Vera Evison

Vera Evison FSA
Born	(1918-01-23)23 January 1918 Lewisham, London, UK
Died	18 March 2018(2018-03-18) (aged 100)
Occupation	Archaeologist
Academic work
Discipline	Archaeology
Notable students	Sonia Chadwick Hawkes[1]

Vera Ivy Evison FSA (23 January 1918 – 18 March 2018) was a British archaeologist and academic, who specialed in Post-Roman Britain and early-Medieval England. She was Professor of Archaeology at Birkbeck College, University of London.[2][3][4]

Career

Evison attended Lewisham Prendergast school until 1937, following this with a series of evening classes, in subject including archaeology, before studying BA English language and literature. Her studies were supported by working as a secretary for Kathleen Kenyon at the London University Institute of Archaeology. In 1947 she went to study archaeology in Stockholm under Nils Åberg. She also worked as a volunteer assistant at the British Museum, helping to unpack Anglo-Saxon objects (including grave goods from Sutton Hoo), once they were returned to the galleries after the Second World War.[2]

She joined Birkbeck as a part-time lecturer in 1947, rising to professor in 1979 and retiring in 1983.[2]

Evison also worked for the Ancient Monuments Inpsectorate (for the Ministry of Works) excavating sites prior to their destruction. Through this she brought six Anglo-Saxon cemeteries to publication: Buckland (Dover); Great Chesterford (Essex); Holborough Hill (Kent); two at Beckford (Herefordshire); and Alton (Hampshire).[4]

She was elected as Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in May 1955.[4]

Select publications

• 1957. "A group of late Saxon brooches", The Antiquaries Journal 37 (3–4). 220–222.
• 1963. "Sugar-loaf shield bosses", The Antiquaries Journal 43(1). 38–69.
• 1966. "A Bronze Mount from the Roman Villa at Lullingstone, Kent", The Antiquaries Journal 46(1). 85–87.
• 1979. A corpus of wheel-thrown pottery in Anglo-Saxon graves
• 1996. (with Hill, P.). Two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Beckford, Hereford and Worcester CBA Research Reports 103. ISBN 978-1-872414-69-0.
• 2008. Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Glass in the British Museum. ISBN 978-0-86159-167-1.

References

1. Speake, George (1999). "Sonia Elizabeth Chadwick Hawkes Petkovic 1933–1999". Medieval Archaeology. 43: 223–225. doi:10.5284/1071891.
2. Hills, Catherine; Webster, Leslie (31 May 2018). "Vera Evison obituary". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
3. "Vera Evison (1918-2018)", Catherine Hills & Leslie Webster, Archaeology International, No. 21 (2018), pp. 14–15.
4. "Fellows Remembered:Vera Evison FSA". Salon: The Online Newsletter of the Society of Antiquaries of London (404). 10 April 2018.

Further reading

• Cooper, Valerie (2016), "The published works of Vera I Evison", The Evidence of material culture: Studies in honour of Professor Vera Evison, Éditions Mergoil, ISBN 978-2-35518-060-6
• Keys, Lynne (2016), "Notes for a biography of Vera Evison", The Evidence of material culture: Studies in honour of Professor Vera Evison, Éditions Mergoil, ISBN 978-2-35518-060-6

External links

• Library via the Archaeology Data Service
• The Evidence of material culture :Studies in honour of Professor Vera Evison - Editions Mergoil