The First Page: Pioneering Women Archivists
THE FIRST PAGE
Pioneering Women Archivists in Early 20th Century England
by Elizabeth Shepherd
26 November 2025
The First Page presents the first page of books that are launched as part of the IAS Book Launch Programme. On 1 December 2025, Elizabeth Shepherd will present her book Pioneering Women Archivists in Early 20th Century England, that tells the story of four women who laid the foundations of English local archives in the early twentieth century: Ethel Stokes, Lilian Redstone, Catherine Jamison and Joan Wake. Shepherd analyses their professional historical work, alongside their educational, social and family contexts, to reveal their place in the history of the archival profession.
Chapter 1: Beginnings
Four women from different backgrounds, born in different parts of England within a few years of each other in the 1870s and 1880s, made a significant contribution to the development of the management of archives in England. Lilian Redstone’s parents were both orphans, educated in orphan asylums in London, her father establishing a career as a school master in Woodbridge, with a reputation as the best-known antiquary in Suffolk. Ethel Stokes was from a middle-class family in London, her father a stockbroker’s agent and her mother a trained musician. Catherine Jamison was born into an upper middle-class family in Lancashire, her father a doctor, her mother an artist and her sister an Oxford academic. Joan Wake’s family was long-established in Northamptonshire and very grand, probably descended from Hereward the Wake and traced back 27 generations to lands in Normandy. Each of them was educated, all but one having studied history at university, with scholarly skills which they used to earn a living and forge an independent life. Their work brought them together, whether searching historical records at the British Museum or the Public Record Office or in the emerging historical, antiquarian and archival enterprises which ensured that local archives were identified, preserved and used. Their work laid the foundations for the archival profession which emerged in England after the Second World War. But little has been written about these women and the contribution they made. Who were they?
Ethel Stokes (1870-1944)
Ethel Stokes was born on 17 January 1870 in Holloway, London, to Edwin James Stokes (1844-1916) and Elizabeth (Fanny) Augusta Stokes, nee Baker (1864-1933).1 The family was part of the emerging middle-class and in 1871 was living in St George’s Villas, Finsbury, with a Welsh girl, Sarah Griffiths, as a general servant. Ethel’s father was a stockbroker’s agent. Her grandfather had been a boot maker and leather merchant in London. Her mother was described at the age of 24 as ‘professor of music and Associate of the London Academy’. Ethel’s brother, Durham, born in 1871, was sent away to boarding school in Kent. Napier Lodge in Margate was run by Eleanor Williams, a governess, who employed two further governesses Kate Lindsay and Constance Smith, to teach 34 boys…
Pioneering Women Archivists in Early 20th Century England was published by Routledge in June 2025
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD is Professor Emerita of Archives and Records Management in the Department of Information Studies at UCL. Her research interests are in rights in records, information policy compliance, and government administrative data. She led the research project, MIRRA (Memory-Identity-Rights in Records-Access), which focused on information rights for care-experienced adults. She is an acknowledged expert on the history of the archive profession in twentieth century England and has published widely, including, with Geoffrey Yeo, the best-selling book Managing Records: a Handbook of Principles and Practice (Facet Publishing, 2003) and the monograph, Archives and Archivists in 20th Century England (Ashgate, 2009).
On 1 December 2025 Elizabeth Shepherd will launch her book Pioneering Women Archivists in Early 20th Century England at the Institute of Advanced Studies. More information.
Lead Image: Photograph by Ethel Stokes via Wikicommons (photographer unknown). Background image (detail) by T. Selin Erkan via Unsplash.
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