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Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Locke, Amy Audrey

1881 - 1916

Hampshire was the first county to complete, before the First World War, its Victoria County History, those large red volumes that are the first-look source for so many queries. They were orchestrated and edited by William Page, but the research and writing depended to a large extent on a cohort of young graduates – mainly women. They trawled through the holdings of the Public Record Office, as the National Archives were then called, and produced slips of paper that were then assembled into the pages of the work.  The slips themselves still survive and are in Southampton University Library.

One of these researchers was Audrey Locke (she was never called Amy), whose father, the son of a chimney sweep, was the porter of Winchester College. This was a link that no doubt led to her attending Winchester High School for Girls, now called St Swithun’s School, which had been founded in 1884 on a site on North Walls (later occupied by the reference library). In 1899 she competed for and won the first Charlotte Yonge Scholarship, funded by the author, which gave her a place at Somerville College, Oxford. She read Modern History and was awarded a 2.1 honours.

On the recommendation of Elizabeth Lodge (Sister Espeth), with whom she had studied Medieval English and Latin, she started work on the VCH in London. She carried out work on a number of counties, but her main contribution was on Hampshire, in Volume III, on the hundreds of Selborne, Fawley and Buddlesgate. She carried out fieldwork by bicycle and made many sketches, now held by the Hampshire Field Club. Audrey was so effective in her research that she was commissioned to write two family histories, The Seymour Family: History and Romance (1911) and The Hanbury Family (2 volumes, 1916). Her views on the history and literature of Winchester and Hampshire from Anglo-Saxon times to the early 20th century are incidentally expressed in her Anthology published in 1912. She died at a young age due to a complication of an operation for mastoiditis, probably brought on by the enormous toil of producing the Hanbury volumes, which were published posthumously.

Sources

W. Dawson, (2014) The Porter’s Daughter

 P. Bain, (2014) St Swithun’s: A Centenary History, Chichester

Portrait

A Audrey Locke

by Amy J. Drucker, c. 1915. Permission to use granted by Sarsen Press, Winchester

Contribution to county’s history

Like her fellow researchers, she used original sources to set down the backbone of local history in several parts in the county. Had the VCH had a different editorial policy, and had she lived longer, she would no doubt have expanded on the limited aims of the work.

Relevant published works

  • Locke, A. A. (1912) In Praise of Winchester: An Anthology of Prose and Verse,London

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Before her work, most local history research had been carried out by male clerics. If there had been more professional opportunities for educated women, it is unlikely that the VCH would ever have been completed.

Contributor

Barry Shurlock 13 02 2022

Key Words

Victoria County history, female emancipation, St Swithun’s School, Winchester College, Charlotte Yonge

Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

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