Our story begins within a story a few years ago,
I was reading an essay by Brian Croke about how the distinguished Roman historian
Theodore Momsen came to prepare the final publication of his distinguished career.
In addition of a collection of late Roman laws known as Theodores in code,
like many editors of texts for which there are many manuscripts before incense,
Momsen relied on the good offices of colleagues and friends far and wide to send him
transcriptions or collections of manuscripts which libraries would not loan to him by mail.
Those were the days or could not visit in person. Crookes essay mentioned that Momsen contacted his friend Francis Jorm having a field day.
Kameron, professor of ancient history at Oxford and a significant figure in the study of Roman Britain that the collection
of a manuscript he had identified as a key witness to the text of his edition brought in libraries and research.
Selden B 16,
which you can see on the screen the collection of legal and historical texts gathered by the 12th century English historian William of Malmsbury.
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.
However, feel connected Momsen with woman called Anna Parker,
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,
Crookes essay offered no further information about who this Anna Parker was, and I became curious.
Who was she? When, where and how did she learnt to study manuscripts?
What role did the Bodleian libraries play in this process?
My fellowship at the Bodleian libraries in this paper today are an attempt to answer
these three questions with only the letters of Momsen and Haberfield to go on.
I first thought to find out who Anna Parker was in the restricted but rapidly
expanding world of educational opportunities for women in late 19th century Oxford.
Initially, I was hoping to find an Anna Parker has an Oxford undergraduate since Francis Haberfield,
who facilitated her work with Monsen, was a supporter wound's undergraduate education.
Winifred had her field who married him after completing her.
B.A. at Somerville was one of Oxford's leading suffragettes and the Hever Fields hosted suffrage.
Meetings and events in their home have her field also employed a female secretary and research assistant, Marjorie Venables Taylor,
who is also a Psagot graduate and who held a variety of positions with British scholarly societies throughout her career.
Notably, she was the first woman to be elected vice president of the Society of Antiquarians.
Furthermore, studies in classics and ancient history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often
involved working directly with mediaeval manuscripts in the absence of any modern additions.
So studies in these fields seemed a natural place to find a budding manuscript scholar.
However, the kind assistance of the archivist's of all the early women's halls at Oxford
revealed that there was no Anna Parker listed on any of the college registers.
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.
The mystery of Miss A. Parker was admitted to the public and permitted access to the camera.
Also on the 24th of March, CTV meet, she was admitted by Falconer, Madame, then sub librarian and leader, Bartley's librarian.
Interestingly, Madame, a noted manuscript scholar in his own right,
was also a correspondent of Momsen and a supporter of the higher education of women in Oxford.
But like looking for a. Parker amongst works for graduates, this, too, turned out to be a dead end.
There were two Parker families, as it turned out, in late 19th century Oxford.
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,
science correspondents for myself and correspondents with generous colleagues who are working on the theatre's young coat.
I learnt that Miss Parker had entered the body in libraries through a different door.
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.
George Parker was himself one of Monson's correspondents and built a name for himself as a cataloguer and manuscript specialist,
amongst other projects, in the early eighteen seventies.
He reorganised and re catalogued the entire collection of the Tellurium Institute at the time,
some 13000 volumes, and many librarians listening will appreciate what did the job.
Cataloguing thirteen thousand volumes is delightfully.
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.
Cole, who is charged. Some of the colleges rare books, his eldest child, Angelina Francis Parker, was born in 1865.
The first 15 children named after her mother, who is also Angelina.
She signed her letters as either Annie or a Parker. So part of the mystery was solved.
Haberfield simply had her name wrong.
Most here acknowledge the help of my colleague at the University of Lincoln Library, Amanda, in tracking down records related to the Parker family.
In the census records, any consistently reports her occupation as being one concerned with manuscripts as a transcriber and translator,
she married Randall Herbert New, who was born in Brazil to British parents in 1986.
And they had two children, a son and a daughter from research enquiries.
She continued to receive in her self-description on successive censuses.
She clearly continued to work with manuscripts after her marriage and after the birth of her children.
Her younger sister, Evelin, born in 1881, also consistently reported herself in the census as someone whose occupation was concerned with Manuscript's
most notably and delightfully as appealing griefer at the BOSELEY and libraries in the 1911 census.
Between 1860 and his death in 1986,
George Parker ran an unofficial research department answering questions about manuscripts from scholars around the world from at least the 80s 90s.
The majority of research queries, especially those about manuscripts, were answered by any later, joined by everyone as well.
Enclosed within the copies of correspondence they received and answered is a photograph of the
two of them from 1912 and A seems to be holding a letter from a correspondent in her hands.
As a sampling of how busy the Parker family was answering research queries we might use as a case study the year eighteen
ninety eight where any and George Parker between them answered over a hundred and sixty four research enquiries.
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
an urgent question as to whether a complete and perfect copy of a book on ghost hunting published in 62 two,
could be found in Odlin many,
many family history requests and requests to cheque references and make transcriptions from an enormous variety of mediaeval manuscripts.
The Parker sisters and their father were also sent copies of proofs and asked to correct these against documents within the library.
These enquiries from 1898 seem to be broadly representative of the pace and range of enquiries.
The research department received.
It is interesting to note that this correspondence is all catalogued as private research enquiries in the borderlands of records,
answering research enquiries, transcribing manuscripts and checking proofs,
wire services for which researchers paid members of the Parker family directly.
Here we have a research enquiry from scholar and M.J. Dautry,
who frames his comment by indicating that any Pirker services have been specifically recommended to him by the assistant librarian,
possibly Falconer Madone, although he was not entirely sure whether she would copy the charters he requested or translate them as well.
I also really like this research enquiry because he mentions trying to find her at her regular seat.
Copying or transcription,
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.
Addition, as Veto's encode in 1899 shows,
the standard rate for transcription is described in the letters as two shillings, six pence or half a crown per hour.
The nine pounds, 14 shillings shown at the bottom of the envelope would translate to the same
amount of pay a skilled labour would receive for roughly twenty nine days labour.
Transcribing manuscripts might be unpredictable work, but with enough of it, one could earn an income.
As for why George Parker took unpaid private research enquiries while permanently employed as a senior library assistant,
it's worth remembering that Victorian and Wedd Wardian, suppling Brazilian's at the Baltimore Library,
were often poorly paid on the assumption that they would have a fellowship or another university post to supplement their income.
Although Anna Enough William Parker were not formally employed by the Bodleian and their PMA came directly from those who contacted them for help.
They worked comfortably within the ecosystem of the library.
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.
First introduced by Bordelaise librarian Edward Nicholson in 1883, the extra staff,
memorably described by Edmund Krasner as a kind of librarians private army,
were employed to do jobs such as cataloguing and transcribing the first woman on the permanent staff.
Francis Underhill joined the library in 1910 as senior assistant.
Having previously worked as a cataloguer, she would resign her post in 1917 due to wartime service.
Underhill was preceded by three women, Transcriber's, who were employed in 1884,
Eum side Seyoum sides and LHD Timberlake, all of whom were relatives of Bodleian assistants.
So Annie Lovely's transcribing and research work was not unusual at all, or if it is unusual.
It is unusual only. And how much evidence survives for it?
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.
Other scholars acknowledgements. In addition of John Bales index of British writers, the editor, Reginald Lane Poole,
who had collaborated on the work with the noted Cambridge mediaevalist Mary Beatson, acknowledged Annie's contribution to their work.
She transcribed the manuscript of bail for them in 1890 under the direction of her father.
Cool's acknowledgements praised her for her trained and critical eye and noted the fidelity and skill with which she accomplished a difficult task.
We began with the question of who Anna Parker was and the gaps in the correspondence between have her field and Momsen,
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.
She had accepted the job from Momsen and sent off a collection of the manuscript
within a week and wrote that she would be glad to look at the manuscript again.
If you are in doubt about any of the readings, I know the handwriting thoroughly.
Over the next four years. Mom since then have her field a further eleven letters which refer to Miss Parker by name,
but these six are requests for transcription of different parts of the manuscripts or requests for verification of particular readings.
And five, deal with matters of paying her for her work.
Only one or one letter is addressed directly to her within about a month of when she was engaged to do the work.
Your scholarly work, moms and you wrote back after receiving the first instalment.
It's admirably well done. Three months into their work together, Momsen pronounced himself greatly satisfied with My Lady Colation, our tavan field.
He would be one of the many people whose research was possible because of her scholarship.
I started my story thinking that I would find Annie Parker as an Oxford undergraduate,
especially given that she seemed to be connected to known supporters of the higher education of women in Oxford.
I found instead that she and her sister Evelyn had entered the houses of research through a different door.
Their involvement in their father Georgias Research Work enabled them to become manuscript scholars in their own right.
In our own times, where success in research, some sometimes to be measured in number of publications,
perhaps we might look towards the Parker Sisters Careers who a different model of scholarly achievement.
Thank you for listening.