Aileen Fox

Aileen Mary Fox, Lady Fox, FSA (née

Henderson, 29 July 1907 – 21 November
2005), was an English archaeologist.[1]
She specialised in the archaeology of
South West England, notably excavating
the Roman legionary fortress in Exeter in
Devon after World War II.
 Lady

Aileen Fox
Born Aileen Henderson
29 July 1907
London, England

Died 21 November 2005

(aged 98)
Exeter, England

Alma mater Newnham College,

Cambridge

Occupation Archaeologist

Awards FSA

Biography
The daughter of a solicitor, she was
educated at Chinthurst School in Surrey
and later at Downe House School in Kent.
She remained at the school after it
moved to Berkshire, under the headship
of Olive Willis, and then went on to read
English at Newnham College,
Cambridge.[2][3][4] After her graduation in
1929, she worked as a volunteer on the
excavation of Richborough, Kent, under J.
P. Bushe-Fox.[4] She spent the following
winter at the British School at Rome,
before returning to Richborough.[5] In
1932 she excavated at Hembury hillfort,
Devon and Meon Hill, Hampshire.[5]

In 1933 she married Cyril Fox, the

director of the National Museum of
Wales, with whom she had three sons.
The Foxes excavated prehistoric and
Roman sites throughout the UK, although
Fox continued to lead her own
excavations, such as at the Roman
legionary fortress at Isca Augusta
(Caerleon, Wales) in 1939.[6] Fox lectured
at the University College, Cardiff, from
1940 to 1945.[5] Her most notable
achievement was her three seasons of
excavation at Roman Exeter, following
damage from World War II.[7] Following
these excavations, she took up a
lectureship at the University College of
the South West of England at Exeter in
1947, and stayed until her retirement in
1971.[5] From the late 1940s onwards,
she undertook key excavations in south-
west England, shedding new light on
prehistoric occupation of Dartmoor, Iron
Age hillforts in the region and the Roman
military presence in Cornwall.[8]

In 1965, she was a founding member of

the Hillforts Study Group, alongside
Christopher Hawkes and others.[9] In the
late 1960s, Fox played a key role in
establishing the Exeter Archaeological
Field Unit. She served as the president of
the Devon Archaeological Society (1963-
64) and as a vice-president of the Council
for British Archaeology.[8] She believed in
the nurturing of archaeological interest in
the young, and produced her book Roman
Britain in collaboration with the artist
Alan Sorrell, whom she had met many
years earlier at the British School at
Rome. Following her husband's
knighthood in 1935, she became known
as Lady Fox.

Awards and recognition

In 1944, Fox was elected to a fellow of
the Society of Antiquaries of London.[8] In
1985 she was awarded an honorary
doctorate of letters from the University of
Exeter [8] and in 1998 honorary
membership of the Prehistoric Society.[8]

Selected publications
Fox, Aileen (1961). Roman Britain.
London: Lutterworth Press.
ISBN 9780718808006. (Drawings by
Alan Sorrell.)
Fox, Aileen (1948). "The Early Plan and
Town Houses of Silchester (Calleva
Atrebatum)". Antiquity. 22: 172–178.
Fox, Aileen (1952). Roman Exeter (Isca
Dumnoniorum) : excavations in the war-
damaged areas, 1945-1947.
Manchester: Published for the
University College of the South-West of
England by Manchester University
Press.
Fox, Aileen (1955). "Celtic fields and
farms on Dartmoor, in the light of
recent excavations at Kestor".
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society.
20: 87–102.
doi:10.1017/s0079497x00017795 .
Fox, Aileen (1955). "Some evidence for
a Dark Age trading site at Bantham,
near Thurlestone, South Devon". The
Antiquaries Journal. 35: 55–67.
doi:10.1017/s0003581500048617 .
Fox, Aileen (1974). "Prehistoric Maori
storage pits: problems in
interpretation". Journal of the
Polynesian Society. 83 (2): 141–154.
Fox, Aileen (1976). Prehistoric Maori
Fortifications in the North Island of New
Zealand. Auckland: Longman Paul.
 Monograph No. 6 of the New Zealand
Archaeological Association.
Fox, Aileen (1980). "A new look at
Maori carved burial chests". Antiquity.
54: 7–14.

References
1. Allen, John (16 December 2005). "Aileen
Fox: Founder of modern archaeology in
south-western England' " . The
Independent. London. Archived from the
original on 18 December 2005. Retrieved
22 November 2013.
2. Fox 2000, p. 25.
3. Fox 2000, p. 27.
4. "Aileen Fox". The Times. London. 21
December 2005. p. 48.
5. Quinnell, Henrietta (20 January 2006).
"Obituary: Aileen Fox" . The Guardian.
6. Fox, Aileen. "The legionary fortress at
Caerleon, Monmouthshire: Excavations in
Myrtle Cottage Orchard 1939".
Archaeologia Cambrensis. 95: 101–52.
7. Fox, Aileen (1952). Roman Exeter (Isca
Dumnoniorum): excavations in the war-
damaged areas, 1945-1947. Manchester:
Published for the University College of the
South-West of England by Manchester
University Press.
8. Quinnell, Henrietta (2013). Goldman,
Lawrence, ed. Oxford dictionary of
national biography 2005-2008. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. p. 398.
9. "The Hillfort Study Group" .

Sources
Fox, Aileen (2000). Aileen: A pioneering
archaeologist. Leominster: Gracewing.
ISBN 9780852445235.
(Autobiography.)

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