About

Deborah joined the University of Portsmouth in 2016 as Professor of Design History and Theory in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries. As Associate Dean (Research) in her Faculty until January 2023, she was part of the senior leadership team and provided strategic direction and management for research, including REF 2021, to which she also submitted an Impact Case Study on her work as series consultant historian for BBC Two’s A House Through Time. Her current PhD supervisions include an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Science Museum on the history of the Kenwood Chef and a collaborative PhD with Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery on the interwar designer Betty Joel.

Having begun her career in as a curator at the V&A Museum, London, in 1987, Deborah’s curatorial credits include Ideal Homes for the Design Museum, a retrospective of the Ideal Home Show. She has also served on advisory boards and written catalogue essays for exhibitions, including the Yale Center for British Art’s The Edwardian Sense and the V&A’s British Design: Innovation in the Modern Age and Food: Bigger Than the Plate.

Deborah followed her PhD, The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition and Suburban Modernity, 1908-51, with a postdoctoral project on 20th century historical pageants. She subsequently focused her research on the design, material culture and social history of the interwar housebuilding boom and the ordinary suburban semi in Britain. She is currently writing a history of the modern kitchen from 1850, which will be published by Reaktion Books. She is also working on the design and material culture of communal ‘British Restaurants’ in World War 2.

Deborah is founder of Twitter’s #HouseHistoryHour. Putting her interest in the history of housing into practical use, Deborah has renovated 6 houses, including a Grade II listed Georgian terrace, and an interwar ‘time capsule’ semi. She loves to attend vintage events and collects and wears 1940s and 1950s fashion and accessories and judges the Best Dressed companions at Goodwood Revival and Southwick Revival.