Aileen Fox

Who was Aileen Fox?

Aileen Mary Fox, Lady Fox, née Henderson was an English archaeologist.

The daughter of a solicitor, she was educated at Chinthurst School in Surrey and later at Downe House School in Kent and later at its new site in Berkshire, under the headship of Olive Willis, and went on to read English at Newnham College, Cambridge. Following her graduation in 1929, she worked as a volunteer on the excavation of Richborough, Kent, under JP Bushe-Fox. In 1933 she married Sir 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. Her most notable achievement was her work on Roman Exeter. She also lectured at several universities in Britain and New Zealand. 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, she became known as Lady Fox.