My wife, Hannah Lowery, who has died of cancer aged 54, was an archivist at many academic institutions and, for more than 26 years, was employed by the University of Bristol.
Hannah was valued by researchers and colleagues for her encyclopedic knowledge of, and dedication to, the university’s diverse archival collections, which include papers of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Feminist South archive, a large collection of electoral addresses and the Penguin and Puffin Book archives.
She was involved with organising exhibitions and represented the university on radio and TV. She appeared on Great British Railway Journeys and met Michael Portillo at Exeter St David’s station with several of the first Penguin books, having carefully chosen to wear white and grey so as not to clash with Portillo’s colourful attire.
Keen on expanding the archives, in 2019 Hannah helped to secure the copy of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover used by the judge at the famous Obscene Publications Act trial in 1960.
Hannah was born in Hertford to Audrey (nee Read), a teacher, and Roger Lowery, a university lecturer. Growing up in nearby Ware, she attended Chauncy school and then went on to gain a degree in history and librarianship at Aberystwyth University, where she also took a postgraduate diploma in archive studies.
A series of archiving jobs followed at the British Library; the London School of Economics; the Fawcett Library; Soas, working on the London Missionary Society records; and at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, cataloguing the papers of the politician Sir Christopher Addison. It was in Oxford that we met.
In 1997 Hannah was appointed as the first professionally qualified archivist of the special collections at Bristol University, and over the years she built up a small team of dedicated cataloguers.
She loved history, literature, walks, the theatre and folk music, was an active member of her local WI group, and was probably happiest at her sewing machine creating clothes and quilts.
Hannah was diagnosed with cancer early this year and we were married in hospital a week before she died. She is survived by me, our sons, Owen and Frank, her parents and her brother Gavin.
