Key details
Dr Claire Eustance
Senior Lecturer, History
Claire completed her doctorate at the University of York in 1994 and since then has enjoyed a varied career in academic and project management roles in further and higher education. Before joining the University of Greenwich in 2009 she managed a series of widening participation projects involving members of marginalised and excluded communities in Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham. Claire has been a part-time member of the History Programme at Greenwich since 2013 and History Programme Leader since 2019.
Responsibilities within the university
- Programme Leader, History and combined honours
- Chair, University of Greenwich Archive Steering Group
- Member of History Research Group
Research / Scholarly interests
Claire’s research interests lie in the study of 19th and 20th century politics, society and culture. She is passionate about questions of gender and how this intersects with class, ethnicity and race. Claire’s research into 20th century feminisms has focussed on lesser known elements of the British women’s suffrage movement and its impact in different contexts. The collection of essays she edited with A.V. John, The Men’s Share: Masculinities, Male Support and Women’s Suffrage in Britain, 1890-1920 remains one of the go-to books on the subject. In 2017, Claire guest curated one of the Houses of Parliament’s Vote100 exhibitions, ‘Suffragettes in Trousers: the men who supported women’s suffrage in Parliament’.
During the centenary year of some women gaining the vote in Britain in 2018, Claire spoke about her research to a variety of audiences at public events and academic conferences across the UK and contributed to several TV and radio programmes. She also set up Greenwich100, a successful collaborative project with schools and libraries in Greenwich, that raised awareness about gender equality and women’s rights in past and present, and which continues to sponsor new research into the history of the campaigns for women’s rights locally.