Fox Aileen

Lady Aileen Fox 1907-2005

Active in New Zealand 1973-1983.

See her autobiography Aileen, a pioneering archaeologist, The autobiography of Aileen Fox, 2000, Gracewing.

From the "blurb"

Aileen Fox's memoirs may well be the last of the accounts we shall have of the great pre-war generation of archaeologists - Mortimer Wheeler, Stuart Piggot, Grahame Clark and others, together with Cyril and Aileen Fox. In this fascinating account, Aileen Fox charts her life, from early childhood in the golden world of the affluent before the First World War, to a young woman's struggle to be allowed university education in 1920s Britain. Working on important Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman sites, she gives vivid accounts of her years of fieldwork and academic life in Wales and southern England - and especially of her work in Exeter. Later, at a time most people are retiring, Aileen began a new career in New Zealand. In 1933 Aileen married Dr Cyril Fox, the Director of the National Museum of Wales (subsequently to be knighted for his services to archaeology and to the Museum). Combining family life with her own developing career in archaeology, Aileen acted as Lecturer in Archaeology at University College, Cardiff during the Second World War before being asked in 1945 to undertake trial excavations in the historic centre of the City of Exeter, devastated by wartime bombing. This started what was to become a lifetime involvement with the City and with Exeter University. Aileen Fox has made a particular contribution to British archaeology by generating an enthusiasm for local archaeology amongst a wider public through her many books and tireless work with local groups.

Mary Jeal, Mad dogs and Englishmen, Archaeological site recording with Aileen Fox, in: A lot of spadework to be done, Essays in honour of Lady Aileen Fox, by her New Zealand friends, 1983, Eds. S E Bulmer, R G Law and D G Sutton, New Zealand Archaeological Association Monograph No. 14, gives a personal account of her work.

Janet Davidson contributed an obituary to Archaeology in New Zealand,(1966) 45(1):7-10.

Major excavations excavate in New Zealand include:

Fox, Aileen, Cassels Richard. 1982. Excavations at Maioro, N51/5, South Auckland, 1965-66. Rec. Auckland Inst. Mus (17 Dec 1982), v.19: pp.53-80. Auckland

Fox, Aileen, Cassels Richard. 2002. Excavations at Aotea, Waikato, 1972-75.

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See entry on Wikipedia

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