Name Liz McIvor
Age / How old / Birthday / Date of Birth / DOB As of 2025, she is around 46 years old. A June 2017 interview in the Warrington Guardian had mentioned her age as 38 back then.
Wedding & Marriage / Husband / Spouse / Partner Married. Check the full bio for relationship details.
Wiki Bio / Profile Background
Introduction :
- Liz (short for Elizabeth) McIvor is popularly known as the presenter for the BBC series Canals: The Making of a Nation. She was born to parents Nick and Mary McIvor.
- Growing up in Didsbury (a suburb of Manchester, England), Liz was inspired to work in heritage after seeing the preserved body exhibit ‘Lindow Man’ at the Manchester Museum.
- Her early inspiration for canals came from her father’s interest; she often walked with him along the Peak Forest Canal.
Personal Life : Parents, Family and Education
- Liz has two children: Xander (Alexander) McIvor and Reah Jennifer McIvor. Reah was born in August 2010.
- It appears that Liz is married to Louise A Hamer, a psychologist who graduated from the University of Central Lancashire. Little else is publicly known about her family.
- It is unclear if Xander is Liz’s biological child, but Reah is.
- She has a sister named Paula McIvor.
- Liz obtained her Bachelor’s degree in History in 2000 from the University College of Wales Aberystwyth. She then studied for a Masters in Museology from the University of London and graduated in 2001.
- Her inspiration to work in heritage preservation sparked at a young age when she saw the ‘Lindow Man’ at the Manchester Museum. The curator of the museum at the time talked about the specimen with such vigour that Liz became fascinated.
- Besides English, she has elementary proficiency in French.
TV Career, Job, Salary and Net Worth :
- McIvor began her career as a curatorial assistant at Quarry Bank Mill, a former cotton mill in Cheshire.
- From April 2004 to May 2017, she was the Museum Curator – Social History and Technology at Bradford Museums and Galleries.
- Since May 2017, Liz holds the position of Manager at the Co-operative Heritage Trust, managed by the Co-operative College in Manchester.
- Liz is the presenter of the BBC series Canals: The Making of a Nation and the author of the book Canals: The Making of a Nation that accompanies the television programme. The book has an average rating of 4.4/5 on Amazon.
- The series is divided into 6 parts: Engineering, Geology, Capitalism, The Workers, The Boat People and Heritage. The first episode aired on BBC One on August 28, 2015, and on BBC Four for replays.
- She revealed that she stumbled upon the BBC series by accident when she appeared as the talking head on Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys and was contacted by a producer.
- The series had a total of 3.8 million viewers worldwide.
- Liz often delivers talks about the history of transportation and the role of technology in logistics that acted as a catalyst for the Industrial Revolution. One notable talk was done at the Manchester branch of the Inland Water Association’s Annual Winter Talks series.
- In 2016, Liz also filmed a similar documentary series on railways with the BBC titled Railways: The Making of a Nation.
Professional Updates – Co-operative Heritage Trust :
- As Trust Manager since May 2017, Liz runs the organization with a “fantastic team” and has been in this role for 8+ years as of 2025.
- In 2020, she revealed the Trust faced challenges during COVID-19, using the Jobs Retention Scheme and developing in-house digital offerings to maintain income streams.
- The Trust is working to make collections “more reflective of and supportive of the story of BAME people in Britain and in the co-operative movement”.
- Liz continues to host study visits, providing talks on co-operative leadership and history.
Community Roles :
- Liz has served as Patron of the Swansea Canal Society since November 2015 (10 years in 2025), invited after meeting volunteers at Trebanos locks and trying family canoeing from their activity center.
- She visited Swansea Canal with her family in 2016, showing her personal commitment to the role.
- Her BBC series only covered English regions, but she expressed delight at having “ties to Wales again” through this patronage.
Fun Facts, Interests and Trivia :
- Liz shares that she would love to visit the Crinan Canal, or canals in China and America to see how they have impacted local economies.
- She is recognized as an expert in industrial heritage, transportation history, and co-operative movement history.
- She maintains connections with universities and research institutions and actively writes blog posts for the Co-operative Heritage Trust.
- During COVID-19, Liz led the Trust through extended closures, trialled re-openings, and developed digital offerings for the public, educational groups, and co-operative organisations.
Liz is a very attractive and interesting presenter
Liz McIvor is a real Celt. As a presenter obviously on top of her job…a really refreshing pleasure to listen to and watch.
Liz is a very dull narrator. Clearly just reading the script.
What rubbish.
Liz explains things so well. She has such a depth of knowledge and such charisma.
I love her Canals series, which deals with the different aspects of their development in the UK, particularly the forgotten men, the navvies, who actually built them by sheer back-breaking physical labour. She has a great way of explaining the almost day-to-day activities of these men, as they toiled in an often dangerous job.