#HouseHistoryHour - meet the hosts

Jill Stewart has worked in housing for over 30 years as an environmental health practitioner and more recently as a lecturer in London Universities. Her current work is wide and varied and includes teaching front line practitioners and research. She has led on the development of focused housing courses including content on how and where people live and how housing, health and social care needs can be effectively met. Her work usually has a health element to it and an emphasis on addressing inequalities and inequities. 

Having achieving a PhD in 2007 on evidence based strategies in housing and health and as a founder member of the Environmental Health Research Network,

Jill regularly contributes to housing related conferences on issues including regulating the privately rented housing sector, histories of Inspectors of Nuisance and Sanitary Inspectors, housing and dementia services, living in seaside towns etc. and she regularly uses archives to help better understand the wider history of housing design, conditions and management.

She has been involved in developing resources with the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MODA) including a podcast on memory and dementia and working with curators to use their collections for creative practice with students.

Jill has written a range of housing related books. Her first in 1999, Environmental Health and Housing, provided a history of private sector housing; a second edition followed in 2018 also received great reviews. She has also written and edited several books and chapters, including contributing two chapters on housing and planning to The Stuff of Life: Public Health in Edwardian England.

She followed this up with an e-book titled Housing and Hope about England’s interwar housing across tenures and later edited a book called Pioneers in Public Health. She has also edited and written chapters for other books on public health and housing subjects, most recently (2022) about regulating the private rented housing sector. 

Professionally Jill’s work has been recognised across a range of professional bodies and she is Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner, a Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Public Health and the Royal Geographical Society and Co-Chair of the London Public Health Housing Network, alongside other housing roles. Jill is often asked to contribute to policy and practice aspects of housing and health and has input into a range of national level policy and practice reviews, documents and publications. 

Jill’s own website tries to create a space for wide understanding of and interest in the importance of housing to us all and seeks to link to the arts. She regularly posts around issues of interest such as places to visit, films and books about housing. Alongside this, Jill is a keen photographer and has illustrated her own books and numerous blogs and journal articles. 

Get in touch via website https://www.jillstewarthousing.co.uk

Twitter https://twitter.com/Jill_L_Stewart

For list of books: https://www.jillstewarthousing.co.uk/books/