Education
Beryl Smalley was born on 3 June 1905 in Highfield House, Stockport Etchells, the eldest of six children born to Edgar Smalley, a Manchester businessman, and Constance Lilian Bowman. At 13, Beryl was sent to Cheltenham Ladies College. In 1923, she won a scholarship toCareer
Between 1931 and 1935, Smalley taught at Royal Holloway College, when she left to become a research fellow at Girton College, Cambridge. Later, she was a temporary assistant in Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and, in 1944, became tutor in history at St Hilda's College. Smalley remained in that position until 1969, while from 1957 onwards she was also the college's Vice-Principal. One of her more notable pupils was the internationally respected historian on mid-Tudor England, Jennifer Loach, a tutorial fellow atHonours
In 1963, Smalley was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom'sPersonal life
In a memoir written after her death, fellow medievalist R. W. Southern described Smalley as 'an extremely private person' who was nonetheless 'a fascinating, daunting, and fastidious personality, both visually and mentally'—a 'conspicuous object in the striking elegance and clear-cut severity of her appearance.' Undergraduates found her 'formidable and mild at the same time. As one put it: "She inspired in me equal parts of love and terror"'. Smalley 'was not in the least convivial, but she cared greatly about people in an austere way and would take endless trouble over their minor needs—major ones were their own affair.' She never married, and died in Oxford after a brief illness in 1984. After her surgeon told her she had only a few months to live, she finished as much of her work as possible and destroyed the rest. "In 1929 she had been received into the Roman Catholic Church, and about ten or twelve years later had become a member of the Communist Party. The connection between these two loyalties remained a mystery to all but herself. But by the time of her death she had quietly dissociated herself from both of them. These were her only attempts to find a home in a universal community. When these failed her, she sought no others, and accepted her solitary fate with unflinching courage and steadfastness. She bequeathed her books to her old College, and directed that there should be 'of course, no memorial service'". She died on 6 April 1984.Selected works
* ''The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages'', 1940 (3rd ed. 1983) * ''Historians in the Middle Ages'', 1974, Thames and Hudson, * ''The Becket Conflict and the Schools: a Study of Intellectuals in Politics in the Twelfth Century'', 1973 * ''The Gospels in the Schools, c. 1100 – c. 1280''1985 * ''Studies in Medieval Thought and Learning from Abelard to Wyclif'' * ''English friars and antiquity in the early fourteenth century,'' 1960 * ''Exempla in the commentaries of Stephen Langton,'' 1933 * ''Medieval exegesis of wisdom literature : essays by Beryl Smalley''; edited by Roland E. Murphy. 1986 * ''Studies in medieval thought and learning : from Abelard to Wyclif'', 1981References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smalley, Beryl 1905 births 1984 deaths 20th-century British women writers 20th-century Christian biblical scholars 20th-century English historians 20th-century Roman Catholics Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Manchester British women historians Catholic socialists Christian communists Converts to Roman Catholicism Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America English biblical scholars English Christian socialists English communists Fellows of St Hilda's College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Historians of the University of Oxford People associated with Girton College, Cambridge People from Stockport Roman Catholic biblical scholars