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University of Bradford >> Library >> Special Collections >> Jacquetta Hawkes Archive
Jacquetta Hawkes (1910-1996) had an immensely rich and varied life, motivated by her passion for the distant past. She was a highly respected archaeologist, a writer of poems, plays and articles, a film-maker and broadcaster and peace campaigner. Her best-known work is probably "A Land" (1951), which fuses archaeology, literature, geology and art to explore Britain's past and present. She first married fellow archaeologist Christopher Hawkes; her second husband was J.B. Priestley, the Bradford-born novelist and playwright.
We received Jacquetta's Archive in 2003. It is an incredible record of her life, including diaries, letters, photographs, notebooks and drafts of books, poems, plays and articles, from her school reports and nature diaries to her last writings and obituaries. It vividly illustrates how Jacquetta developed as an archaeologist, journalist and poet, and covers her active engagement with controversial causes and her fascinating social and personal life. Full details can be found in:
To supplement the Archive, we are building a Special Collection of Jacquetta's published books, articles and other writings. It will include works about her or otherwise relevant to the archive, and volumes from her own library.
Dr Christine Finn, herself an archaeologist and author, is Jacquetta's biographer. She shares Jacquetta's belief in a humanistic, imaginative approach to the study of prehistory and has published an online biography and several articles about her life and works. Dr Finn spent a year as Writer-in-Residence, and Honorary Research Fellowship from the Department of Archaeology. Although no longer based in Bradford, she continues to develop interest in Jacquetta Hawkes and her Archive via radio, newspaper and lecturing, as Writer Fellow in the Library.
In 2010, Special Collections celebrates Jacquetta's centenary, with an online exhibition (coming soon!) and a revised edition of the archive handlist, available above. Dr Finn is very much involved, lecturing at conferences and writing. You can find out more about the celebrations, Dr Finn's work, Jacquetta and the Archive on our new Jacquetta Hawkes blog.
Image: photograph from Jacquetta Hawkes's wartime identity card (photographer unknown). Image © University of Bradford, 2004.
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