Elsie Clifford

Elsie Margaret Clifford FSA OBE (1885 – 1976) was a British archaeologist.

Life

Elsie Margaret Chambers was born on 4 June 1886 at 54 Regent Street, Gloucester to Frederick William Chambers, a railway engine driver, and his second wife Mary Ann, née Hughes.[1] Her parents had married in 1883 at Bagendon, where her mother was in service, but this appears to be entirely coincidental and of no relevance to Elsie’s subsequent interest in Bagendon as an archaeological site. Her father later founded F.W. Chambers & Co., motor engineers and car dealers, of Barnwood Garage, Gloucester, and made enough money to become the owner of a gravel pit and small farm called Fairmile in Hucclecote, Gloucester.[2] Elsie married Harold Brookes Clifford in Gloucester in 1909.[3] Her husband was the manager and later chairman of her father's engineering company.[4] They lived in Hucclecote with Elsie's parents initially, but moved to Chandlers Farm, Little Witcombe in the late 1920s.

She became interested in archaeology after making finds in her father’s fields, and in the 1920s was invited by M.C. Burkitt to attend his archaeology lectures at the University of Cambridge for a year.[5][6] Though prolific, she maintained her status as an amateur archaeologist.[7]

Her archaeological work often consisted of re-excavating existing sites, such as the Neolithic barrows at Notgrove (1934 – 6), Nympsfield and Rodmarton, and Roman villas at Hucclecote, Barnwood and Witcombe. She identified a Late Iron Age settlement at Minchindon.[8]

In the 1930s, she discovered Belgic pottery in a gravel quarry near Bagendon. She returned in 1961 to direct a dig at the previously unexcavated Iron Age settlement there.[9][10]  

She received an OBE for services to archaeology in 1968, as well as serving on the council of the Society of Antiquaries, as President of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club (1936 – 8),[8] and as the first woman president of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society (1949).[11]

References

  1. ^ General Register Office for England & Wales Birth certificate for Elsie Margaret Chambers ref. Gloucester, 1886Q3, Vol. 6a p.293
  2. ^ 1901 census ref. RG13/2423/139/16; 1911 census piece 15279
  3. ^ General Register Office for England & Wales marriage certificate ref. Gloucester, 1909Q3, vol. 6a p.652
  4. ^ "Death of Mr H.B. Clifford". Vol. 01 Jun 1946. Cheltenham Chronicle. p. 4.
  5. ^ "Mrs E. M. Clifford" (PDF). Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Transactions. 95: 121–3. 1977.
  6. ^ "Proceedings and Obituaries". The Antiquaries Journal. 57 (2): 443–455. 1977. doi:10.1017/S0003581500031838. ISSN 1758-5309.
  7. ^ Saville, Alan (1984). Archaeology in Gloucestershire: From the Earliest Hunters to the Industrial Age : Essays Dedicated to Helen O'Neil and the Late Elsie Clifford. Jointly published by Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museums, and the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-905157-09-2.
  8. ^ a b "Two women archaeologists of Gloucestershire – The Wilson – Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum". www.cheltenhammuseum.org.uk. Retrieved 2024-08-08.
  9. ^ Rivet, A. L. F. (1962). "Bagendon: A Belgic Oppidum. By Elsie M. Clifford, F.S.A., with contributions by friends and colleagues. 1961. W. Heffer & Sons Ltd., Cambridge, pp. 287, 31 plates and 71 line drawings. Price £3 3s". Antiquity. 36 (142): 145–147. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00029793. ISSN 0003-598X.
  10. ^ Moore, Tom (2020-07-30). A Biography of Power: Research and Excavations at the Iron Age 'oppidum' of Bagendon, Gloucestershire (1979-2017). Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. pp. 9–11. ISBN 978-1-78969-535-9.
  11. ^ "A fairly brief history". Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. Retrieved 2024-08-08.
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