A FORMER Bromsgrove resident who went on to have a pioneering role in the development of women's studies has died at the age of 69.

Judy Giles was born in Lancashire to Dorothy and Dougles Major, growing up in Tardebigge.

She was educated at Edgbaston High School and Kings Norton girls’ grammar school, and lived in Bromsgrove in the 1960s when she was involved with playgroups and All Saints' Church - where she was parish secretary to the priest in charge, the Reverend Barry Gilbert.

Her first marriage was to Colin Giles, a press operator who she met at Bromsgrove jazz club in Perry Hall Hotel, Bromsgrove, in 1964, and she went on to have two sons and a daughter.

After the break down of the marriage she moved to York University to begin her PhD. In 1989, she became the first person in the UK to gain a doctorate in women’s studies.

Judy then played a pioneering role in the establishment and development of women's studies as a respected academic subject.

She went on to lecture at York St John University, being recognised in the international research community.

Judy was committed to a study of culture, literature and history, challenging the conventional ways of seeing the world, and in 2000, she was awarded a one-year research fellowship for the Leverhulme Trust.

She had worked published including in 2005, The Parlour and the Suburb: Domestic Identities, Class, Femininity and Modernity and was recognised earlier this year when York St John University created a research award in her name.

She retired in July 2008, after being diagnosed with cancer that summer.

Judy died on July 10, and her funeral was held on Wednesday, July 29.

Judy is survived by Barrie, who she married just before her death and her three children, Nick, Catherine and Jamie, and her step-children, Marcus and Gemma.