Authors

Dr John Chandler

John was brought up in Devon and read classics at Bristol University, completing his doctorate in 1977 on religion and politics in the later Roman empire.

He trained as a librarian and worked in Wiltshire until embarking in 1988 on a freelance career of writing, lecturing, researching for archaeological units and publishing local and regional history.

John has worked intermittently for the Victoria County History (VCH) for some 15 years, in Wiltshire (Codford), Herefordshire (Ledbury) and Gloucestershire, where as county editor from 2011 he completed a volume on parishes near Gloucester, and has planned and contributed to three further volumes.

Since 2016 he has also served as consultant editor in Wiltshire, contributing West Knoyle to volume 19 and parts of Chippenham to volume 20, which he is overseeing. Having lived at various addresses in Wiltshire for 40 years, he moved to Gloucester in 2014.

John’s interest in history and topography began as a teenager and became his full-time occupation when appointed Wiltshire’s local studies librarian in 1979.

The VCH, with its exhaustively researched and carefully referenced text, has always been the bedrock for studying Wiltshire’s history and places, and John is anxious to see it continue and complete its coverage of the county.

Dr Rosalind Johnson

Dr Rosalind Johnson is a contributing editor to the VCH Wiltshire project. For volume 20 she has written chapters on the social and religious history of Chippenham, contributed to the section on Outer Chippenham, and written the section on Hardenhuish. She is working on volume 21 for south-east Wiltshire, researching Whiteparish and Landford, the two parishes of the historic hundred of Frustfield.

Rosalind has also worked for VCH Somerset, writing the history of Norton Fitzwarren for the Taunton volume. She is a visiting research fellow at the University of Winchester and has taught at the universities of Winchester and Chichester.

She holds a BA (Hons) in history from the University of York, an MA in librarianship from the University of Sheffield, and a MA in regional and local history and archaeology from the University of Winchester. Her PhD, also at Winchester, was awarded in 2013 for a thesis on Protestant dissenters in Hampshire, c. 1640-c. 1740.

Her publications include ‘The case of the distracted maid: healing and cursing in early Quaker history’, Quaker Studies, vol. 21, issue 1 (June 2016) and ‘The lives of ejected Hampshire ministers after 1662’, Southern History, vol. 36 (2014). She is working on two forthcoming book chapters on early modern religion.

Read an interview with Rosalind here.

Dr Louise Ryland-Epton

Louise was awarded her doctorate in 2020 by the Open University (OU) where she is now a Visiting Fellow. Her thesis research focused on social policy, welfare innovation and governance in the late Georgian period. She has published several articles, most recently in the journal Parliamentary History. 

Louise gained her MA from the OU in 2016 and, soon after, contributed to VCH volume 16 in Gloucestershire. Her work on that county’s local history was recognised by the award of the Bryan Jerrard prize in 2018.   

Since 2018, Louise has worked on Wiltshire VCH Volume 20 on Chippenham. She has also collaborated with the Bremhill Parish History Group on a community project supported by Wiltshire VCH to research, record and communicate the rich and varied heritage of Bremhill village.  

The stories uncovered during the study have proved fascinating. From a 16th century widow tried as a witch, to a 17th century tale of forbidden love and a 19th century labourer who claimed to cure jaundice by burning urine.

Louise is passionate about local history, believing that social, economic and political change is best understood by looking at the lives of those who lived through it.    

She lives in Gloucestershire. 

Dr Bronach Kane

Bronach is senior lecturer in medieval history at Cardiff University, researching and teaching the social and cultural history of late medieval England. She is the co-editor of Women, Agency and the Law, 1300-1700 (London, 2013) and Popular Memory and Gender in Medieval England: Men, Women and Testimony in the Church Courts, c.1200-1500 (Woodbridge, 2019). Her next major project explores the experiences of women in urban and rural communities in the post-plague era.