Penelope Hunting joined the LTS in 1982.

Penny graduated with an honours degree in history, followed by a PhD in architectural history from the University of London. She has written numerous books on London, the City livery companies and three biographies, the most recent being My Dearest Heart; the artist Mary Beale 1633-1699 (2019). Her History of the Royal Society of Medicine (2002) received an award from the Society of Authors. Penny was editor of the LTS Newsletter until she succeeded Peter Jackson as Chairman, following his death in 2003.

Mike Wicksteed joined the LTS in 1990.

A former soldier and public servant in New Zealand and a senior civil servant in the UK. In the UK, he worked on external and internal communications at the Lord Chancellor’s Department and the Department for Constitutional Affairs before it became the Ministry of Justice. In 2005 he set up and managed the Judicial Communications Office for the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf of Barnes, until retiring from the Civil Service in 2012.

Mike is a Freeman of the City of London and his love of London and its history is well met in the LTS.

He took over the Honorary Secretary duties in 2012 from Mireille Galinou.

Sheila O’Connell joined the LTS in 2000.

Taking over the editorship reins from Ann Saunders in 2016, Sheila has edited the Society’s annual publications following her retirement from the British Museum where she was curator for 32 years specialising in British prints. In 2003 she organised London 1753, an exhibition at the British Museum about London at the time of the founding of the museum, and in 2009-2010 she supervised the cataloguing of the Crace collection of nearly 5,000 views of London at the British Museum supported by a grant from the LTS.

India Wright is a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge. Her research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Isaac Newton Trust and examines the architecture of the Inns of Court and Chancery during the seventeenth century.

Having completed the MSt in Building History at Cambridge, her dissertation on the Redevelopment of Middle Temple in the Late Seventeenth Century was awarded the Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s Gus Astley Award. She published a paper on the same topic in 2023’s Volume XXXI of the Georgian Group Journal.

India’s other research interests include the development of London and the early eighteenth-century spa at Hampstead, on which she regularly speaks.

Simon Morris joined the LTS in 1981.

Simon has been the Honorary Publications Secretary since 1983 and finds London history a wonderful distraction from working as a City solicitor specialising in financial regulation. He is particularly interested in the growth of 18th and 19th-Century London. Simon was a major contributor to the Society’s 2020 publication on London parish maps, which exemplify how London is made up of a myriad of linked villages.

Other interests include how contemporaries created aids to navigate a vast city through street signage that differentiated between different parishes and boroughs – and he has cycled around every street recording the Victorian signs before they all disappear.

Peter Barber OBE, FSA, FRHistS joined the LTS in 1980.

Peter worked for the British Library for 40 years, serving as Head of Maps and Topography from 2001-2015. He has a longstanding interest in the history of London and particularly of Hornsey and Highgate. He was the curator of the British Library exhibition, London: A life in Maps (2006-7) and the author of the related London: A History in Maps (2012). He is President of the Hornsey Historical Society and has served on the council of the Lauderdale House Society since the mid-1970s.

Caroline Barron joined the LTS in 1979.

Caroline is an emeritus professor of the History of London at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research has focused on the history of medieval London, on medieval women and the reign of Richard II. She has also been involved in the research involved in producing maps of Medieval London (c. 1300) and Tudor London both published by the British Historic Towns Trust and generously supported by the London Topographical Society.

Dorian Gerhold joined the LTS in 1991.

Dorian was a House of Commons clerk from 1978 to 2012. His books on London are Westminster Hall (1999), London Plotted: Plans of London Buildings c.1450-1720 (2016), and London Bridge and its Houses, c.1209-1761 (2019), the latter two published by the LTS, as well as many works on Putney and Wandsworth. His other historical interests include road transport before the railways, Chancery records and comparative history. He is Chair of Wandsworth Historical Society. He has been a member of the LTS Council since 2016.

Colin Thom is Director of the Survey of London, the leading authority on the architectural history of our capital city. The Survey is now part of UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, where Colin also teaches architectural history and theory. He worked in the photo and film archive of London Transport Museum before joining the Survey, where he has contributed to and edited Survey volumes for the past 30 years.

His other published work includes Researching London’s Houses: an archives guide (2005) and (as contributor and editor) Robert Adam and his Brothers: New light on Britain’s leading architectural family (2019).

Colin is also a Trustee of the Georgian Group and sits on Westminster City Council’s Green Plaques Advisory Panel.

Dr Geoffrey Tyack, FSA, FRHistS, joined the LTS in 2013.

Geoffrey grew up in South London, developing an interested in urban and architectural history by exploring London on foot: something that he continues to do frequently. Having read history at Oxford University, he gained a PhD from London University and is now an emeritus Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford. His books include Sir James Pennethorne and the Making of Victorian London (1992) and John Nash: Architect of the Picturesque (2013). He edits the Georgian Group Journal and has recently completed a book on the history of the British urban landscape, to be published in 2021.

Dr Peter Ross joined the LTS in 1995 and is the Society’s Honorary Archivist.

Peter was the Principal Librarian at Guildhall Library between 2010 and 2023. Following a first degree in the history of art, he studied for an MA in London Studies at Birkbeck College. His doctoral thesis was concerned with the cultural history of the 18th-Century London criminal and prison breaker Jack Sheppard. Peter is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and lectures on the history of crime, portraiture, and English Food.

Dr Rosemary Weinstein joined the Society in 1979.

Rosemary was born and grew up in Pembrokeshire and educated at Manchester and Durham Universities (BA, PhD). Her working life was spent at the former London Museum at Kensington Palace and the Museum of London at the Barbican where she was curator of the Tudor and Stuart Dept. Her main interests are 16th and 17th-century social history and material culture.

Rosemary is a Freeman of the City of London and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Bridget Cherry joined the LTS in 1988 and edited the Society’s Newsletter between 2008 and 2024.  She was elected as one of the Society’s three honorary Vice-Presidents at the 2024 AGM.

Bridget is an architectural historian. She became fascinated by the development of London and the varied character of its different parts when working on the London volumes of the Pevsner Architectural Guides.

Roger joined the LTS in 1983.  He was elected as one of the Society’s three honorary Vice-Presidents at the 2021 AGM.

Roger assisted his predecessor, Anthony Cooper, in local history society jobs as Anthony’s health began to fail and took over as the Honorary Treasurer in 1985. When the former membership secretary resigned and the lady we employed to send out orders for publications retired he took over their jobs as well. He resigned as the Hon. Treasurer in 2020.

As Treasurer Roger has always looked for ways to reduce expenses and enjoys combining exploration of the London area with the delivery of the Society’s annual publication to members on his trusty bicycle and hopes to continue that task for the time being.