​Cynthia Mary Begbie was born in 1933. She was the daughter of Gwendoline Electra Dean and Herbert Gordon Smirnoff Begbie. In 1919, Cynthia’s mother had gained entry to the University of Tasmania, an institution known for its early admission of women. Her father was part of a dynasty of Anglican ministers, serving as rector of the Moss Vale-cum-Berrima Parish in the Southern Highlands during Cynthia’s formative years. The family lived in the Rectory of St John's Moss Vale and Cynthia attended the small but distinctive Anglican Koyong Day and Boarding School for Girls in Moss Vale. The school advertised itself as having a “bracing and delightful climate … in the heart of a delightful health resort … with large playing grounds”. It also boasted of having its own dairy and orchard. The school’s formidable Principal, Miss Hetta Mein was renowned for her encouragement of physical culture, her knitting nights, instilling in her charges an awareness of those who were less fortunate (indeed they were actively involved in supporting needy children) and, at times, for her harsh discipline. Cynthia may have been spared from some of the more negative aspects of this regime because she was a day girl. Her father taught weekly scripture lessons there and officiated at the annual prize-giving. Students remembered Miss Mein’s spaniel, Kim, snoring under her table and, at least on one occasion, catching fire because of its inclination to warm itself by the heater.

​One student from Koyong remembered: “We were inculcated with certain standards: honesty (meaning openness and the absence of deceit), integrity and fair play. The importance of being a good loser and a gracious winner was stressed. Politeness, good manners and correct behaviour were instilled into us. Miss Mein had her faults but could probably claim to having laid the foundations for our good character. If nothing else, I attribute to her a certain stoicism and resilience which I think is found in every ‘old girl’ from her school.”[1] The school motto: domine dirige nos was a prayer for divine direction rather than the customary aphorism. Latin was one of the curricular options which Cynthia probably undertook at Koyong. Her interest in the ancient world was reportedly fostered by her Christian background and her “bookish” father.

​From 1945 to 1950, Cynthia attended secondary school at Frensham, an independent non-denominational school for girls in Mittagong in the Southern Highlands. The school has been celebrated for its beautiful surroundings, encouragement of a non-competitive community, commitment to loving service, the valuing of experience and expression as much as scholarly endeavour, and its promotion of an “environment in which creative gifts are awakened, encouraged and pursued with enjoyment.” [2] Cynthia sat the Leaving Certificate twice despite excellent results the first time. In the iteration she picked up an extra subject, Ancient History, and held the position of School Prefect. The school still holds her school blazer embroidered with an Iris (the school’s highest recognition of excellence) which Cynthia was awarded for both Latin and French. At Frensham, she also loved sport and was very good at it. In her last year, 1950, she was a member of the 1st 11 Cricket Team.

​In 1951, Cynthia enrolled at the University of Sydney, studying Latin, History and Elementary Greek. In her 2nd year, she added Classical Archaeology to her chosen subjects and in her 3rd year, English. Her end-of-year results included High Distinctions in Greek II and Latin III and in her BA Examination she was awarded a Latin Honours Class I, second only to Harry Jocelyn, her main competitor, a reportedly combative and irascible person who was later to become one of the leading Latinists of his generation and take up a Personal Chair at the University in 1969. The then Professor of Latin, John Dunston, later reflected that he “tried to … keep an eye on who were the good people in the Honours classes and to give them an extra dose of fertiliser.”[3] Dunston and another senior departmental colleague, Jim Nicholls, had maintained strong ties with St John’s College, Cambridge, their alma mater, where Jocelyn went on to read Part II of the undergraduate Classical Tripos. Such an option was not possible for Cynthia as the college did not admit undergraduate women until 1981.
 
Notably, Cynthia continued to excel in the sporting sphere during her undergraduate years, being selected for the NSW Junior Women’s Cricket Team.
 
In 1955 Cynthia went on to complete a Diploma of Education and in 1956 joined the Classics and Ancient History Staff at Sydney Girls’ High School. Resigning her secondary school teaching post, she continued as a Temporary part-time Lecturer in Latin at the University of Sydney in 1957 and 1958. In late 1958 she was chosen out of eight applicants from Australia and overseas for a full-time Lectureship at the University of Sydney. Cynthia took leave of absence for two terms in 1960 to conduct research at Cambridge for a Master’s thesis on a study of source material for Roman History of the Second Century BCE. In the same year she was awarded an MA in Latin with First Class Honours and the University Medal from the University of Sydney. In the following year, Cynthia commenced research into the transmission of the text of Livy in the period of the Roman Empire to the end of the Fourth Century CE. According to the University Senate Minutes, this was “considered to be an important and difficult subject in Roman historiography.” This research materialised in print form in 1967 as an article on the epitome of Livy in the prestigious British journal Classical Quarterly.
 
Cynthia also took up a role as Tutor at two of the University of Sydney’s residential colleges for women. At the Catholic Sancta Sophia College, she taught Latin and Ancient History between 1959 to 1967; and, in 1962, History at ‘The Women’s College’. In 1966 she is recorded as a ‘Friend’ of the Nicholson Museum and as a member of the Sydney University Arts Association nominated by the Faculty of Arts.
 
In 1967 Cynthia was promoted to a Senior Lectureship at the University. In the grounds for her promotion the quality of her teaching (and particularly her ability to apply her research experience to it) was underlined. Past students have remarked upon her enthusiasm as a teacher and her caring and encouraging nature. One has highlighted Cynthia’s experimental teaching practices (such as the novel use of inscriptional evidence to study the 3rd century CE), and the enjoyment of evenings spent with her cooking Roman food from the Apicius cookbook. Cynthia’s teaching duties ranged from all levels of undergraduate to Honours level. Her lecturing in the Department of History was also highly regarded. Likewise, her introduction of courses in Roman History and the Honours School.
           
We cannot underestimate the challenges of working for many years as the only woman in a department which was not particularly encouraging of women, especially given that one colleague had a proud record of publicly denouncing the Christian faith in university fora. More specifically, it has been alleged, he was ready with disparaging comments about her. One junior colleague who benefitted from Cynthia’s generosity and encouragement and who went on to an academic career, felt that given her interests, that she would have flourished in an Ancient History department.
 
In this period, Cynthia took leave without pay from the University of Sydney and enrolled in a PhD at University College London in partial fulfilment of which she worked on a dissertation on the bishop-historian Gregory of Tours. The thesis submitted in March 1969 focussed on Gregory in his historical context and the importance of his belief in the “ultimate authority” of the church and the authority vested in him by his episcopal office in his penning of the Historia Francorum.
 
Having been awarded her doctorate, an achievement which was no mean feat given the short leave of absences she undertook from teaching while undertaking research, Cynthia returned to Australia and continued as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney. In 1970 she resigned. She settled in Berrima on the Southern Highlands, took up pottery and ceramics and established a much-loved nursery business known as ‘The Lavender Farm’ with her friend Julie Rigby. People fondly recall visits there. In 1985, she served as President of the new Wingecarribee Shire’s Tulip Festival, by which time she had changed her surname to that of Dean, her mother’s family name. Her years in Berrima also saw a short-lived marriage.

​In 1988, Cynthia sold her Berrima property and moved to Boston in the United States, involving herself in academic circles in New England. She loved Boston but it proved too cold for her, necessitating a move to Florida. During these years, Cynthia reportedly undertook a degree in theology, converted to Roman Catholicism and was very involved in social work, especially with the elderly. She passed away in 2023 after a short illness.
 
Members of her family remember her as a warm, shy, and gentle person with a natural reticence. Former students have commented consistently on her approachability, generosity and kindness, and some still refer to her as “the lovely Miss Begbie”.

[1] Winifred Jones in Koyong. Day and Boarding School for Girls. Moss Vale. 1915–1952 (Moss Vale, 2012), 82.

[2] Susan E. Emilsen, Frensham. An Historical Perspective (Mittagong, 1988), 9–10.

[3] University of Sydney Archives, Dunston, Arthur John Interview, Tape 1, Side A: https://archives-search.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/91835?keywords=dunston&highlights=WyJkdW5zdG9uIl0%3D&lsk=7f32a34dc552df511b89e0d9184f5186

​My sincere thanks to members of the Begbie family, especially Graeme Begbie and David Connolly, and to Linda Emery, Bernard Gredley, Angela Hartnup, Dorothy Healey, Tom Hillard, Frances Muecke, Vipasha Mukherjee, Alanna Nobbs, Tim Robinson, Ann Sherwood and Greg Stanton for their generous assistance. Any errors are my own.

Vivienne Gray (1947-2025) was Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Auckland. She completed her BA and MA degrees at Auckland and her PhD at Cambridge. In 1974 Vivienne took up a lectureship at Auckland, where she pursued her career, with an interlude at Oxford in 1979 and 1980 on a Rhodes Visiting Fellowship. Vivienne was known particularly for her work on Xenophon, which included The Character of Xenophon's ‘Hellenica’ (Duckworth, 1989), The Framing of Socrates: the Literary Interpretation of Xenophon's ‘Memorabilia’ (Steiner, 1998), Xenophon on Government (CUP, 2007), Xenophon: Oxford Readings in Classical Studies (edited collection; OUP, 2010), and Xenophon's Mirror of Princes: Reading the Reflections (OUP, 2011). Among Vivienne’s favourite ancient authors were Homer, Herodotus, and Lucretius. Vivienne read a lot of poetry, ancient and modern, including Greek lyric brilliance with her students, Gerard Manley Hopkins even from her school days, and Clive James’s poetry of illness. She was a long-time fan of Bob Dylan. Vivienne loved the landscapes and seascapes of Greece, and made her final trip there in September 2024, visiting Crete, Naxos, Paros, and Syros. Vivienne will be remembered as a fine scholar, an inspiring teacher, and a loyal friend. ASCS 47 at the University of Auckland will feature three panels in Vivienne's honour, bringing together some former students, colleagues, and old friends of Vivienne’s to speak on topics of special interest to her. 

​Margaret Hallo Beattie (16 December 1942 to 13 April 2021) taught Greek and Roman History and Latin at Macquarie University from 1973 until 1992, during which time she was a long-term editor of the journal Ancient Society: Resources for Teachers (from 1974 to 1987). Her speciality was the Late Roman Republic and her particular passion was the Gracchan era. Her admiring students presented her with a badge proclaiming “I’m biased to Gaius: Long live the Gracchi” (and branded “SPQR Products” on the reverse).

She was born Margaret Olive Hallo in Monto in country Queensland, and began her education at a two-room primary school, before going up to Warwick’s PGC on the banks of the Condamine, coming to the attention there of one of the co-principals, the celebrated poet, literary critic and activist, Dorothy Green, who spotted Margaret’s talent and nurtured her interests in music and the classics.
Her daughter records that “‘Halo’, as Mum was known, was mischievous, subversive, had people in stitches of laughter and was often in trouble; she was frequently sent to the headmistress’s office, where Dorothy would look up and say ‘oh it’s you again’, before showing Mum some book or music, and telling her to look suitably chastened when she returned to the classroom.” (Green had come to this position already with an established record as a journalist and literary critic from the ABC, and went on to become the first female lecturer at Monash University, subsequently teaching at the ANU and gaining an even wider public profile in the Nuclear Disarmament movement.) One of her fellow students and friends there was Bev(erley) Kingston, who would become a prominent feminist historian of Australian Women’s History.

Margaret became the school pianist, and her love of Latin and the classics dated from the same period. She also showed a flair for dramatics (which she never lost). She performed on the Warwick stage in J.M. Barrie’s Quality Street, about two sisters who start a school ‘for genteel children’, and — at the age of seventeen — as Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The local Warwick press gushed (April, 1960):
 
“Margaret Hallo, star of last year’s performance of ‘Quality Street’, gave an almost professional touch to her interpretation. She possesses an uncanny insight into character, to an extent rare among schoolgirls, an unfaltering stage sense and a zest and vitality which communicate themselves irresistibly to the audience.”
 
Margaret then attended the University of Queensland, taking out First Class Honours in Classics, in the School (as it was then) of Latin Language and Literature, in 1964 (awarded 1965). During her studies in St Lucia she was particularly influenced by the young Beryl Wilkinson, who would soon, as Beryl Rawson, become Australia’s first female Professor in the field of Classics and Ancient History in Canberra. Margaret followed Beryl to the ANU, completing her Masters degree there in 1966. Presumably under Beryl’s influence, she then took up postgraduate studies in the United States (at the University of Illinois), where her broader cultural interests flourished. Here she met her husband-to-be, James, a passionate scientist (a celebrated chemist), swimmer, opera and art lover, and unionist, whom she married in 1968. They were to enjoy 53 years of happy wedlock, until they passed within weeks of each other.

The couple returned to Australia in 1972, and Margaret took up her post at Macquarie in the following year. There, as mentioned above, she taught a wide range of courses in Ancient History, Latin and other related fields, and influenced generations of students. Her forte was, of course, the late Roman Republic, which became her signature course, taken over from the founding father of Ancient History at Macquarie, Professor Edwin Judge, whom she was ever ready to challenge. Their in-class debates, which he relished, shocked the students. Her intensive research also continued. She handed over to the present author boxes of notes, and valuably annotated photocopies. Old tapes of her lectures remain entertaining (not least for the odd acerbic comment), and edifying, as her theatrical flair also never deserted her.
 
The words for Margaret are style, elegance and vivacity. She was quick-witted, and she was an exacting critic. She had strong views about style and standards — but she could tolerate scruffy people like the present author. She held herself to the same high standards she expected of others — and, as a perfectionist, she never completed her doctoral dissertation. Yet she made a deep impression about all those with whom she came into contact, both nationally and internationally. 
 
Chronic illness sadly forced her to undertake teaching on a part-time basis for a number of years —until, in 1992, because of the persistence of that condition, she had to retire — prematurely — from teaching altogether. This was tragic in a number of ways. It deprived her of doing something that she dearly loved; it deprived students of a gifted and inspiring teacher; and it deprived her colleagues of a running mate whom they deeply admired and respected. From her students, on the news of her passing, and with a number holding academic positions in both Australia and the States, there came a flood of sadness mixed with joyous memory, anecdotal chuckles, and a certain awe. Phrases like "a phenomenal lecturer, and a delightful and charismatic person" recurred over and over — as well as "exuberant, funny and just damn smart."
 
She was also a loving mother, who took an inspiring pride in her children, the twins Andrew and Kate, one of them now a senior academic in German and European Studies, and the other a barrister specialising, inter alia, in human rights law.
 
Few who engaged with Margaret will ever forget her acumen and the forthright manner of its expression, her wit and her perceptiveness, her strong moral compass, and her sense of social justice. She was one of a kind.

​Lucy was also proficient in Biblical Hebrew, which she taught for many decades at the University of Sydney. She also knew Aramaic, the ancient to modern language of the Levant, and she was fluent in numerous other medieval to modern languages, including French. Lucy’s intellectual curiosity extended well beyond the Hebrew Bible and its cognate literature, however, and also included an interest in Carl Jung, English literature and Caodaism (the Vietnamese Great Faith for the Third Universal Redemption).  

​She would also re-enact with vigour the scene where Yael drives the tent peg through Sisera’s head in Judges 5, in both Hebrew and English, of course. “Down!” she would scream, “Down he sank, still he lay, where he sank, there he fell, dead!” It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement of Lucy’s poetry classes, and I would leave every class buzzing with energy and gratitude.

Then Lucy would always respond with helpful suggestions, “Have you read so and so’s book on this”, or “Have you thought about approaching it this way…” – it seemed there was never a topic I researched that Lucy didn’t know something about!  

​Lucy passed away on Sunday 26th June, 2022, aged 82, but her spirit lives on in the lives of those whose paths she crossed, including my own. Lucy instilled in me a passion for Biblical Hebrew poetry that I still carry with me today, and now have the privilege of imparting to my own students. I hope I am doing her proud as I too now raise my hands in excitement, and re-enact my own version of Judges 5, tent peg and all!

Marguerite Johnson is a professor of Classics at The University of Newcastle, Australia, and a mentor through the AWAWS Academic Mentoring Program. She received her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) at The University of Newcastle in 1988, where she won the university medal. She then earned her PhD in 1997, completing a thesis on Catullus’ Lesbia and her early Greek models. Now, Marguerite is an established feminist scholar, whose work unearths and examines the lived experiences of ancient women, and the representation of women in ancient texts. She has published extensively on gender and sexuality in the ancient world, and is currently working on a revised edition of Routledge’s Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature. She also brings this knowledge into the classroom, as she teaches a range of undergraduate courses, including ‘Gender and Sexuality in Antiquity’ and ‘Women and Children in the Ancient World.’ I am honoured to be one of Marguerite’s PhD students, and am greatly inspired by our countless conversations about her research and the value of feminist scholarship. For this blog post, I had the pleasure of interviewing Marguerite, to find out more about her experiences as a student, and the academics who inspired her. 

As an undergraduate in the mid-1980s, I can’t remember one instance where women were mentioned in any of my Ancient History or Modern History classes. In third year English, I vividly remember a class on D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, delivered by a casual member of staff – a woman – and she discussed women, and also set an essay question on the sisters in the novel. It was quite a memorable event and, of course, I wrote the essay. In my Honours year, all went silent again. It wasn’t until I pursued the topic for my PhD that a I began a self-taught course of my own. 

Like other scholars I’ve met, my own inspiration was a beloved high school teacher – a brilliant and neverendingly energetic woman by the name of Elizabeth Tyack. She could recall dates like no one else. She attended The University of Newcastle as a mature-age student and her dedication to teaching was infectious.
​
My intense interest in people’s private lives and their intimate histories is a major reason for my focus on socio-cultural history. But the real motivation for learning more in these fields was because I was so curious about topics that were simply not covered in high school or university – the lives of slaves, the day-to-day activities of women, children’s play and, basically, people’s lived realities. As a student, slaves were just casually mentioned in passing and I was always left wondering about their life expectancies, what happened when they were ill or injured, and other features of their lives. As a teenager who lived with severe scoliosis and spent much of my senior high school in and out of hospital, I also wondered what happened to people with spinal conditions, life-threatening illnesses, impacted wisdom teeth, and other such conditions that can, in some parts of the world today, be treated with success. Perhaps I’m just endlessly curious or a stickybeak.

Most definitely the feminist Classicists from the United States whose research changed the discipline forever in the late-1980s and 1990s. These women opened up the ancient world for me, and answered so many of the questions I had been asking myself and my teachers for years. Scholars like Marilyn Skinner (one of my PhD examiners), Amy Richlin (fearless and smart), Judith Hallett (egalitarian and prolific), and Page duBois (a justice-seeker and individual) challenged the traditions of Classics but never at the expense of outstanding intellectualism. All of these women, all of whom I have had the honour of meeting over the years, also taught me how to be a good feminist as well as a good scholar. In particular, Marilyn Skinner must be credited with making a major contribution to the scholar I am now – she was exacting, relentless and set an incredibly high standard. I also value academic kindness, and there are several scholars who show this naturally – Greg Nagy, Lea Beness, Tom Hillard, Frances Muecke, John  Davidson, and James Uden. 

 I work in two main areas: cultural or ‘lived’ history, and here I focus on sexual histories as well as histories of magical belief and practice – both are underpinned by my first love, which is ancient literature; and histories of Classical Reception, particularly the reception of Sappho, as well as cultural importations of the Classical Tradition in early colonial Australia. Feminism informs my life organically, and so it informs most aspects of my research. My interest in women’s lives is inherently underpinned by a feminist research agenda, and I think that speaking about it, teaching it, and writing it are all acts of feminist scholarship. I am particularly struck by voicelessness – a fascination and perhaps an underlying theme of my work – which has been with me since I read Greek mythology as a child. This theme is usually in the back of my mind when I write about women.I work in two main areas: cultural or ‘lived’ history, and here I focus on sexual histories as well as histories of magical belief and practice – both are underpinned by my first love, which is ancient literature; and histories of Classical Reception, particularly the reception of Sappho, as well as cultural importations of the Classical Tradition in early colonial Australia. Feminism informs my life organically, and so it informs most aspects of my research. My interest in women’s lives is inherently underpinned by a feminist research agenda, and I think that speaking about it, teaching it, and writing it are all acts of feminist scholarship. I am particularly struck by voicelessness – a fascination and perhaps an underlying theme of my work – which has been with me since I read Greek mythology as a child. This theme is usually in the back of my mind when I write about women.

As an undergraduate, Classics and Ancient History was male-dominated. I was mostly taught by men, but I was also taught by Dr Rhona Beare – an extraordinary woman, most definitely an individual, and one of the most brilliant minds I’ve encountered. While women are now well-represented in the field, there is the occasional mansplaining situation (but less so as I grow older). I think young female scholars still face problems associated with stereotyping and objectification, which is unacceptable and needs to be countered on every occasion. I also think that social and institutional snobbery is still very much alive and well – not only in Classics but across the academic arena per se. It’s tedious and offensive to be judged on the basis of what school you attended, or what university you attended. So much of this is a matter of time and place and space – all socio-economic factors. You can write a PhD in a chicken-pen in the middle of nowhere – intelligence isn’t class-bound or financially-determined – it’s so subversively egalitarian.

Women’s history is vital – it reminds us of the little we once had, and how far we’ve come – well, how far some of us most fortunate women have come. It also reminds us of what still needs to be done for both women and girls in the journey towards complete equality and freedom on a global scale.

Locating women’s roles and contributions within historical archives is complicated, especially when women are not listed as authors and instead identified as ‘wives’, ‘assistants’, and/or ‘indigenous guides’. To date, the Pacific Matildas project has identified 50 Pacific Matildas, their careers spanning three centuries (e.g., Rose de Freycinet c. 1817 and Janet Davison 2019). In contrast, archaeopedia.com lists only nine 'women archaeologists'. Here we shine the spotlight on Susan Davis.

Upon completing her studies, Susanna became the first woman to hold a museum position (Assistant Ethnologist) at the Dominion Museum, Wellington (Figure 2) and her appointment led to further involvement in a number of archaeological projects and site surveys across NZ. ​In 1957, Susanna became the first woman (and sole-author) to publish on North Island NZ archaeology, the publication detailing Maori occupation in the Castlepoint area (Davis 1957). The research is thorough and detailed and her archaeological expertise evident in the quality of her illustrations (Figure 3).

Susanna’s passion for archaeological fieldwork meant she spent nearly every weekend of 1959 excavating NZ archaeological sites (Davis 1959) and, in June 1959, as part of the Dominion Museum archaeological site exploration party, she travelled to Palliser Bay to conduct excavations. After this initial work in the area, Palliser Bay became a foci of systematic archaeological research, resulting in a three-year archaeological program in the late 60s culminating in the completion of two PhD theses (H.M. Leach 1976; B.F. Leach 1976) and the seminal publication of Prehistoric Man in Palliser Bay (Leach and Leach 1979). Worth noting here is that Helen May Leach is identified as a Pacific Matilda in her own right.

​​From 1956 to 1960, Susanna appears in several newspaper articles for The Evening Post. One such article contains a striking image of herself and the secretary of the Historic Places Trust, Mr John Pascoe, at the aforementioned Paremata Barracks (Figure 4). One can just make out the trowel in Susanna’s hand by her side. There is something to be said here about archaeology in reality vs imagined archaeology and its presentation to the general public. This particular scene was constructed for photographic purposes and Susanna played a crucial role, at a critical time period, in normalising the place of women in the field and subverting public perceptions. 

​In 1960, Susanna returned to the UK (Duff 1960), her departure from NZ announced in The Evening Post (Figure 5). Upon her return, Susanna worked on the excavation of the celebrated deserted medieval village at Wharram Percy, Yorkshire under the directorship of John Hurst and catalogued New Zealand artefacts at the British Museum before taking up a curatorial appointment at the Saffron Walden Museum (SWM), Essex. During her appointment at the SWM, Susanna curated the excellent multi-disciplinary collections of archaeology, natural history, and ethnography held by the museum and continued to write up various aspects of her NZ archaeological research (e.g., Davis 1962, 1963) while keeping a hand in Pacific ethnographic collections (Cranstone 1963: 48). 

​In mid-1963, Susanna left the SWM to take a curatorial position at Guildhall Museum. She then moved to London Museum where she curated exhibitions drawing on the museum’s collections of historic jigsaws and the suffragist movement. During this time, she joined the Suffragettes Fellowship, lending her voice to advocate for women’s rights (Figure 6).
​
Leaving the London Museum in 1968, Susanna travelled to the USA to work on Plimoth Plantation, Massachusetts, where she took part in the famous re-creation of the 17th century settlement founded by the Pilgrim Fathers. Her work involved researching and commissioning accurate copies of appropriate period furniture and soft furnishings, as well as correct costume for the living history interpreters in the houses.

After her second return to the UK, Susanna held curatorial positions at a number of well-known museums, Bewdley Museum in Worcestershire (1974 to 1982), Cider Museum in Heresford (1982 to 1985), and Ayscoughfee Hall at Spalding, Lincolnshire (1985 to 1995), before retiring in 1995 to Wales where she resides today.

Our research shows that after moving back to the UK from NZ, Susanna’s publication output decreases, which is reflective of her shift in focus from archaeological sciences and research to an alternative career pathway focussing in museums. While Susanna’s time as a professional archaeologist in NZ might be considered brief, there is no doubt of the lasting impact her research has had in the development of the archaeological discipline in the Pacific region.

​I am greatly indebted to Susanna Davies who has generously shared her life story with me as part of this research. I also thank Stephen Price who has been a wonderful liaison between Susanna and myself and incredibly patient with our correspondence. This research is funded by an Australian Research Council DECRA Grant (DE200100597) and ethics approval has been granted by the Human Ethics Office at the University of Western Australia (2020/ET000338).

​Archaeology is as diverse as the many people who work within it. This was nowhere more clear – even to me as a naive first year student – than at Sydney University in 1965. As the first archaeologist to appear before students there was little chance that even the most conventional young man could maintain an inappropriately gendered view of what an archaeologist should be like. There was then little integration of the various components of the introductory Archaeology course, each part of which reflected the personality as much as the subject matter of the lecturers: Alexander Cambitoglou’s formal recitations of Classical art, polished structures that required virtuoso performances on four projectors by a succession of stressed technicians, responding instantly to his thumping pointer; Vincent Megaw’s narratives that might begin at one end of the Danube and meander, with often bewildering asides, to finish up thousands of years later at the other; and, then  – what immediately captured my interest  – Judy Birmingham’s lectures on Near Eastern prehistory, which exposed a whole new universe of information and ideas, and the challenges of making sense of excavated evidence to tell stories about the past. It was Judy’s excited fascination and enthusiasm for archaeology and how to do it that drew me into the subject and set me on a lifetime path of research and teaching – indeed the first essay I wrote for her in 1965 was on the ways in which archaeologists could use pottery, a subject that I have continued to tilt at for more than fifty years! Whether any of these later attempts deserve more than the fairly average mark she gave me for that first paper is another matter.

From these initial classes through to post-graduate study Judy introduced me and my fellow students to the masochistic joys of research, of continual questioning and of all facets of archaeology, and always with her characteristic energetic engagement with ideas. This included early exposure to the developing challenges of the New Archaeology in the late 1960s: challenges at odds with the very traditional approaches of other archaeologists, especially some in her own department. But theory had to be matched by practice, for Judy saw that it was essential for students to gain experience in the field in order not only to develop skills, but also to understand the nature of the archaeological record and its potential, even if this had to be done against departmental policy.

Of course the multiple demands of excavation are not for everyone, but from my first exposure I found them both exciting and challenging. I was fortunate enough to spend many months of 1967 working with archaeologists of the calibre of Jack Golson (in New Zealand) and Ron Lampert (at Burrill Lake in NSW) and on several sites in Israel.

This article is presented with many thanks to David Frankel and the Australian Archaeological Instititue at Athens, who intially published the piece to celebrate International Women's Day, 2021.

Jessie Webb was the first woman to teach Ancient History at the University of Melbourne. She became the benefactor of one of the largest travelling scholarships for students in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University.

Webb was born on 31 July 1880 near Tumut, New South Wales, with her mother passing shortly after and her father dying in an accident when she was nine years old. She then moved with her aunt, Jean Lauder Watson, to Melbourne where she lived for the rest of her life. Jessie was among the second generation of women to graduate from the University of Melbourne, and she continued working there for the rest of her life. She joined the staff at the University of Melbourne in 1908, becoming a senior lecturer in 1923. She functioned as acting professor three times before her death in 1944.

Throughout her time at the University, Jessie had an enormous impact on developing the Classics and Archaeology Collection at the University. While teaching at the University of Melbourne, Jessie made two research trips abroad, travelling through Africa to Europe and the eastern Mediterranean; she explored sites that she had spent a lifetime teaching, places that inspired her. These visits 1922–1923, and then again in 1936, proved a catalyst for building the teaching collection and provided a significant amount of story-telling material for students and public lectures. After her first trip, she persuaded the University to contribute 20 to 25 pounds a year to purchase 'representative Greek and Roman coins' to become part of a teaching collection. The collection now comprises 745 coins. 

During both her student years and as a staff member, Jessie was highly involved in university social life and was a member of the Princess Ida Club, the Historical Society, and the Dramatic Society. In 1910, Jessie was a foundation member of the Catalyst or the 'Cats'; then in 1912 of the Lyceum Club. Both Webb and her fellow members tended to write rhymes about meetings and themselves: ​

Jessie's main interest was ancient history, specifically that of Ancient Greece, and then in later years, Mesopotamia. During her first study leave, she visited Greece, but to get there, she took a rather unorthodox approach. In 1922-23, when she was 41 years old, she travelled alongside Dr Georgina Sweet, a fellow member of the Cats and Lyceum clubs, on a journey from Cape Town to Cairo, an adventurous feat by two well-educated professional women (O’Callaghan 2013). 

​​​After seven months of rail and ferry travel, Jessie went on to Greece. Jessie spent her leave at the prestigious British School of Archaeology in Athens, travelling to Crete from the mainland to further her research. While there, she met Arthur Evans, and later students recall her stories about him as "Screamingly funny!" (Ridley 1994, 165). At the end of this trip, she was nominated as the alternate delegate to the League of Nations assembly in Geneva where she discovered the plight of Armenian genocide survivors, returning to Australia to raise funds to support refugees.

Upon returning to Australia and subsequent 'lady of the hour' public lectures, Jessie highlighted the need for more female archaeologists and often commented on women's different statuses in different countries and universities. Her recommendation to both Australian and international counterparts was the promotion of mentorship; for educated women to watch for talented students within their fields and to give them all possible help. Jessie was a firm proponent of humanism and was noted for her support of disadvantaged students and women abroad.

Jessie travelled again in 1936, through France, Turkey, Germany and returning to Australia via Syria and Iraq. During this trip, Jessie explored the current excavation at Ur and was dazzled! The general excavation process and her meeting with Leonard Woolley left her with a sense of amazement at the scale of the history she studied. This experience and her sheer interest in 'modern' excavation techniques became a primary source for her to draw upon in her, often anecdotal, lectures. She would discuss the impact that excavation would have on historical interpretations and seemed to delight in the theoretical and scientific implications of excavation as a practice.

Jessie was a trailblazer. Her travels, which now read like an adventure novel to archaeologists and historians alike, portray her as a figure of intellectual vigour, and a woman of understated wit.

It is remarkable that upon her death she bequeathed £7128 to the University of Melbourne to endorse the study of ancient history and archaeology. The fund, originally intended to support her retirement, instead encourages students to spend a 'season' devoted to research in Greece. Jessie created this scholarship from her retirement funds to "assist a student to have the chance she herself never did, to study at the European institution she knew and remembered best, the BSA or equivalent" (Ridley 1994, 141). This remarkable opportunity has benefitted many students in their postgraduate study at the University of Melbourne. Such generosity made Jessie a fantastic teacher and endeared many to her during her time at the University.

It is a humbling experience to write about Jessie Webb and her life for AWAWS and even more so to chronicle some of her adventures and highlight her legacy. 

The authors also presented on this topic with their paper "Archaeology, Feminism and Adventure: Jessie Webb’s Legacy" as part of the AWAWS panel 'Women from Australasia in Mediterranean Studies: Past, Present and Future' at the Mediterranean Archaeology Australasian Research Community 2021 Meeting, 28 Jan 2021.