I am a student at Royal Holloway University studying for a Masters in Public History. This oral history project will be my final piece of work and will (hopefully!) showcase the skills I have developed as a public historian.

As well as producing this website documenting the progress of this project I have also created a survey with the hope of getting feedback from people who have used this site. Once you have explored this site please follow this link to answer a few questions, it only takes two minutes!

The project

Over the summer I have interviewed six women who worked at the Beechams Brentford site in various capacities, from the chauffeur desk to the research labs. These interviews uncovered the memories of the women involved from childhood to retirement. They brought up many interesting themes, not only of their time at Beechams (and SmithKlineBeechams and GlaxoSmithKline), but of other aspects of their lives. I have gathered extracts from the interviews on this website to highlight the similarities and differences between the women. You can find memories of their time in work here and memories concerned with wider themes such as childhood and their experiences of WWII here.

Not only is oral history a methodology underused by business historians, the corporate world is one which has largely been unexplored by oral historians. Thus, I have decided to boldly go where few have gone by starting to collect the oral histories of GlaxoSmithKline. This website will document my findings and hopefully offer tips to my fellow explorers in the world of business oral history.