Margaret "Peggy" Isobel Birley, née Goodlet (29 April 1910 - 2000) was an archaeologist who worked at the Roman forts of Housesteads and

Vindolanda Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort ('' castrum'') just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near th ...

Biography

Margaret, known as Peggy, Isobel Goodlet was born in 1910 in

Forest Hall Forest Hall is a village in the borough of North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. It is 4 miles from Newcastle upon Tyne. It borders Killingworth to the north, Holystone to the east and Benton to the south. The village was named after the Fo ...

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

. As a student at Armstrong College in

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

in the 1930s, she studied with archaeologist

Eric Birley Eric Barff Birley Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall (, also known as the ''Roman Wall'', Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Aelium'' in Latin) is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Roman Britain, Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Ru ...

). In 1934 she and Eric Birley married; four years later the couple co-authored a report on the Vindolanda excavations together. The Birleys had two sons, Robin and

Anthony Anthony, also spelled Antony, is a masculine given name derived from the '' Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descenda ...

, both of whom also became archaeologists; Robin and his wife

Patricia Patricia is a feminine given name of Latin language, Latin origin. Derived from the Latin word ''Patrician (ancient Rome), patrician'', meaning 'noble', it is the feminine form of the masculine given name Patrick (given name), Patrick. Another we ...

continued the excavations at Vindolanda, followed by their son and daughter-in-law

Andrew Andrew is the English form of the given name, common in many countries. The word is derived from the , ''Andreas'', itself related to ''aner/andros'', "man" (as opposed to "woman"), thus meaning "manly" and, as consequence, "brave", "strong", "c ...

and Barbara Birley.

Publications

* Birley, Eric, and Margaret Birley. 1938. ''Fourth report on excavations at Chesterholm-Vindolanda: An Original Article From The Archaeologia Aeliana: Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating To Antiquity''. Northumberland Press. * Corder, Philip 1937. A pair of fourth-century Romano-British pottery kilns near Crambeck. With a note on the distribution of Crambeck Ware by Margaret Birley. The Antiquaries Journal. Vol 17, pp. 392–413.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birley, Margaret British women archaeologists British women classical scholars 1910 births 2000 deaths North East England People from Northumberland (before 1974)