Dr Rosemary Cresswell

Profile details

 

Departmental Lecturer in Lifelong Learning (History)

Biography

Dr Rosemary Cresswell is a historian and joined the Department for Continuing Education as a Departmental Lecturer in Lifelong Learning (History) in 2024. Rosemary studied Economic and Social History at the University of Liverpool, before an MSc in History of Science, Medicine and Technology at Imperial College London and University College London, and a PhD focusing on the history of infectious diseases at Imperial College London. She has held postdoctoral research roles at the University of Oxford and at King’s College London, a temporary lectureship at Imperial College London, and between 2012 and 2020 was Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Global History at the University of Hull. Rosemary joined the University of Warwick as a Research Fellow in November 2020 before moving to the University of Strathclyde in July 2021 with the 'Border Crossings: Charity and Voluntarism in Britain’s mixed economy of health care since 1948' project, funded by Wellcome. Between 2018 and 2022, Rosemary was the Chair of the Society for the Social History of Medicine, and still remains a member of the Executive Committee.

Rosemary’s first book, Bacteria in Britain, 1880-1939 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), investigated the use of bacteriology in hospitals, workplaces and local communities. She is currently writing The History of the British Red Cross, 1870-2020: Health and Humanitarianism, under contract with Bloomsbury, and has published various chapters and articles on the history of infectious disease, health care, and humanitarianism. She has recently been the Principal Investigator for research grants including: 'Crossing Boundaries: The History of First Aid in Britain and France, 1909-1989', supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, with Co-Investigator Barry Doyle (2016-2021); 'Oxfam and the History of War, Health and Humanitarianism', funded by Wellcome (2019-21); ‘War, Humanitarianism and the British Red Cross’, University of Oxford Bodleian Libraries Sassoon Visiting Fellowship (2017). 

Research interests

  • History of health, humanitarianism, charity and voluntarism from c.1850-2020
  • Broader context of modern British and international history

Publications

Books

  • Rosemary Wall, Bacteria in Britain, 1880-1939 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013; Routledge, 2015, paperback 2016), xiv + 254pp.
  • Rosemary Cresswell, The History of the British Red Cross, 1870-2020: Health and Humanitarianism (Under contract with Bloomsbury, to be published in 2025/26).

Articles and chapters

  • Ellen Stewart, Rosemary Cresswell and Christian Möller, ‘National charitable fundraising for the NHS, 1948–2023’, Social Policy and Administration, advanced access 2024, open access.

  • Bernard Harris and Rosemary Cresswell, ‘The legacy of voluntarism: charitable funding in the early NHS’, Economic History Review, 77 (2024): 554-583, open access.
  • Ellen Stewart and Rosemary Cresswell, ‘All the trimmings: patient and staff wellbeing should not be left to charitable funding’, British Medical Journal, 383 (2023): 2669, open access.
  • Rosemary Cresswell, ‘Lord Woolton: A life of “social work” and humanitarianism’, Cultural and Social History, 20 (2023): 405-428, open access.
  • Rosemary Cresswell, ‘Constructing the ‘Sanitary Officer’: The Pathologist’s role in infection prevention and control at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, 1892-1939’ in Anne Marie Rafferty, Marguerite Dupree and Fay Bound Alberti (eds.), Germs and governance: The past, present and future of hospital infection, prevention and control (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), pp. 193-218.
  • M. Oppenheimer, N. Wylie, S. Schech, R. Fathi, R. Cresswell, ‘Resilient humanitarianism: Using assemblage to re-evaluate the history of the League of Red Cross Societies’, International History Review, 43:3 (2021): 579-97,  open access.
  • Rosemary Cresswell, ‘The ‘British Red Cross still exists’, 1947-74: finding a role after the Second World War’, in Neville Wylie, Melanie Oppenheimer and James Crossland (eds.), The Red Cross Movement: Myths, Practices and Turning Points (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), pp. 148-63.
  • Rosemary Cresswell, ‘The British Red Cross and the University of Oxford in the First World War’, in Filiberto Agostini (ed.), Università in Europa e Grande Guerra (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2020), pp. 100-118.
  • Martin M. Gazimbi, Monica A. Magadi, Washington Onyango-Ouma, Elizabeth Walker, Rosemary B. Cresswell, Margaret Kaseje, Charles O. Wafula, ‘Is polygyny a risk factor in the transmission of HIV in sub- Saharan Africa? A systematic review’, African Journal of Reproductive Health, 24:4 (2020): 198-212, open access.
  • Stefan Ramsden and Rosemary Cresswell, ‘First Aid and Voluntarism in England, 1945-1985’, Twentieth Century British History, 30:4 (2019): 504-30, open access.
  • Rosemary Wall and Christine Hallett, ‘Nursing and Surgery: Professionalisation, Education and Innovation’ in Thomas Schlich (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of the History of Surgery (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 153-74.
  • Rosemary Wall and Anne Marie Rafferty, 'Trouble with “status”: Competing models of British and North American public health nursing education and practice in British Malaya' in Hans Pols, Michele Thompson and John Harley Warner (eds.), Translating the Body: Medical Education in Southeast Asia (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2017), pp. 67-94.
  • Rosemary Wall, ‘Complaining about typhoid in 1930s Britain’ in Jonathan Reinarz and Rebecca Wynter (eds.), Complaints, Controversies and Grievances in Medicine: Historical and Social Science Perspectives (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2015), pp. 184-201.
  • Rosemary Wall and Anne Marie Rafferty, ‘Nursing and the “Hearts and Minds” Campaign: Malaya, 1948-1958’ in Patricia D’Antonio, Julie A. Fairman and Jean C. Whelan (eds.), Handbook on the Global History of Nursing (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 218-36.
  • Jessica Howell, Anne Marie Rafferty, Rosemary Wall and Anna Snaith, ‘Nursing the tropics: nurses as agents of imperial hygiene’, Journal of Public Health, 35:2 (2013): 338-41, open access.
  • Rosemary Wall, ‘Using bacteriology in elite hospital practice: London and Cambridge, 1880-1920’, Social History of Medicine, 24:4 (2011): 776-95.
  • Anne Marie Rafferty and Rosemary Wall, ‘Re-reading Nightingale: Notes on Hospitals’, International Journal of Nursing Studies, 47:9 (2010): 1063-5.