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The Women’s Liberation Movement and the Gendering of Undercover Police Surveillance in 1970s Britain: the Public Inquiry as (Un)Ethical archive
Sarah Crook 
History Workshop Journal
Swansea University Author:
Sarah Crook
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© The Author(s) 2026. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
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DOI (Published version): 10.1093/hwj/dbag011
Abstract
In the 1970s a female police officer went undercover in the feminist movement in Britain. Across two years, she shared plans, conversations, and ephemera with Special Branch, while uncovering nothing that threatened state security. Yet her time in the movement is important to historians; she inadver...
| Published in: | History Workshop Journal |
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| ISSN: | 1363-3554 1477-4569 |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press (OUP)
2026
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa70107 |
| Abstract: |
In the 1970s a female police officer went undercover in the feminist movement in Britain. Across two years, she shared plans, conversations, and ephemera with Special Branch, while uncovering nothing that threatened state security. Yet her time in the movement is important to historians; she inadvertently created a rich archive of the feminist movement. For feminist historians, though, the use of this archive, made available by the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI, 2015–ongoing), raises issues around consent. This article considers these issues and uses the material exposed by the UCPI to explore the Women’s Liberation Movement’s perceived threat to social order. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Funders: |
Swansea University |