Rotha Mary Clay (17 September 1878 – 1 March 1961) was a British self-taught historian and social worker.

Life

Clay was born in

Hendon Hendon is an urban area in the Borough of Barnet, North-West London northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient manor and parish in the county of Middlesex and a former borough, the Municipal Borough of Hendon; it has been part of Great ...

in 1878 where her father was a minister. In time the family moved to Bristol where her father led the Bristol church of St Michael on the Mount Without. Her paternal grandparents were friends with

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

. Her parents were the diarist Jessy (born Allan) and the amateur painter John Harden Clay. Clay would visit the Lake District and the

River Rothay The Rothay is a spate river of the Lake District in north-west England. Its name comes from Old Norse and translates literally as ''the red one''. This has come to mean ''trout river''. It rises close to Rough Crag above Dunmail Raise at a p ...

near Ambleside after which she had been named. At the end of 1895 she started the only known formal education when she began a year of study at

Queen's College, London Queen's College is an independent school for girls aged 11–18 with an adjoining prep school for girls aged 4–11 located in the City of Westminster, London. Founded in 1848 by theologian and social reformer Frederick Denison Maurice along wit ...

. She performed well, but she did not move on to a formal university course, but she did begin an interest in being a scholar. By the twentieth century she was exploiting

Bristol University , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

's Library to study the history of

medieval hospital The history of hospitals began in antiquity with hospitals in Greece, the Roman Empire and on the Indian subcontinent as well, starting with precursors in the Asclepian temples in ancient Greece and then the military hospitals in ancient Rome. T ...

s in England. Her work attracted the interest of the editor of

The Antiquary ''The Antiquary'' (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all prac ...

John Charles Cox John Charles Cox (1843–23 February 1919) was an English cleric, activist and local historian. Life He was born in Parwich, Derbyshire, the son of Edward Cox, vicar of Luccombe, Somerset, and was educated at Repton School. He studied at The Quee ...

was a cleric and local historian and he managed the '' The Antiquaries' Books'' for

Methuen & Co Methuen Publishing Ltd is an English publishing house. It was founded in 1889 by Sir Algernon Methuen (1856–1924) and began publishing in London in 1892. Initially Methuen mainly published non-fiction academic works, eventually diversifying to ...

. By 1909 she had completed ''The Medieval Hospitals of England'' and five years later ''The Hermits and Anchorites of England''. The latter was still considered a standard work 100 years after it was published. It is thorough, dry and meticulous and it includes a table of all the known cells. In 1914 she was involved with social work, first at Barton Hill and then in 1918 in

Shirehampton Shirehampton is a district of Bristol in England, near Avonmouth, at the northwestern edge of the city. It originated as a separate village, retains a High Street with a parish church and shops, and is still thought of as a village by many of it ...

. Clay had "private means" that enabled her to fund her works. She bought Ilex Cottage in the High Street of Shirehampton where she lived with her partner Rosa Higgs. In 1941 she published her study of the life of the Swiss landscape artist

Samuel Hieronymus Grimm Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (18 January 1733 – 14 April 1794)''The Gentleman's Magazine, 1794, p399 was an 18th-century Swiss landscape artist who worked in oils (until 1764), watercolours, and pen and ink media. Grimm specialised in documenting h ...

. Clay died in

. She left her estate to be divided with a specific bequest for Rosa Higgs.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clay, Rotha 1878 births 1961 deaths People from Hendon British social workers