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.
January – Death of Brenda Corti, longstanding Oral History reviews editor (1987-2000) and administrator in the Sociology Department at Essex University during its long association with the OHS (obituary vol.38 no.1 spring 2010).
OHS membership study is published in Oral History vol.38 no.1 spring 2010. An OHS e-newsletter is launched by email to members and online, edited by Cynthia Brown.
Carrie Hamilton, Helen Graham (education editor) and Arthur McIvor (reviews editor) join the Oral History editorial team. Back issues become available online via JSTOR.
2-3 July – Oral History and Material Culture: Arts, Crafts and Design - OHS annual conference in conjunction with British Library, National Life Stories, Camberwell College of Arts and the University of the West of England is held at the Victoria and Albert Museum..
Juliana Vandegrift succeeds Cynthia Brown as OHS Regional Network Co-ordinator with Padmini Broomfield as deputy. Donald Hyslop steps down as Deputy Chair after a decade and is succeeded by Beth Thomas.
The autumn issue of Oral History takes ‘Emotions’ as its theme, drawing on a 2005 symposium organised by Joanna Bornat, Anna Green and Paula Hamilton.
Heritage Lottery Fund announces that since 1999 it has awarded ‘more than £72m to over 2,600 projects that have delivered oral history and reminiscence’ (Jo Reilly OHJ vol.38 no.2).
20 November – ‘Vison on: digital video and oral history’ - Joint OHS and Museum of London study day, Museum of London.
During 2010 the joint OHS/BL training programme ran 62 courses for 598 attendees.
The spring issue of Oral History is devoted to ‘Discrimination’ (vol.39 no.1) with a slightly redesigned format by Andy Smith.
1-2 July – ‘Creation, destruction, memory: oral history and regeneration’, OHS Annual Conference is held at the University of Sunderland in association with Living History North East. Sunderland MP Chris Mullin is a keynote speaker.
OHS AGM expresses concern about public sector cuts and the loss of oral history posts at English Heritage, the Museum of London and Beamish Museum.
Membership stands at 919. The OHS website gets 13600 page visits a month.
OHS appoints Anne Gulland as its Publicity Officer and sets up a Facebook account.
The newly-created OHS higher education sub-committee runs its first advanced oral history spring school in conjunction with the Institute of Historical Research, and launches a seminar series.
13-14 July – ‘Displaced childhoods: oral history and traumatic experiences’, OHS annual conference is held in association with the Research Centre for Evacuee and War Child Studies at the University of Reading.
The OHS signs a three-year agreement with Royal Holloway University of London for it to provide a new institutional address for the Society after many years based at Essex University.
The OHS’s copyright, legal and ethics advice pages are updated and relaunched, edited by Rob Perks and Joanna Bornat. It is part of a redesign of the OHS web pages led by Michelle Winslow and Anthony Greenwood.
"For me a key moment was the presence of leading OHS oral historians Paul Thompson, Rob Perks, Toby Butler and Joanne Bornat (with Daniela Koleva), as well as Lena Inowlocki from Germany as speakers at the Volos conference that founded the Greek Oral History Association in May 2012."
The spring issue of Oral History is devoted to ‘Archives’ (vol.41 no.1) marking the fortieth anniversary of the OHS’s formation. Zibiah Alfred, Heather Norris Nicholson and Anindya Raychaudhuri join the editorial team as Carrie Hamilton, Arthur McIvor and Anna Green step down. A new international editorial advisory board is formed and a copy editor is engaged for the first time.
Kate Melvin carries out a membership survey, identifying many more ‘supporters’ (and users of the OHS services) than paid-up members.
5-6 July – ‘Corporate voices: institutional and organisational oral histories’, OHS annual conference is held in association with the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research at the University of Sussex, Brighton, the first time the Society has held a conference on this theme.
13-15 September - OHS committee holds a strategy weekend at the Planned Environment Therapy Trust, Toddington. Four ‘task and finish’ groups are set up focussing on: governance, membership, communications/campaigning, and higher education. The Society establishes Special Interest Groups (SIGs): the first - ‘Psycho-Social Therapies’ - is set up by Craig Fees.
The autumn issue of Oral History (vol.41 no.2 ‘Conflict’) features an attack, ‘Our Five Minutes with Michael Gove’, on the sweeping changes to the national curriculum proposed by Education Minister Michael Gove and an argument for the importance of oral history in schools.
Sarah Lowry leads a revised OHS diversity strategy.
In 2013 the joint OHS/BL training programme ran 66 courses for 723 participants. New courses on project management and archiving are developed, and from 2014 a levy is imposed on tailored courses to support future training developments.
May –The OHS issues a statement about the Boston College Belfast Project following legal action taken by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to seize oral histories held by Boston College: ‘this serves as a warning not only to oral historians, but to all those engaged in collecting historical data about criminal activity or allegations of criminal offences. The case raises legal, ethical and moral issues for researchers and archivists’. (Reprinted in Oral Historyvol.42 no.2)
18-19 July – ‘Community voices: oral history on the ground’ OHS annual conference at Manchester Metropolitan University.
19 July – The OHS constitution is amended to delete the roles of President and Vice-President and create honorary life membership in recognition of long and distinguished service.
The Oral History editorial team welcomes Fiona Cosson as Public History Editor and Haley Moyse Fenning as Learning Editor, Haley filling a ten year vacancy.
Oral History journal changes to a more compact format with its spring issue on ‘Representation’ (vol.43 no.1) and for the autumn issue Katy Wild joins as Editorial Assistant.
February – OHS appoints its first Administrator, Nicola Benge. She takes over minute-taking duties from Rob Perks (after 27 years).
10-11 July – ‘Oral histories of science, technology and medicine’, OHS annual conference is held in conjunction with Royal Holloway University of London and the Oral History of British Science at the British Library, with support from the Wellcome Trust.
11 July – At the OHS AGM Nick Chalmers becomes Treasurer as Rob Wilkinson steps down after 25 years. Don and Anne Ritchie become OHS Life Members, recognised for their contribution to the Society alongside Steve Humphries, Elizabeth Roberts, Doc Rowe and Alan Ward.
Unlocking Our Sound Heritage - the British Library receives a grant of £9.5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund to digitise the nation’s most at-risk audio records and make them more widely available, working with ten partner hubs across the UK. An initial national audit of UK audio finds that 78% of 1.8 million items are in obsolete formats and that 36% of those collections are oral history. With an eventual £18.8m budget in place the ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ project runs from 2017-2023.
"I first encountered the OHS through attending oral history training for the Memories Past project with the Royal Voluntary Service in 2007. It was stellar training and has set me on a path of documenting lives and delivering creative heritage projects ever since. I worked on the Oral History Journal as Editorial Assistant from 2014-15, and also as OHS Administrator for the same period, getting to meet enthusiastic and talented people including Rob Perks."
Nicola Benge
February – OHS website support moves from IDZ to Evoluted in Sheffield. Training bookings move online.
March – Eleanor Lowe becomes OHS Administrator.
The spring issue of Oral History on ‘Migration and community’ (vol.44 no.1) welcomes Lindsey Dodd, Sean O’Connell and Chris Wall as editors.
8-9 July – ‘Beyond text in the digital age? Oral history, images and the written word’, OHS annual conference, University of Roehampton.
Four OHS Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are now active: Psychosocial Therapies, Migration, Environment, and LGBT.
The autumn edition of Oral History is a special guest-edited Nordic-Baltic issue, marking a new foray into international collaboration.
November – Polly Owen becomes OHS Conference Manager after Belinda Waterman steps down after many years.
December – ‘Teaching Oral History in Higher Education’, OHS Higher Education Group one-day symposium, supported by the Institute for Historical Research
The Oral History Society/British Library training team teaches 83 courses with 772 attendees in 2016 - a record. They comprise 18 'Introduction to oral history' courses, 56 tailored courses, 4 'Archival management of oral history collections' courses, 2 'Transcript to Script', 2 'Lives in Focus' courses and one 'Developing your oral history skills'.
Liz Ison succeeds Katy Wild as Journal Editorial Assistant for the spring issue of Oral History.
May – Oral History Spring School sixth annual collaboration between the OHS Higher Education Group and the Institute for Historical Research at Senate House, London.
14-15 July – 'Remembering beliefs: the shifting worlds of religion and faith in secular society', OHS annual conference, ‘Leeds Trinity University, featuring peace campaigner and former priest Bruce Kent in conversation with Joanna Bornat.
15 July – John Gabriel succeeds Graham Smith as Society Chairman.
September – Kate Melvin (with Julia Letts and Helen Lloyd) launch a rejuvenated OHS Schools Group. This leads to a new online resource about using oral history in schools and with young people.
The autumn issue of Oral History (vol.45 no.2) is an international guest-edited collaboration with Cuban historians.
December - The OHS makes an agreement with the British Library for the permanent retention of the OHS archive. The papers covering the period 1961-2009 are sorted, catalogued and formally deposited for public access in May 2019.
Cai Parry-Jones succeeds Anne Gulland as Publicity Officer.
January – Death of Bill Williams, former OHS Secretary (1977-82) and committee member (1976-86), and founder of pioneering Manchester Studies Unit at Manchester Polytechnic and the Manchester Jewish Museum (obituary OHJ vol.46 no.2).
March – The OHS committee holds a ‘strategy weekend’, driven by presentations based on extensive member consultation around governance (led by Mary Stewart), mission (Cynthia Brown), promoting objectives (Joanna Bornat), and membership (Kate Melvin).
May - The OHS collaborates with the British Library to publish guidance for oral historians on the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
28-29 June – ‘Dangerous oral histories: risks, responsibilities and rewards’, OHS annual conference, Queen’s University Belfast in conjunction with Oral History Network Ireland and Quote Hub. It is the first OHS conference to have been held in Northern Ireland.
John Gabriel talks about his first encounters with the OHS and why he applied to be Chair.
The fiftieth anniversary of Oral History: The Journal of the Oral History Society is celebrated with a special online issue featuring 24 key articles from the journal’s back issues (many selected by members), together with essays by the editors and brief reflections by the authors of each piece. Special anniversary events take place at the annual conference and the British Library (on 22 November)
The spring issue of Oral History on ‘Parenting’ (vol.47 no.1) is guest-edited by Al Thomson and Carla Pascoe Leahy. Kate Melvin joins the journal as Learning Editor and relaunches the Learning section of the journal in the autumn issue.
'Oral history at work: recording change in working lives’ - OHS annual conference, ‘, Swansea University in association with Llafur and Britain at Work.
6 July – At the Society AGM Nick Chalmers steps down as Society Treasurer and the role is split into two: honorary treasurer and bookkeeper. Chairman John Gabriel announces a new communications strategy and the creation of Society guidelines on budgeting for freelance contractors. Emily Gibbs takes over from Kate Melvin as Membership Secretary.
The joint OHS/BL training programme breaks all previous records, holding 122 courses for 1200 participants during the year, skilfully administered by Camille Johnston. Four new trainers are recruited and a new workshop on GDPR piloted.
March – The OHS committee meeting is cancelled as the UK locks down in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, and doesn’t meet (online via Zoom) until 15 May when it agrees to postpone the planned annual conference due to be held in Bournemouth in July.
The spring issue of Oral History is a special issue on ‘LGBTQ+ lives: history, identity and belonging’ (vol.48 no.1), guest-edited by the OHS LGBTQ Special Interest Group, the first devoted to LGBTQ research.
April – In conjunction with the British Library the OHS publishes technical and ethical guidance on remote interviewing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
2 June – The OHS issues a statement on Black Lives Matter: ‘The OHS stands in solidarity with black communities – in the US, the UK and worldwide. As an organisation, our aim is to give voice to groups who face discrimination, unequal treatment, exploitation, injustice and acts of brutal inhumanity. George Floyd’s killing by the police in the US has brought to the world’s attention the need for real change. In expressing our solidarity with black communities in the US, we should also acknowledge state violence against black people in the UK. As an organisation, we can and should do more to actively challenge these oppressions.’
4 July – In lieu of an annual conference the Society AGM takes place online and Chairman John Gabriel details how the Society has responded to the pandemic by moving activities online, such as meetings and training. The Society also sets up its own YouTube channel and online discussion groups for members. Polly Owen becomes the Society’s Bookkeeper.
A new Creative Oral History Special Interest Group holds its inaugural meeting at the University of Greenwich.
Changes in the Oral History editorial team see the arrival of George Severs and Abigail Hunt as Public History editors, and Fearghus Roulston and Isabel Machado as Review editors.
October – The Regional Network holds its annual meeting online on the subject of ‘Oral history in the Covid era’.
The spring issue of Oral History (vol.49 no.1) is the largest ever (144 pages) and reflects on how oral historians have responded to the pandemic.
April – A completely redesigned OHS website is relaunched with new multimedia features and resources, including a blog.
A Higher Education Special Interest Group (SIG) is set up.
9-10 July – ‘Oral history and the media’, the OHS annual conference, with Bournemouth University, takes place entirely online for the first time.
10 July – At the AGM Titi Faluyi is elected Honorary Treasurer.
The autumn issue of Oral History (vol.49.no.2) on the subject of ‘Power and the archive’ is guest-edited by Lindsey Dodd and Anindya Raychaudhuri.
2 March – Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine the OHS issues a statement: ‘The OHS strongly condemns the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, an independent and sovereign state. We view with horror the indiscriminate bombing of ordinary people and abhor the unnecessary loss of life. We call for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian military forces from Ukraine.’
The spring issue of Oral History (vol.50 no.1) marks a departure as short book reviews are now published exclusively online, as part of a new ‘Oral History Online’ web feature, also including articles.
A new Archives and Oral History Special Interest Group (SIG) is established.
Cynthia Brown resigns as Current British Work Editor for Oral History and is replaced by Camille Johnston.
8-9 July – ‘Home’, OHS annual conference takes place both online and in-person at London Metropolitan University. Alan Dein, Graham Smith and Robert Wilkinson are made Life Members.
Juliana Vandegrift steps down as OHS Regional Network Co-ordinator and is replaced by Padmini Broomfield and Sarah Gudgin. There are 38 regional networkers from twelve geographical regions in the UK, working in museums, libraries, archives, academic institutions, community organisations, and as freelancers.
The Oral History Society celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.
January – Polly Owen becomes OHS Conference and Finance Manager
10-11 March – OHS committee holds a strategic planning meeting.
The spring issue of Oral History (vol.51 no. 1) is devoted to the Northern Ireland Troubles and their aftermath, and is the largest ever (153 pages). Anna Bryson, Michael Romyn and Lucy Newby join the editorial team.
23-24 June – Making histories together - the Society's 50th anniversary conference, takes place at Nottingham Trent University.
