Key details
Dr Mary Clare Martin
Principal Lecturer and Research Lead
Dr Mary Clare Martin is a social historian, specialising in the history of children, young people, education, and voluntary action. She holds history degrees from the University of York (BA) and Goldsmiths’ College, University of London (PhD), a PGCE (primary) and an RSA diploma in the teaching of English as a Second Language in Multicultural schools (TESLMC). A former primary school teacher, she is particularly interested in children’s perspectives, past and present, and in decolonising the curriculum.
She is Co-Founding Director of the Children’s History Society, UK and founded the “Life-Cycles” seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, London in 2008. Her publications focus on the history of children and youth, especially religion, disability, play and recreation, and the Girl Guide movement, and on female philanthropy and women’s activism, c 1750-1950.
In 2011 she founded the Centre (now Cluster) for the Study of Play and Recreation in the School of Education, which held annual or biannual conferences and relevant seminar series. She was programme leader of the BA (Hons) Childhood Studies degree from 2007-2014, and has written and taught many courses on the history of childhood, education and youth in global perspective, on children’s literature, and the representation of childhood in literature, art, culture and media.
She has four children and enjoys wild swimming, walking and her allotment. Mary Clare welcomes applications for PhDs from students in any aspect of the history of childhood and youth, on voluntary action, and religious history.
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Posts held previously:
- 2006-2014, Programme leader of BA Hons Childhood Studies, University of Greenwich