Jacqui Turner

I am broadly interested in late C19th and early C20th political cultures including gender, feminism, working class politics and religion.

My existing research 'The Soul of the Labour Movement' is a detailed examination of the Victorian morality and spirituality upon which the life of the labour movement was built and includes the wider contribution of the women's movement, children's associations and radical literary traditions. 'The Labour Church: Religion and Politics in the Early Twentieth Century' was published by I.B. Tauris in spring 2018.

My current research concerns early female pioneers in politics, focusing largely on female MPs between 1919 and 1931 primarily as 'sex-candidates'. I examine the contribution of early female MPs but also reassess the importance of the 1918 Representation of the People Act on British democracy, in relation to women and the emergence of female public politicians. I am particularly interested in Nancy Astor, who was the first female MP to sit in the House of Commons, whose papers are held here at the University of Reading. You can also find our Special Collection 'Nancy Astor, Public Women and Gendered Political culture in Interwar Britain' at Open Library of Humanities (2020 - today) https://olh.openlibhums.org/collections/414/

I was privileged to work on Parliament's Vote100 programme between 2015 -2018. From January 2019 to March 2020 I was PI and national curator for Astor100 a celebration of the life and legacy of Nancy Astor but more broadly, the celebration of 100 years of women in Parliament https://research.reading.ac.uk/astor100/astor-100/