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Maureen O'Reilly

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Maureen Hutton
Born
Maureen Margaret O'Reilly

1902
London
OccupationAssistant curator
SpouseJohn Henry Hutton
Academic background
Alma materGirton College, Cambridge
Academic work
DisciplineAnglo-Saxon archaeology
InstitutionsMuseum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Notable studentsMary Kitson Clark

Maureen Margaret O’Reilly (married name Hutton, born 1902) was a British academic who taught Anglo-Saxon archaeology and Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic languages at the University of Cambridge and was an assistant curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in the 1920s and 30s.

Early life and education

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Maureen O'Reilly was born in London in 1902 to Northern Irish[1] dispensing chemist's assistant Henry Osborne O’Reilly and his wife Helen, née Kent. She was educated at Croydon High School.[2]

University of Cambridge

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O'Reilly won a Clothworkers' Scholarship to study English and Anglo-Saxon archaeology at Girton College, Cambridge from1920 to 1923. She then received an Old Girtonians' Research Studentship for 1923–24.[2]

In 1925 she published her most substantial work, a report on the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Girton College.[3]

In the 1920s and 1930s, O'Reilly taught prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon archaeology, including giving practical demonstrations with Margaret Murray,[4] and was one of the staff of the Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies.[5] Her students included Mary Kitson Clark, who reflected that 'The star at the Museum was Miles Burkitt for the Palaeolithic but Maureen took me for everything else.'[1]

She received an MA in 1937.[2]

Curator

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In 1930, O'Reilly was appointed assistant curator at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology by Louis Clarke.[6] Taking over from Cyril Fox,[1] she was tasked with cataloguing and making accessible the museum's growing collection.[7] This made her the "first woman to be formally elected to a paid position at a Cambridge Museum."[8] William Ridgeway, thinking this an inappropriate post for a woman, encouraged T. C. Lethbridge to take the position instead, but Lethbridge yielded it to O’Reilly.[9] She remained in the post for fifteen years,[10] and she and Lethbridge were responsible for distributing the museum's artefacts for safekeeping during World War II.[1][11] O'Reilly is also known for her behind-the-scenes work at the museum, managing it when Clarke was in ill health and using her acquaintance with board members' bedders, charwomen and clerks to influence votes in her favour.[1]

Personal life

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In 1946 O'Reilly became the second wife of John Henry Hutton, a professor of anthropology in her department.[12][13]

Maureen was a keen baker and supplied cakes and biscuits to the members of her faculty every weekday from 1925 until 1946.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Smith, Pamela Jane (2009). A "splendid Idiosyncrasy": Prehistory at Cambridge 1915–50. Archaeopress. pp. 65–7. ISBN 978-1-4073-0430-4.
  2. ^ a b c Girton College Register: 1869–1946. Privately printed for Girton College. 1948. p. 318.
  3. ^ Hollingworth, E. J.; O'Reilly, M. M. (2012). The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Girton College, Cambridge: A Report Based on the MS. Notes of the Excavations Made by the Late F. J. H. Jenkinson, M.A. Cambridge Library Collection – Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-04504-9.
  4. ^ Sheppard, Kathleen L. (2013-08-01). The Life of Margaret Alice Murray: A Woman's Work in Archaeology. Lexington Books. p. 227. ISBN 978-0-7391-7418-0.
  5. ^ 'Appendix VIII', in H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, ed. by Michael Lapidge (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, Abersytwyth University, 2015), ISBN 9780955718298 [=Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 69/70], pp. 272-78.
  6. ^ Hollingworth, E. J.; O'Reilly, M. M. (2012). The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Girton College, Cambridge: A Report Based on the MS. Notes of the Excavations Made by the Late F. J. H. Jenkinson, M.A. Cambridge Library Collection – Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-04504-9.
  7. ^ Clark, Grahame (1989-08-25). Prehistory at Cambridge and Beyond. CUP Archive. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-521-35031-0.
  8. ^ Smith (2009), p. 66.
  9. ^ Welbourn, Terry (2011-05-16). T C Lethbridge: The Man Who Saw the Future. John Hunt Publishing. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-84694-896-1.
  10. ^ Hutton, Maureen; Bushnell, G.H.S. (1961). "Obituary Notes" (PDF). Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. LV: 1.
  11. ^ Welbourn (2011), p. 95.
  12. ^ Contemporary Authors. Vol. 1. Gale Research Company. 1975. p. 315. ISBN 978-0-8103-0036-1.
  13. ^ Kuklick, Henrika; Long, Elizabeth (1985). Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present. JAI Press Limited. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-89232-338-8.
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