Rosemary Cresswell is a historian of health, charity and voluntarism from c.1850-2020.  She joined the University of Oxford Department of Continuing Education (OUDCE) as a Departmental Lecturer in Lifelong Learning (History) in 2024, and is a fellow of Kellogg College. Until July 2025, Rosemary is also a Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde, 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. She has held postdoctoral research roles at the University of Oxford, King’s College London, and the University of Warwick, 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’s first book, Rosemary Wall, Bacteria in Britain, 1880-1939 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), investigated hospitals, workplaces and local communities, including charitable relief during epidemics. She is currently writing The History of the British Red Cross, 1870-2020: Health and Humanitarianism, under contract with Bloomsbury, and has published chapters and articles on the history of health care, charities 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).

Three sample publications

Bernard Harris and Rosemary Cresswell, ‘The legacy of voluntarism: charitable funding in the early NHS’, Economic History Review, 77 (2024): 554-583, open access.

Rosemary Cresswell, ‘Lord Woolton: A life of “social work” and humanitarianism’, Cultural and Social History, 20 (2023): 405-428, 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.