Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Barlow, Elizabeth

1758 - 1852

She was a respected local historian in her native Sussex and beyond, but also conducted archaeological investigations in Hampshire, in Woolmer Forest in the early 1800s.  Her direction of and participation in the fieldwork were ahead of their time for a woman in Georgian England, as early female archaeologists only became active in the later 19th century. She curated an extensive museum of artefacts at her home in Midhurst, West Sussex.

Born Elizabeth Newman in 1758, she was the niece of William Newman, the steward of the Tudor mansion, Cowdray House, Midhurst (which was destroyed by fire on his watch in 1793).  In middle age, she married William Barlow, a land surveyor for the Cowdray estate who was himself described as a ‘great antiquarian’.   She corresponded with the eminent archaeologist Samuel Lysons in 1815 while he was excavating the Roman villa at nearby Bignor, confidently discussing her theories on the site's history suggested by the excavation’s finds.

In 1828, Elizabeth Barlow conducted her own excavations in Woolmer Forest at Woolmer Pond, Brimstone Lodge Inclosure and Slab Common.  In the digging of the first four of eight mounds she was assisted by a Mr Whitcher (probably the surveyor John Whitcher, a contemporary of her late husband’s) from Midhurst, and Nathaniel Prettejohn, who for more than 30 years was the Crown foreman and superintendent of Woolmer Forest.  She later directed the excavations remotely, with Mr Prettejohn carrying out day-to-day on-site supervision.  She paid a local blacksmith and possibly other labourers to conduct the digging, giving them detailed directions on the methods to be employed.  These resulted in the recovery of Roman coins from Woolmer Pond and a burial urn from one of the tumuli on Slab Common, which were all transported to her museum in Midhurst.

She believed the urn to be prehistoric; however, more than two decades after her death, in Bell’s 1877 edition of Gilbert White’s The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, the then Lord Selborne quoted a ‘learned friend’ as preferring a Romano-British date.  However, her interpretation of what we now call a Bronze Age collared urn has been supported by subsequent research, including analysis of a sketch of the urn by the antiquarian the Revd John Skinner, who visited the Barlow museum in 1830, and excavations on Slab Common in 2008.

When Skinner visited Midhurst, Elizabeth Barlow was out, but her niece received him.  He records in his journal that Mrs Barlow planned to excavate further tumuli on Trotton Heath, just outside Midhurst, and it is likely there were others for which, sadly, no records exist.

Sources

• Cansfield D 2024 ‘ “Exactly what I wished for”: Elizabeth Barlow and the discovery of the Woolmer Urn’ PHFC 79:1-14

Portrait

Elizabeth Barlow’s tomb, Selham church, West Sussex.

Contribution to county’s history

She conducted pioneering archaeological investigations in Woolmer Forest, resulting in the recovery of Roman coins (later sent to the British Museum for analysis, along with presumed human remains from the tumuli), and a Bronze Age collared urn.  Her own sketch of the urn, along with that of the Revd Skinner, provide valuable information on a find from a tumulus at a time when records were rarely kept.

Relevant published works

Critical Comments

Whether Elizabeth Barlow was an archaeologist or an antiquarian could be debated, in view of the era and the limited records.

Other Comments

Contributor

Dawn Cansfield, February 2026.

Key Words

Woolmer Forest, Woolmer Urn, Slab Common, Woolmer Pond

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