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Our story begins within a story a few years ago,

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I was reading an essay by Brian Croke about how the distinguished Roman historian

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Theodore Momsen came to prepare the final publication of his distinguished career.

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In addition of a collection of late Roman laws known as Theodores in code,

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like many editors of texts for which there are many manuscripts before incense,

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Momsen relied on the good offices of colleagues and friends far and wide to send him

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transcriptions or collections of manuscripts which libraries would not loan to him by mail.

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Those were the days or could not visit in person. Crookes essay mentioned that Momsen contacted his friend Francis Jorm having a field day.

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Kameron, professor of ancient history at Oxford and a significant figure in the study of Roman Britain that the collection

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of a manuscript he had identified as a key witness to the text of his edition brought in libraries and research.

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Selden B 16,

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which you can see on the screen the collection of legal and historical texts gathered by the 12th century English historian William of Malmsbury.

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You can see at the top of this page someone's made a little note that this is in William's voice, William's handwriting.

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However, feel connected Momsen with woman called Anna Parker,

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who was employed to study the manuscript in the Bodleian and send notes of her findings to Momsen between 1899 and his death in 1993,

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Crookes essay offered no further information about who this Anna Parker was, and I became curious.

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Who was she? When, where and how did she learnt to study manuscripts?

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What role did the Bodleian libraries play in this process?

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My fellowship at the Bodleian libraries in this paper today are an attempt to answer

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these three questions with only the letters of Momsen and Haberfield to go on.

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I first thought to find out who Anna Parker was in the restricted but rapidly

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expanding world of educational opportunities for women in late 19th century Oxford.

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Initially, I was hoping to find an Anna Parker has an Oxford undergraduate since Francis Haberfield,

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who facilitated her work with Monsen, was a supporter wound's undergraduate education.

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Winifred had her field who married him after completing her.

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B.A. at Somerville was one of Oxford's leading suffragettes and the Hever Fields hosted suffrage.

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Meetings and events in their home have her field also employed a female secretary and research assistant, Marjorie Venables Taylor,

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who is also a Psagot graduate and who held a variety of positions with British scholarly societies throughout her career.

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Notably, she was the first woman to be elected vice president of the Society of Antiquarians.

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Furthermore, studies in classics and ancient history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often

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involved working directly with mediaeval manuscripts in the absence of any modern additions.

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So studies in these fields seemed a natural place to find a budding manuscript scholar.

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However, the kind assistance of the archivist's of all the early women's halls at Oxford

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revealed that there was no Anna Parker listed on any of the college registers.

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So I went back to the borderland where the archivists in the records department supplied me with a piece of information I was sure would solve.

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The mystery of Miss A. Parker was admitted to the public and permitted access to the camera.

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Also on the 24th of March, CTV meet, she was admitted by Falconer, Madame, then sub librarian and leader, Bartley's librarian.

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Interestingly, Madame, a noted manuscript scholar in his own right,

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was also a correspondent of Momsen and a supporter of the higher education of women in Oxford.

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But like looking for a. Parker amongst works for graduates, this, too, turned out to be a dead end.

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There were two Parker families, as it turned out, in late 19th century Oxford.

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And she was the wrong Miss A. Parker, thanks to the combination of a chance to sneak away from a library conference in Berlin to see mom,

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science correspondents for myself and correspondents with generous colleagues who are working on the theatre's young coat.

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I learnt that Miss Parker had entered the body in libraries through a different door.

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Family Connexions. Her father, George Parker, began working for The Bobbly in 1854 and had a career there that lasted until his death in 1986.

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George Parker was himself one of Monson's correspondents and built a name for himself as a cataloguer and manuscript specialist,

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amongst other projects, in the early eighteen seventies.

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He reorganised and re catalogued the entire collection of the Tellurium Institute at the time,

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some 13000 volumes, and many librarians listening will appreciate what did the job.

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Cataloguing thirteen thousand volumes is delightfully.

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His peculiar graphic expertise even landed him in court as an expert witness in the 1899 trial of the sub librarian of Biblio College, Samuel Ashford.

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Cole, who is charged. Some of the colleges rare books, his eldest child, Angelina Francis Parker, was born in 1865.

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The first 15 children named after her mother, who is also Angelina.

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She signed her letters as either Annie or a Parker. So part of the mystery was solved.

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Haberfield simply had her name wrong.

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Most here acknowledge the help of my colleague at the University of Lincoln Library, Amanda, in tracking down records related to the Parker family.

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In the census records, any consistently reports her occupation as being one concerned with manuscripts as a transcriber and translator,

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she married Randall Herbert New, who was born in Brazil to British parents in 1986.

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And they had two children, a son and a daughter from research enquiries.

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She continued to receive in her self-description on successive censuses.

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She clearly continued to work with manuscripts after her marriage and after the birth of her children.

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Her younger sister, Evelin, born in 1881, also consistently reported herself in the census as someone whose occupation was concerned with Manuscript's

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most notably and delightfully as appealing griefer at the BOSELEY and libraries in the 1911 census.

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Between 1860 and his death in 1986,

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George Parker ran an unofficial research department answering questions about manuscripts from scholars around the world from at least the 80s 90s.

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The majority of research queries, especially those about manuscripts, were answered by any later, joined by everyone as well.

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Enclosed within the copies of correspondence they received and answered is a photograph of the

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two of them from 1912 and A seems to be holding a letter from a correspondent in her hands.

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As a sampling of how busy the Parker family was answering research queries we might use as a case study the year eighteen

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ninety eight where any and George Parker between them answered over a hundred and sixty four research enquiries.

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Between January and the end of December, the requests range from a newspaperman who wanted an account of the funeral and death of George Washington to

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an urgent question as to whether a complete and perfect copy of a book on ghost hunting published in 62 two,

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could be found in Odlin many,

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many family history requests and requests to cheque references and make transcriptions from an enormous variety of mediaeval manuscripts.

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The Parker sisters and their father were also sent copies of proofs and asked to correct these against documents within the library.

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These enquiries from 1898 seem to be broadly representative of the pace and range of enquiries.

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The research department received.

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It is interesting to note that this correspondence is all catalogued as private research enquiries in the borderlands of records,

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answering research enquiries, transcribing manuscripts and checking proofs,

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wire services for which researchers paid members of the Parker family directly.

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Here we have a research enquiry from scholar and M.J. Dautry,

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who frames his comment by indicating that any Pirker services have been specifically recommended to him by the assistant librarian,

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possibly Falconer Madone, although he was not entirely sure whether she would copy the charters he requested or translate them as well.

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I also really like this research enquiry because he mentions trying to find her at her regular seat.

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Copying or transcription,

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translation and checking of readings were paid by the hour as the back of the envelope calculation for some of any Parker's work on Homesites.

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Addition, as Veto's encode in 1899 shows,

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the standard rate for transcription is described in the letters as two shillings, six pence or half a crown per hour.

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The nine pounds, 14 shillings shown at the bottom of the envelope would translate to the same

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amount of pay a skilled labour would receive for roughly twenty nine days labour.

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Transcribing manuscripts might be unpredictable work, but with enough of it, one could earn an income.

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As for why George Parker took unpaid private research enquiries while permanently employed as a senior library assistant,

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it's worth remembering that Victorian and Wedd Wardian, suppling Brazilian's at the Baltimore Library,

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were often poorly paid on the assumption that they would have a fellowship or another university post to supplement their income.

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Although Anna Enough William Parker were not formally employed by the Bodleian and their PMA came directly from those who contacted them for help.

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They worked comfortably within the ecosystem of the library.

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It's worth noting that the period in which they carried out their research work saw a significant growth of non-permanent staff in the Bodleian.

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First introduced by Bordelaise librarian Edward Nicholson in 1883, the extra staff,

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memorably described by Edmund Krasner as a kind of librarians private army,

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were employed to do jobs such as cataloguing and transcribing the first woman on the permanent staff.

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Francis Underhill joined the library in 1910 as senior assistant.

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Having previously worked as a cataloguer, she would resign her post in 1917 due to wartime service.

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Underhill was preceded by three women, Transcriber's, who were employed in 1884,

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Eum side Seyoum sides and LHD Timberlake, all of whom were relatives of Bodleian assistants.

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So Annie Lovely's transcribing and research work was not unusual at all, or if it is unusual.

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It is unusual only. And how much evidence survives for it?

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In the final portion of my paper, I want to turn to a final piece of evidence that survives in and outside of the archive.

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Other scholars acknowledgements. In addition of John Bales index of British writers, the editor, Reginald Lane Poole,

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who had collaborated on the work with the noted Cambridge mediaevalist Mary Beatson, acknowledged Annie's contribution to their work.

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She transcribed the manuscript of bail for them in 1890 under the direction of her father.

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Cool's acknowledgements praised her for her trained and critical eye and noted the fidelity and skill with which she accomplished a difficult task.

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We began with the question of who Anna Parker was and the gaps in the correspondence between have her field and Momsen,

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these gaps can be filled by Annie's own letters to Momsen, which offer a rare chance to see how she presented herself as a scholar.

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She had accepted the job from Momsen and sent off a collection of the manuscript

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within a week and wrote that she would be glad to look at the manuscript again.

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If you are in doubt about any of the readings, I know the handwriting thoroughly.

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Over the next four years. Mom since then have her field a further eleven letters which refer to Miss Parker by name,

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but these six are requests for transcription of different parts of the manuscripts or requests for verification of particular readings.

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And five, deal with matters of paying her for her work.

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Only one or one letter is addressed directly to her within about a month of when she was engaged to do the work.

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Your scholarly work, moms and you wrote back after receiving the first instalment.

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It's admirably well done. Three months into their work together, Momsen pronounced himself greatly satisfied with My Lady Colation, our tavan field.

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He would be one of the many people whose research was possible because of her scholarship.

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I started my story thinking that I would find Annie Parker as an Oxford undergraduate,

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especially given that she seemed to be connected to known supporters of the higher education of women in Oxford.

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I found instead that she and her sister Evelyn had entered the houses of research through a different door.

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Their involvement in their father Georgias Research Work enabled them to become manuscript scholars in their own right.

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In our own times, where success in research, some sometimes to be measured in number of publications,

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perhaps we might look towards the Parker Sisters Careers who a different model of scholarly achievement.

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Thank you for listening.