Joan Radcliffe Clarke

This account of the life of our Fellow Joan Radcliffe Clarke (who died on 13 October 2007) has been provided by our Fellow Christopher Young (Joan’s nephew).

Joan Kirk was born on 11 February 1924, the second daughter of Dr Kenneth Kirk, subsequently Bishop of Oxford from 1937 to 1954. Joan was brought up in Oxford, living first in Norham Road, then in Christ Church and finally on Boars Hill. She was educated at the Dragon School which at that time admitted sisters of existing boy pupils. Her father persuaded the headmaster to take Joan and her two sisters on the promise that boys would follow. Subsequently she went with her sisters to Queen Margaret’s School, Scarborough, which was evacuated at the outset of World War II to Castle Howard. Joan was at Castle Howard when it was severely damaged by fire in 1940, losing all her possessions at the school and returning home dressed entirely in borrowed clothes.

Like many who have become archaeologists, she could not remember a time when archaeology was not a major interest. At Oxford she did a two-year War degree in classics as a member of the Society of Home Students (now St Anne’s College). During this time she was involved in excavations carried out by Richard Atkinson and by the University Archaeological Society. She dug, for example, on a barrow at Cassington, west of Oxford. Following university she served in the WRNS at Bletchley Park. In 1946, she left the WRNS to do a Social Services Diploma at Oxford. The diploma was never completed since in 1947 she was recruited by Donald Harden, Fellow, to be an Assistant Keeper in the Department of Antiquities of the Ashmolean Museum. Her work focused on the Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon collections

In those days, two decades before the emergence of professional units, the archaeological role of the Ashmolean Museum was very different to now. As well as supporting excavations overseas, the Museum was also very involved in the Upper Thames valley. Apart from some excavations on defence sites such as airfields during the war, directed by external excavators commissioned by the Office of Works, excavation on threatened sites was carried out by the Museum, sometimes with government support, and the Oxford University Archaeological Society. During the late 1940s, these were mainly on gravel pits, notably directed by Richard Atkinson at Dorchester-on-Thames and at Cassington. In the early 1950s the focus began to move into Oxford also.

Joan was actively involved in field work in the Oxford region, both in the field and working on finds. She dug on a number of sites, including Dorchester, Campsfield (in advance of the dualling of the A44 in 1949) and in Cornmarket in Oxford. It is clear too that she also salvaged finds from many sites (such as the first discoveries of the Roman kiln site at the Churchill Hospital, Headington, which many years later was dug by the present writer) when they were discovered by chance. Her first substantial publication (in 1949) was of surface finds from the Romano-Celtic temple site at Woodeaton, collected over many years by various fieldwalkers. In 1952, with Richard Goodchild she co-directed the first excavation of the site. The results of this excavation were published with commendable speed.

After the publication of the Woodeaton surface finds in 1949, her work, normally in conjunction with a co-author, appeared regularly in Oxoniensia until she moved away from Oxford in 1956. Apart from the regular updates on archaeological discoveries in the “News” and “Notes” sections of the journal, her work focused on Romano-British finds, including the pottery industry of the area, the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the Upper Thames valley, and on excavations in which she had been involved. She also worked outside the region, being responsible at Chedworth Roman villa in the early 1950s for the display of the site museum and for the site guidebook. She excavated in Canterbury in 1947 under the direction of Sheppard Frere, and at Sabratha in 1948 and Jericho in 1953 for Kathleen Kenyon.

Joan was elected a Fellow of the Society on 10 January 1952 when still only in her late 20s. Donald Harden is said to have advised her that it was better to be put forward early before she had had time to upset people. In 1956 she married David Tyrwhitt-Drake Clarke, then Keeper of Antiquities at Leicester Museum, having first met him when they were both digging in Canterbury in 1947. They moved to Colchester in 1963 when he became Curator of the Colchester and Essex Museum.

This meant leaving the Ashmolean and like many women of her time she gave up full-time employment in order to focus on her family. Her loss to archaeology was more than made up by her support for David and by bringing up a family of four lively and successful children, though none of them has followed their parents into archaeology. In any case, she retained a keen interest in archaeology and contributed to educational works such as the book on Camulodunum (co-authored with her husband) in the educational series on Roman towns developed by Ginn and Company in the early 1970s. She was also a great encourager of archaeological interest in the young, including the present writer to whom she gave much support while warning him of the difficulties of an archaeological career.

Following David’s retirement from the Colchester and Essex Museum in 1988, they moved back to Oxfordshire, settling at Combe near Woodstock in 1990. For the rest of her life, she maintained a strong interest in things archaeological, being much involved with the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society as well being keenly interested in local fieldwork.