Jo Thompson is a London-based writer and researcher exploring the hidden lives of the city and the women history has often overlooked. Her work focuses particularly on London’s early twentieth-century nightlife, where figures such as Kate Meyrick and the vibrant communities surrounding her reshaped the social landscape of Soho.

A Londoner with ancestors in the city stretching back at least five generations, Jo brings both personal connection and archival depth to her research. Drawing on decades of genealogical investigation, she is especially interested in recovering stories that might otherwise have been lost — from nightclub habitués and performers to entrepreneurs, bohemians, and the complex social worlds they inhabited.

Jo has written for Who Do You Think You Are? magazine and has appeared on radio including RTÉ and Soho Radio. Alongside her independent research and writing, she works professionally crafting family history narratives, a practice that continues to sharpen her instinct for uncovering the human stories hidden within historical records.

Before turning her focus fully toward historical research and writing, Jo spent fifteen years working in education with marginalised and traumatised young people and their families. That experience deepened her interest in identity, belonging, and the forces that shape individual lives — themes that continue to inform her work today.

Jo is currently at work on a nonfiction book exploring the hidden lives of the women who shaped London’s early nightlife.

Occasionally, Jo can also be found heirloom hunting — drawn, as ever, to the objects that carry traces of forgotten lives.