BLOG: WW2: A Civilian in the Second World War
Catherine Pearson’s blog posts extracts from E.J. Rudsdale’s diaries of life on the home front in Britain during the Second World War.
Each extract was posted exactly 70 years after it was first written, marking the 70th anniversary of the Second World War between 2009-2015.
PUBLICATIONS:
Broomfield in World War Two, with Neil Wiffen, People and Stone Publications, No.7, 2025, Broomfield Church
A Contemporary View of the Americans from the Diaries of E.J. Rudsdale, Essex Record Office Blog, 2024
Rosemary Rutherford: Life and Works of an Extraordinary Artist, edited by Naomi Courtenay-Luck, with Ian Mercer, Ros Mercer and Kathy Rouse, People and Stone Publications, No. 5, 2023, Broomfield Church
Ronald Hellen – Artist and Illustrator, Artist’s website, 2020
Meeting the Needs of Commonwealth Personnel and Families: A Map of Service Provision, with Nick Caddick, The Forces in Mind Trust, 2018
Museums in the Second World War: Curators, Culture and Change, edited by Suzanne Keene, 2017, Routledge
The Sole Bay Railway, 2016, KDP Publishing
When War came to Colchester, Essex Life, January 2011, 86-89
‘So ends this disastrous war … and I find myself alive’, East Anglian Daily Times, 23 October 2010, 32-33
E.J. Rudsdale’s Journals of Wartime Colchester, 2010, The History Press
Curators, Culture and Conflict: Understanding the effects and consequences of the Second World War on the UK’s Museums: 1926-1965, Ph.D. thesis, 2008, University College London
‘Art for the People’: Museums and Cultural Life in the Second World War, Museological Review: Conference Proceedings, 2007, 12, 1-12
Back to the Future: How World War II shaped today’s museums, Museums Journal, 2005, 105:2, 26-29
“A man who loved Colchester”: The Journals of E J Rudsdale, 1920-1951, Essex Journal for History and Archaeology, 2002, 37:2, 42-48
In Search of the History Man: E.J. Rudsdale and Colchester, Essex County Standard, 16 November 2001
Business as Usual? The Role and Purpose of Museums during the Second World War, M.A. dissertation, 1997, University College London
Humphrey de Bohun and his Role in the Period of Reform and Rebellion, 1215 – 1275, B.A. (Hons) dissertation, 1992, King’s College, London
MEDIA INTERVIEWS:
Church Project Shines Light on World War Two Artist, by Katy Prickett, BBC Online, 21 June 2025
Helen Castor discovers more about the personal sacrifices made to feed Britain during the Second World War, Making History, Radio 4, 22 March 2011
Catherine Pearson 