Obituary: Helen Bolderson

Honorary Research Fellow

Birkbeck Research Fellow Helen Bolderson, who died on 8 March 2016 aged 85, had 30 years' experience as a researcher in social policy. For many years, she taught on the Master's degree course in public and social administration at Brunel University, specialising in social security.

An only child, Helen Bolderson was born in Berlin and travelled to the UK as a refugee in 1938. She took a BA in sociology and an MA in social work at the London School of Economics and then worked as a child protection officer, before returning to the LSE to do a PhD. On retiring from her teaching post at Brunel University in 1995, she continued to work on research contracts there until the early 2000s. Thereafter she became a Research Fellow at Birkbeck.

Helen was published in the Journal of Social Policy; Policy and Politics; and the Journal of Social Welfare Law.

Friends in academic life and former students recall her as a caring and dedicated teacher, a hugely supportive mentor and a precise, unflappable and highly professional colleague.