Dr. Anne Summers has a distinguished background in history, having served as a Curator of Modern Historical Manuscripts at the British Library and as a Research Fellow of the Wellcome Trust. Dr. Summers’ academic work primarily focuses on women’s philanthropic activism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Currently, she is conducting research on the archive of The Working Ladies’ Guild for Necessitous Gentlewomen, exploring issues of female middle-class poverty from 1850 to 1950. Her research in this area has recently formed the basis of public talks for the Friends of the Women's Library. Dr. Summers is the author of "Christian and Jewish Women in Britain, 1880-1940: Living with Difference," and continues to actively contribute to women's historical scholarship.

Susan Pares has been a trustee of the Friends since 2013 and also serves as a trustee of the Elizabeth Heyrick Society since 2023. Susan began her career at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before transitioning to freelance editing and writing, with a particular focus on East Asia. She has co-authored several books on East Asian topics with her husband, James Hoare. In 2015, she published "Displaced by War," a memoir about her great-aunt Gertrude Powicke. More recently, she wrote about her grandmother in "Women’s History Today" (Spring 2023), and presented "An Ordinary Feminist Life: Margaret Pares 1878-1963," expanding on the contributions of post-suffrage activism. Susan’s passion for women’s self-determination has always guided her, inspired by a lineage of strong female ancestors. She lives in London, is married, and has one daughter, two stepsons, and several grandchildren​.

Lorna Hawthorne has served as Treasurer of the Friends of the Women’s Library since 2012. With a professional background spanning over 25 years in charity governance, policy, and administration, Lorna plays a crucial role in ensuring the financial health and compliance of the organisation. She is also the Data Protection Officer for the charity, safeguarding sensitive information. Beyond finance, Lorna has extensive experience as a qualified translator and editor in technical and diplomatic contexts, and she is fluent in French, German, Italian, and Bahasa Indonesia.

Dr. Jane Grant has dedicated over forty years to the women’s movement as a practitioner, activist, researcher, and writer. Involved with the Friends of the Women’s Library for around twenty years, she also helped establish the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations (NAWO). Dr. Grant completed her doctorate at the University of Kent on the governance of women’s organisations. Her notable works include "In the Steps of Exceptional Women: The History of the Fawcett Society" (2016) and "The Other Emmeline: The Story of Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence" (2023). Recently, she has delivered lectures such as "Mary Stott: Feminist, Journalist, Campaigner," continuing her exploration of key feminist figures in the 20th century. Dr. Grant is currently working on a biography of Mary Stott, showcasing her enduring dedication to documenting women's activism and leadership.

l am Emerita Professor at Anglia Ruskin University and a former Convenor of the Women’s History Network. l grew up in Highbury, London, in the same road as the Arsenal Stadium (to the sound of cheering). I am of working-class Greek-Cypriot heritage. I obtained my Ph.D.in English Literature as a mature student from Cambridge University. I believe that ‘culture is ordinary’ and in the power of education to transform lives, as it has transformed mine. At ARU I co-ordinated the MA in Women’s Studies, chaired a large NATHE (now UCU) trade union branch, and organised international conferences on the literature and history of the 1930s. I have written extensively on inter-war women’s writing (Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Nancy Cunard, Naomi Mitchison, Storm Jameson, Rosamond Lehmann, Winifred Holtby). I am now involved with oral history, community, and local history projects in Cambridge and published the biography of Clara Rackham in 2023. I am a Trustee of the Cambridge Women’s Resources Centre, onetime Chair of the Raymond Williams Foundation, and attached to the ARU Labour History Research Unit. I love cinema and dance (virtually any kind of dance to virtually any kind of music). I am currently researching the English painter, Nan Youngman.

Dr Catherine Clay, BA (Camb), MA, PhD (Lanc) has a research career spanning more than twenty years in the fields of twentieth-century women’s writing and feminist media history. She has been a frequent visitor to The Women’s Library Reading Rooms since their basement location on Old Castle Street, and a member of the Friends’ Executive Committee since 2019. Her publications include British Women Writers 1914-1945: Professional Work and Friendship (Ashgate 2006) and Time and Tide: the Feminist and Cultural Politics of Modern Magazine (EUP, 2018). The latter volume underpinned an AHRC-funded project in partnership with Women in Journalism, Five Leaves Publications, The Women’s Library and the Friends of the Women’s Library marking the centenary, in May 2020, of this landmark periodical for interwar feminism. Through her academic and public work, she focuses on highlighting the importance of women’s perspectives in media, ensuring their historical and cultural contributions are recognised and valued today.

Professor Mary Evans has worked extensively in the field of gender studies, sociology, and feminist theory for over 40 years. She is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Kent's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research and currently serves as a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics (LSE). Her research primarily focuses on how gender informs and structures social life, with particular interest in both fictional and non-fictional narratives. Throughout her career, she has emphasized the role of gender in shaping societal norms and the continuing inequalities between men and women. Professor Evans has published numerous influential books, including The Persistence of Gender Inequality (2017), which explores how progress narratives often obscure ongoing gender inequalities, and The SAGE Handbook of Feminist Theory (2014), which serves as a key reference for those studying feminist issues. Her work also includes Gender and Social Theory and The Imagination of Evil: Detective Fiction and the Modern World, demonstrating her interest in linking literature and feminist theory. Her latest research focuses on the reproduction of gender and class inequalities, provisionally titled Re-Writing Middlemarch, and a study on gender, religion, and politics. Professor Evans was also co-editor of the European Journal of Women’s Studies and has contributed significantly to academic discourse through her teaching at LSE, including courses like "Gender, Politics and Civil Society." She remains active in public engagement, delivering talks and contributing to broader feminist and sociological discussions on both social inequality and the roles of women in modern society.

Dr. Anne Logan is a historian specializing in 19th and 20th-century British social history and women's history. She has been a lecturer at the University of Kent since 2001 and completed her PhD titled "Making Women Magistrates: Feminism, Citizenship, and Justice in England and Wales 1920-1950" in 2002. Her first book, Feminism and Criminal Justice: A Historical Perspective (2008), examines the involvement of women in penal reform and their interactions with the feminist movement between 1920 and 1970. More recently, she published The Politics of Penal Reform: Margery Fry and the Howard League (2018), a biography that highlights the role of Margery Fry as a penal reformer. Dr. Logan actively works to engage the public with academic research, often giving talks to local societies on topics such as the women's suffrage movement and women's roles during the First World War. She has led several public engagement projects, including an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project titled "Women in Tunbridge Wells: A Hidden History." She also directed public history projects about Rochester and Borstal during the First World War, as well as the experiences of Belgian refugees in Tunbridge Wells during that time. Dr. Logan regularly delivers talks for the Friends of the Women's Library, and recently spoke on the topic of Margery Fry and Quakerism, as part of their talks program in 2021. Her commitment to both academic research and public history helps bring important aspects of women's history to a wider audience.

Sue Brown is a Northern grammar school girl who grew up in Lancashire and Yorkshire. She read history at St Hugh’s College, Oxford and Toronto University. She joined the UK Civil Service as an admin entrant in 1971 and spent time in the UK Representation to the EEC, the British Embassy Washington DC and the Department of National Heritage. After three gruelling years negotiating the UK's annual fish quotas she applied for voluntary retirement in 2001. Since then she has published three biographies, of Joseph Severn, the friend of Keats (OUP, 2009), Paul Asciak, a Maltese opera singer (Times of Malta, 2011) and Julia Wedgwood, the niece of Charles Darwin, a prominent mid- Victorian feminist and writer on an unusually wide range of topics assumed to be beyond the capability of female commentators. "Julia Wedgwood, the Unexpected Victorian: the Life and Writing of a Remarkable Female Intellectual” was published by Anthem Press in their Nineteenth Century series in 2023. She recently completed an MA at Birkbeck College in Classical Studies.