Sonia Chadwick Hawkes


Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, was a leading specialist in early Anglo-Saxon archaeology, described as a "discerning systematiser of the great array of Anglo-Saxon grave furnishings".

Biography

Early life

Chadwick Hawkes was born in Dartford in 1933. She excavated at Lullingstone villa as a school girl, and at Morgan Porth from 1951-53. She studied English at Bedford College, University of London, before undertaking research at Birkbeck College, supervised by Vera I. Evison. In 1959, she married Christopher Hawkes, Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, after they met at an Iron Age conference in 1958.

Career

In 1958, she was appointed as Curator of Scunthorpe Museum. Hawkes was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1961. Hawkes was a research assistant at the Institute of Archaeology from 1959 to 1973. From 1963 to 1971, Hawkes worked to catalogue a collection of finds from the antiquarian Bryan Faussett. In 1973 she was appointed as a university lecturer at the University of Oxford, based at the Institute of Archaeology.
Hawkes' research focus was on Anglo Saxon cemeteries in Kent.  A major piece of work on Late Roman zoormorphic belt fitting prompted much debate. Hawkes excavated an Iron Age site at Longbridge Deverill. In 1979 she co-founded the publication series Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, and organised a series of interdisciplinary seminars and conferences in Anglo Saxon studies. Sonia co-edited Greeks, Celts and Romans with her husband, Christopher Hawkes.
Hawkes retired in 1994. An edited volume was published in her honour in 2007, edited by Martin Henig and Tyler Jo Smith. A number of her works were bought to publication post-posthumously, including the Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale, an inventory of Kentish and Anglo Saxon grave goods. Paul Nash created the lithograph 'Landscape of the Megaliths' in memory of Christopher and Sonia Hawkes.

Selected publications