Dr Hannah Rumball-Croft is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at University of Westminster. Her specialism is nineteenth and early twentieth century dress, women’s tailoring, Quakerism, material culture and women’s studies. She is currently producing the edited collection Tailoring for Women 1800-1930 with Bloomsbury, due for release in 2027, and has published work on the late-nineteenth century women’s waterproof overcoat the Ladies Ulster in Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture. Her work on a religious style of dress worn by British Quaker’s, known as Plain dress, and its ultimate relinquishment for fashionable styles during the nineteenth century, has been pursued since her PhD (2016) which was supervised by Professor Lou Taylor at University of Brighton. Her articles on the subject include “Visibility and Invisibility: Helen Priestman Bright Clark and the struggle for the Position of Women in the Society of Friends, 1873” (2016) Critical Studies, “British Quaker Women’s Fashionable Adaptation of their Plain Dress, 1860–1914” (2018) Costume, and her book chapter “Chapter 11: ‘We Must Hope That the Moderates with Their Quiet Attire Are the Rising Section’: British Women Friends’ Relinquishment of Plain Dress” (2023) in Quaker Women 1800 – 1920.  She has worked on projects for the The National Trust, the William Morris Museum, Regency Town House, the Serpentine Gallery and Palais Galliera, and has worked as a costume mounter, researcher and consultant. She sits on the committees of two international research networks, Nineteenth Century Dress and Textiles Reframed, and ACORSO Tailoring for Women 1860 – 1930.

For further information about Hannah’s work see: