Hertfordshire Association for Local History
promoting the study and enjoyment
​of local history in Hertfordshire
  • Home
    • About HALH
    • HALH Trustees - about us
    • Membership
    • Insurance
    • HALH Constitution
    • HALH Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Events
    • Spring Meeting
    • Summer Visit
    • Symposium
    • Online winter lectures
  • Initiatives
    • HALH Awards for Personal Achievement
    • Preserving research data
    • 75th Anniversary
  • Publications
    • Herts Past & Present
    • HPP - notes for contributors
    • News & Events
    • Newsletters
    • Hertfordshire Publications
  • Local History Societies
    • Local History websites & other links
    • Regional Meetings
    • Local speakers' list
About us

President
​Heather Falvey

​

Trustees

Chairman

Nicholas Maddex is a Chairman and a Vice-President of HALH. He also organises HALH’s regional meetings in mid-Herts and he manages nominations for the HALH Award. He tutored adult education classes in local history for many years. His special interests are rural history and the early modern period, and he is chairman of Codicote Local History Society.

Vice-Chairman

Linda Gilley has always had an interest in history, archaeology, and architecture.  After retiring from her career in telecommunications, she became involved in a history archive and exhibition, and co-authored a book about the village where she now lives – The History of Tewin by the People of Tewin. A past Chairman of HALH, and a lifetime Vice-President, she is now busy reading the wartime correspondence of her parents with a view to making it the subject of a book.

Joint Secretary & Joint Editor

Ruth Jeavons was an editorial manager at Routledge from where she retired in 2004. She started co-editing Herts Past & Present in 2003, initially with Gillian Gear, now with Philip Sheail. She has enjoyed planning a few of the recent HALH symposia and is currently Hon. Secretary of Wheathampstead’s History Society, having started off a small local history group there in 1986 in support of the Hertfordshire Recorder Scheme. She has contributed to and published several books of local history. 
​

Membership Secretary

Elaine Saunders is a former lawyer. She began formal history study in 2008 at the University of Hertfordshire.  Her subsequent PhD at the Open University examined how Hertfordshire’s rural parishes were policed during the eighteenth century, and before the creation of the county constabulary.  Her thesis is available for free download from the OU.  Elaine continues to research, write and give talks on early policing history.​​​
​

Member of the Executive Committee

Kris Lockyear is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. He became interested in archaeology as a school boy and joined the Welwyn Archaeological Society (WAS) aged 11 in 1975. He now directs WAS, as well as being the Project Leader for the Community Archaeology Geophysics Group. Since 2013 he has been leading a team of local volunteers surveying the Roman city of Verulamium as well as many other sites in the county. He edited Archaeology in Hertfordshire: Recent Research (2015) and has organised a series of conferences on that theme.

​

Vice-Presidents

Susan Flood                                                      
​Linda Gilley                                                           
Nicholas Maddex                           
Kate Thompson
     

Joint Secretary & acting treasurer

Sheila White joined the HALH committee in 2011, and now runs the website and maintains the speakers’ list. Since retiring, she has spent time researching local history and studying for an IHGS qualification in genealogy. She is chairman of the Braughing Local History Society and is currently researching Hertfordshire's parish workhouses.​​​​

Joint Editor

Philip Sheail has lived in Hertford for over 40 years. He retired from a career in Town Planning in 2003, and since then has written several books and articles on local history. He is a member of the Hertford & Ware Local History Society and is co-editor with Ruth Jeavons of Herts Past & Present and News & Events. 
​
​


Member of the Executive Committee

Anne Rowe is a historian of the Hertfordshire landscape with a particular interest in deer parks, rabbit warrens and the management of trees and hedgerows. She co-ordinated volunteers researching the history of the county’s historic parks and gardens for the Hertfordshire Gardens Trust for over twenty years and is also president of the East Herts Archaeological Society. She and has written and co-authored several books and articles and is currently working on an update of the county’s Ancient Woodland Inventory.​​

Member of the Executive Committee

Alan Thomson retired from teaching history full-time at the University of Hertfordshire in 2008, and has written a number of books and articles on Hertfordshire history. He is chairman of the Hertford and Ware Local History Society, the Hertfordshire Record Society, and Hertfordshire Publications. He gives local history lectures through the HALH local speakers’ list scheme.
                                                       

follow @hertshistory on Bluesky @hertshistory.bsky.social                                                               
look for @hertfordshirehistory on Instagram