Margerie Venables Taylor


Margerie Venables Taylor was an archaeologist and editor of the Journal of Roman Studies, and held posts including Secretary for the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. She was particularly instrumental in recording excavations in Roman Britain.

Early life and education

Margerie Venables Taylor was born in 1881. She was a native of Chester in Cheshire. Her parents were Henry Taylor, a historian and antiquarian, and his wife, née Venables. She was educated at Queen's School, Chester and Somerville College, Oxford, where she took the examinations but, as a woman, at that date could not be awarded a degree.

Career

She wrote a large number of articles for various archaeological journals, and for many years edited the Journal of Roman Studies. She contributed material on Roman Britain to the Victoria County Histories. She edited the medieval manuscript, De laude Cestrie, an urban eulogy praising Chester.
She also excavated in North Wales with Mortimer Wheeler.

''Journal of Roman Studies''

Taylor had worked as an assistant to Francis Haverfield for several years, and following his death took up the editorship of the Journal of Roman Studies for a further four decades. Although not herself an administrator, she worked and travelled widely on behalf of the Haverfield Bequest, which was to be applied to the promotion of the study of Roman Britain.
As joint secretary of the Society of Promotion of Roman Studies and editor of the journal, she made the decision to focus resources on the journal at the cost of other projects, and to publish the annual account of excavation in Roman Britain. She also created the Congress of Classical Studies, held jointly with the Hellenic Society and the Classical Association, which became a triennial event.