My mother, Mary Kennedy, who has died aged 91, was a feminist, historian and educator and a lifelong advocate for women’s higher education and learning opportunities.
She began her career as a secretary for the Foreign Office and then as a researcher at the Bank of London and South America during the 1950s. Immersing herself in Latin American history and culture led to a brief stint as a freelance journalist, writing for publications including the South American Economic Newsletter and the New Statesman, and about women’s lives in Mexico for the BBC World Service.
Researching Latin America brought her back into academia, first at Ealing Tech (now Ealing Art College) in London, where she began her career as a lecturer and scholar of Latin American history in the 1970s. Following the National Women’s Liberation Conference in 1970, feminism became a core part of her life and work. She was also involved with the London History Workshop and the Islington History Workshop.
She went on to work in adult education teaching women’s studies in the 1970s, first for the Workers Educational Association and then moving to the University of London’s department of extramural studies in 1978. After that department merged with Birkbeck College in 1988 she continued her career there, where she was a senior lecturer in women’s studies and social history and helped to develop the MA programme in women’s studies.
She published numerous papers on subjects including world revolutions, communes, childcare and women’s sexuality, as well as the books Revolution in Perspective: People Seeking Change (1972) and New Futures: Changing Women’s Education (1985, with Mary Hughes). In 2011 she was interviewed as part of the British Library’s project Sisterhood and After: an oral history of the women’s liberation movement. Her papers are held by the Bishopsgate Institute.
Mary was born in Axminster, Devon, to John Charlesworth, a handyman, and Eileen (nee Langran), a housekeeper. She grew up in the village of Hawkchurch and was educated at St Mary’s, Shaftesbury convent school before attending Royal Holloway College, University of London, studying history.
She met Bill Kennedy, an artist, in London in 1966 through mutual friends, and they married in 1967. After her retirement in 1993, she divided her time between London and the Dordogne, and was a trustee of the Maya Centre and a member of the executive committee of the Women’s Library from 2014.
Bill died in 2008. Mary is survived by me and her grandson, Gabriel.
