Dr Pam Fisher

I completed an MA and a PhD at the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. I am currently the Volunteer Programme Manager for Leicestershire Victoria County History Trust and also County Editor. The Trust is a registered charity (No. 1128575) that aims to research the history of every parish in Leicestershire from earliest times to the present day, to publish this research as books or online as part of the national Victoria County History series and to run public history outreach events based on that research. 

My role is to plan the research, recruit, train and support volunteer historians to help, to carry out some research myself and to prepare or edit a text for publication. Each parish history covers 1,000 years or more and is arranged thematically around topics which include the landscape, transport networks, population, settlement, housing, landownership, economic, social and religious history and local government. My role also includes website management, newsletter production, publicity and assisting with fundraising.

I have written or co-authored four paperback histories for the Victoria County History with the help of community volunteers and, in the case of Lutterworth, with the assistance of University of Leicester student volunteers as part of a summer history project. I have also edited three volunteer-produced online histories for Kirby Bellars, Leire and Welby. The paperbacks are on Castle Donington (2016), Buckminster and Sewstern (2017), Ibstock (2020) and Lutterworth (2022).

The choice of parish is driven by the availability of funding, which comes from a mix of donations from individuals and charitable trusts and grants from a variety of different bodies, which have included local councils and Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society. 

I am currently working on a history of the market town of Loughborough. This will build on the Charnwood Roots project, completed by Leicestershire Victoria County History Trust between 2013 and 2017 and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The first stage will be the completion of two paperbacks each of 35,000 words on the history of Loughborough since 1750, the first of which will be on the social, cultural and religious history of the town. Other topics and periods will follow. The overall project will require significant grant funding to bring it to completion.

Pamela J. Fisher and Andrew Watkins, Victoria History of Leicestershire: Lutterworth (University of London, forthcoming, 2022)

Pamela J. Fisher, 'Making their Voices Heard: Lutterworth's Nonconformists, St Mary's Steeple and a Burial Controversy', Transactions of Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 94 (2020), 143-164.

Pamela J. Fisher, 'Ibstock, 1831-1931: The growth of a mining community', Leicestershire Historian 56 (2020), 26-31.

Pamela J. Fisher, Victoria History of Leicestershire: Ibstock (University of London, 2020)

Pamela J. Fisher, Victoria History of Leicestershire: Buckminster and Sewstern (University of London, 2017)

Pamela J. Fisher and J. Michael Lee, Victoria History of Leicestershire: Castle Donington (University of London, 2016)

History of Leicestershire