Cherish Watton-Colbrook

(She/her)

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I have recently completed a PhD on the history of scrapbooking in Britain during the twentieth century. I studied scrapbooks on war, monarchy, and rural life to illustrate the different ways in which people engaged with the scrapbook genre.

I have published journal articles on women’s scrapbooking practices in Women’s History Review, Archives and Records, and Technology and Culture. I have also shared highlights from my research in articles for The Conversation and History Workshop Journal. More broadly, my research interests focus on archives, collecting and life writing in modern Britain. I work as an Archives Assistant at Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge.

In my free time, I founded an award-winning national website on the work of the British Women’s Land Army, www.womenslandarmy.co.uk. I have been interviewed several times on national television, contributed to podcasts and radio programmes, and have written for the popular history magazine, Who Do You Think You Are?.

Experience

  • 2021–present
    Archives Assistant, Churchill Archives Centre
  • 2020–2024
    PhD Candidate, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge

Education

  • 2025 
    University of Cambridge, PhD (completed 2024, graduation in 2025)
  • 2018 
    University of Cambridge, MPhil in Modern British History

Publications

  • 2024
    Scrapbooks as Sites of Technology: The Women's Institute and the Material Culture of 1960s Rural England [with Tiia Sahrakorpi], Technology and Culture
  • 2024
    Creative Responses to Covid-19: Unearthing, Sharing and Making Scrapbooks, Paper Trails
  • 2023
    WI scrapbooks and community archives: women's experiences of record-keeping in 1960s rural England, Archives and Records
  • 2022
    Suffrage scrapbooks and emotional histories of women's activism, Women's History Review

Professional Memberships

  • Women's History Network

Contact Cherish for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision