29th June 2025

Helen Snelson (1969-2024)

Helen Snelson, who sadly passed away last year, was a former trustee of our history group and an outstanding history teacher. She was head of history at the Mount School, and went on to train teachers at the University of York. She contributed to the work of our group and features on two of our YouTube videos:

Helen leading a group of local school students on a Zeppelin walk in 2016

In memory of Helen. who was its former Deputy President, the Historical Association (HA) has launched a fundraiser for a fellowship to support the teaching of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller histories in schools. The Association viewed her as an inspirational history educator who championed greater inclusivity in history teaching for marginalised groups in society. In her later years, she focused on supporting the teaching of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller histories. Our group is donating £100 towards this HA appeal. These communities continue to suffer a great deal of prejudice and misconception, and education is a vital tool to address this. The HA's Teacher Fellowship programmes provide a rigorous and evaluated way for teachers to engage with the latest academic thought and scholarship in a given area and to take this back to their classroom teaching.

Helen's colleague and friend, Ruth Lingard, who is head of humanities at Millthorpe School, has written an appreciation.

Dick Hunter from our group remembers meeting Helen on a train, when she was returning from a history network meeting in Denmark. "I became aware of her range of European contacts, promoting dialogue with a number of countries including Germany, and the Balkan states. She was committed to private and State school collaboration, for example on tours of battlefield sites in Flanders. She invited me to join a judging panel for an inter-schools history debate at The Mount. I was very pleased that Helen accepted invitations to review books for the Family & Community History journal, and submitted her reviews on time! She was particularly thoughtful, responding to an appeal to stand-in for me at short notice when I was due to address a meeting at St Chads. My wife was in a hospital for an operation in Leeds, and I needed cover."

Susan Major said "Helen was always energetic and enthusiastic in our discussions about how we might work together, relating our local history activities to her own work. We collaborated in a project to live Tweet on @ZeppelinWW1Live an account of the 1916 Zeppelin raids on our area, on the 100th anniversary of the bombing. She also gave me very thoughtful and detailed advice on how to involve primary schools in our shops history researches. Thanks to Helen's recommendation of a piece of software, we successfully used it for an app to host our self-guided local history walks, during the time of Covid precautions."