Dr Liz Bird, who has died of cancer aged 76, was a pioneering feminist academic. As head of continuing education and dean of arts at the University of Bristol, she was a key figure in the development of women’s and gender studies both within the university’s social science faculty and through community education.
Her expertise spanned art history, cultural studies, sociology, feminism, film and theatre. Fondly remembered by mature students for her inspirational extramural programmes of part-time study, she encouraged many to go into further and higher education. A passionate commitment to feminism led her to join eight other academics (including myself) in preparing the first interdisciplinary textbook in the subject, Half the Sky: An Introduction to Women’s Studies ( 1979) and later to carry out her own research into the history of women’s studies. In 2000 she was appointed MBE for achievements in adult and continuing education.
Born in Gateshead, Liz was the daughter of Sybil (nee Grey), a barrister, and Robert Bird, the managing director of the family laundry firm. She was educated at Newcastle upon Tyne church high school (where she became head girl), then did a short cultural course at the University of Perugia before going to Oxford University to study philosophy, politics and economics, and Sussex University for an MA in the sociology of art and literature.
A year at Cornell University, participating in radical politics (where she was referred to as “the redheaded English Bolshevik”), was followed by a DPhil at Sussex University and research assistantship at Glasgow. In 1976, she moved to the University of Bristol to teach extramural studies, later becoming head of continuing education, before the department was closed down in 1998. Joining drama and theatre studies, Liz became dean of arts for six years until her retirement in 2004.
She then followed her lifelong passion for creative arts through an MA in contemporary printmaking at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She acquired a considerable reputation as a printmaker both in France (where she had a longstanding home) and south-west England. A keen supporter of the university’s Theatre Collection, she recruited many volunteers to wrap the 20,000 glass-plate negatives of the photographer John Vickers’ slides for its archive, providing tea and cake.
An enthusiastic commitment to collective cultural work brought her the friendship and admiration of hundreds of colleagues and students. Fearless and energetic, she stood up for women’s rights through the Senate and the AUT union and fought for women’s and gender courses against fierce opposition.
Liz’s personal kindness and down-to-earth generosity are recalled by everyone from porters and secretaries to vice-chancellors and senior staff. She was a loyal and imaginative friend to many, and a loving mother and grandmother.
She relished France and especially Breton culture, was a keen enthusiast of crime fiction, tennis and cricket, and spent her final months writing her memoir, setting up a new print exhibition, and watching Test matches and the US Open.
She met Brian McInally in 1971 at Prestwick airport. Their son, Francis, was born in 1981 and they married in Brittany in 2008. Liz is survived by Brian, Francis, two grandchildren, Sam and Iris, and her siblings, Michael and Victoria.
