who reflects on 25 years in oral and community history.
7 July – The OHS’s constitution is updated in line with new charity law and Charity Commission guidance.
Al Thomson moves (back) to Australia, steps down from Oral History and is replaced by Jenny Harding for the autumn issue on ‘Conflicts and continuity’ (vol.35 no.2).
Cynthia Brown succeeds Joanna Bornat as editor of ‘News and Current British Work’ in Oral History, Siobhan Warrington succeeds Michelle Winslow as editor of ‘International News’, and Anna Green becomes Public History editor. Elspeth Millar is appointed as the journal’s first editorial assistant. The journal appears for the first time on JSTOR.
Shelley Trower is appointed as OHS first Publicity Officer.
OHS establishes a higher education oral history network led by James Mark and an archives sub-committee, initiated by Craig Fees.
4-5 July – Annual OHS conference, ‘Who cared? Oral history, caring, health and illness’ is held at the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Birmingham and sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and the Society for the Social History of Medicine.
28 April – First Person: new approaches to oral history – Museums Association with OHS and British Library Sound archive one day seminar exploring imaginative and creative use of oral history in Museums and galleries.
14 November – Oral history in Greater London & the South-East meeting and discussion at the Bishopsgate Institute.
6-9 February – OHS committee holds a ‘review and forward planning’ weekend in Toddington. Discussion is facilitated by the findings of a membership survey conducted by Kate Melvin.
Oral History celebrates its fortieth anniversary with two special issues reflecting on the development of oral history (vol.37 nos 1 and 2). The second issue draws on an international retirement conference held at Essex University in May 2008 to celebrate the work of Paul Thompson.
13 June – Death of John Saville, founding vice-chairman and chairman of the OHS 1976-87 (obituary OHJ vol.37 no.2 autumn 2009).
3-4 July – Hearing Voice in Oral History - OHS annual conference is held in Glasgow in association with the Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde.
