Fern Riddell

In 2018, after tweeting that she was "Dr Fern Riddell" and not Miss, Riddell she was subject to criticism on Twitter. To respond to those who deemed her arrogant and "immodest", she created the hashtag #ImmodestWomen, which saw thousands of women sharing their stories. In 2019 Riddell hosted her own BBC Four television series, Victorian Scandal: the Rudest Book in Britain. Riddell was a member of the Royal Holloway team on the 2019 University Challenge Christmas Special.

Riddell is a cultural historian who specialises in sex, the suffragette movement and women's struggle for equality. She has appeared on various BBC television and radio programmes. In 2013 she was selected as one of the BBC Expert Women, and took part in a training programme that improved women's media and communication skills. That year she was made one of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Thinkers. She has since acted as a researcher for the 2015 revival of Horrible Histories, seasons 13-14 of Who Do You Think You Are?, seasons 3-5 of Ripper Street, and Decline and Fall. She hosts Not What You Thought You Knew, a podcast for the History Channel.

Riddell attended Barton Court Grammar School from 1997 to 2004. After a gap year, she studied history at Royal Holloway, University of London from 2005, graduating with a BA in 2008, and an MA in 2009. Between 2010 and 2016, she undertook a PhD thesis at King's College, London, entitled "Vice and Virtue: Pleasure, Morality and Sin in London's Music Halls 1850-1939". Her doctoral degree was supervised by Paul Readman and Arthur Burns, and examined by Matthew Sweet.

Fern Riddell (born 22 January 1986) is a British historian who specialises in gender, sex, suffrage and Victorian culture. She has written several popular history books and is a former columnist for the BBC History magazine.