Jean Baker worked as a journalist for some years and went on to do a history degree as a mature student at the University of Kent at Canterbury. In 2000 she won the STR’s Kathleen Barker Award and, in the same year, completed a PhD that explored the political, social and cultural impact of provincial theatre in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Thereafter, as a sessional tutor, she taught a variety of courses (including one on garden history) at UKC. Her published work includes: ‘The Proclamation Society, William Mainwaring and the Theatrical Representations Act of 1788’, Historical Research, 76:193 (August 2003), 347-363; ‘Theatre, Law and Society in the Provinces: The Case of Sarah Baker’, Cultural and Social History, 1:2 (2004), 159-178. Her first book – Sarah Baker and her Kentish Theatres, 1737-1816: Challenging the Status Quo – is the STR’s annual publication for 2018/19.