Congratulations to Sophie Greenway on the successful examination of her PhD ‘Growing Well: Dirt and Health in the Home and Garden in Britain, 1930-1970'.

If anyone is interested in finding out about the history of composting or using bicarbonate of soda to keep your vegetables green, basically why we do and how we did the things we do in the house and who does it, then Sophie is the person to ask! It’s a thesis that has important things to say to the environmental debate of today and Sophie will be looking to develop some of those ideas in her upcoming fellowship in the Institute of Advanced Studies here at Warwick.

Despite its prevalence and relevance to the current day, maternal mental illness in the twentieth century has attracted scant historical attention. This Wellcome Trust funded project ‘The Last Taboo of Motherhood?’ aims to address this absence, by exploring the history of maternal mental illness in twentieth-century Britain.

This research is being undertaken by Professor Hilary Marland, Dr Fabiola Creed and Dr Kelly Couzens. The project website has just been launched and new posts will be added in the coming months.

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Congratulations to Ute Oswald, postgraduate student in the Centre for the History of Medicine, who has been awarded an IAS Fellowship. She will use this to extend her research on the role of recreational and religious activities in nineteenth-century asylums, revealing their impact on the lives of patients and staff and the extent to which they were deemed restorative.