Olive Banks

Olive Banks (2 July 1923 – 14 September 2006) was a professor at Leicester University who worked upon the sociology of education and the history of feminism.[1]

Early life

Banks was born in Enfield Highway, Middlesex, the only child of Herbert Alfred Davies and Jessie Louise (nee) Tebby. She married Joseph Ambrose (Joe) Banks in June 1944 and they both entered the London School of Economics to study sociology. Her PhD thesis was turned into her first book, Parity and Prestige in English Secondary Education: a Study in Educational Sociology (1955).[2]

Career

In 1954 she accepted a research post at Liverpool University, where she was able to investigate the history of British feminism, culminating in the publishing of Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England (1964).[2] Her reputation as a leading scholar in her field was sealed with the publication of The Sociology of Education (1965).[2]

In 1970 she was offered a readership at University of Leicester, and three years later became the first woman to hold a chair at that university.[2]

A posthumous review of her life and work, "Olive Banks and the Collective Biography of British Feminism", was made by Gaby Weiner.[3]

Retirement

Following her retirement in 1982, she continued her research, publishing a two volume Biographical Dictionary of British Feminists (1985-1990) and Becoming Feminist: The Social Origins of 'First Wave' feminism (1986). The Politics of British Feminism (1993) was her last book.[2]

Death

She died in Buxton, Derbyshire of a heart attack.[2]

References
  1. Simon Szreter (12 December 2006), "Olive Banks", The Guardian
  2. Goldman, L. (Ed.) (2013) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005-2008 page 55 Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199671540 Retrieved February 2015
  3. Gaby Weiner, "Olive Banks and the Collective Biography of British Feminism" British Journal of Sociology of Education 29(4)(July 2008): 403-410.
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