Steve Thompson

Dr Steven Thompson BA, Ph.D (Wales) is a historian of the modern period with specific interest in the history of Wales and Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Dr Thompson is interested in the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Wales and Britain and has specific research interests in the history of health and medicine, the provision of social welfare, women and gender, and the labour movement. All of these interests come together in the large-scale research project in which he is currently engaged. This project focuses on the mixed economy of medical and welfare services in industrial south Wales from the late eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. It aims to evaluate the provision made by public authorities, voluntary and philanthropic organisations, self-help and mutualist organisations, employers, and families and neighbourhood networks.

Other areas of interest include the history of carnival in urban south Wales in the twentieth century, housing and building societies in Wales, and the history of sport.

He was a Co-Investigator on the Wellcome Trust-funded research project Disability and Industrial Society: A Comparative Cultural History of British Coalfields 1780-1948 (www.dis-ind-soc.org.uk) and, as convenor of the south Wales strand of the project, has organised a public lecture, a disability history roadshow and a professionals' workshop, and co-authored a number of scholarly articles.

He has been editor of Llafur, Welsh People's History Society Journal since 2008. More information about the Society and the journal can be found at www.llafur.org.