Elizabeth Kate Picard (née Sleigh; 11 October 1927 – 8 April 2022) was an English lawyer and historian. After retiring as a solicitor at the

Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation t ...

, she turned to writing history as a hobby. In 1997 she published ''Restoration London'', the first of several works on the social

history of London The history of London, the capita ...

Early life and education

Picard was born in

Dedham, Essex Dedham is a village within the borough of Colchester in northeast Essex, England, on the River Stour and the border of Essex and Suffolk. The nearest town to Dedham is the small market town of Manningtree. Governance Dedham is part of the elect ...

, the youngest of three daughters born to James Sleigh, a doctor, and Hilda Scott. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

she was evacuated to Aberdeenshire. As a teenager she cycled around southern France reporting on the situation of young displaced persons for the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...

. She read law at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

Career

Legal career

Picard was called to the bar by

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and W ...

when she was 21, but did not practise as a barrister. She began her career by writing a book in 1948 called ''Questions and Answers on Private International Law'', for which she was paid . During the 1950s she worked as a lawyer for the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of c ...

in Dar es Salaam. Picard later worked in the Office of the Solicitor of the

until her retirement in 1987. She also chaired the Social Security Appeal Tribunal in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in the 1990s, where, as ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' recalled, "she dispensed as much public money as she dared".

Writing career

Upon retirement Picard began researching the history of seventeenth-century

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, publishing a book entitled '' Restoration London'' in 1997. Three years later, she published a similar volume entitled '' Dr. Johnson's London''; '' Elizabeth's London'' followed in 2003, and '' Victorian London'' in 2005. Her last book, ''Chaucer's People'', a social history of England in the fourteenth century, was published in October 2017. Picard told ''The Guardian'', "I am not a properly trained historian. I am a lawyer by trade, and an inquisitive, practical woman by character".

Personal life and death

She was married to Philip Picard, a barrister, from 1963 until his death in 1984, and they had one son. In Picard's later years, she lived in Hackney and Oxford, before moving to

west London West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary. The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North Londo ...

at the end of her life. She died on 8 April 2022, aged 94.

Selected publications

*''Questions and Answers on Private International Law''. 1948 *''Restoration London''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1997. *''Dr. Johnson's London''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2000. *''Elizabeth's London''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2003. *''Victorian London''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2005. *''Chaucer's People''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Picard, Liza 1927 births 2022 deaths 20th-century English lawyers 20th-century English historians 20th-century English women writers 21st-century English historians 21st-century English women writers Alumni of the London School of Economics British women historians English solicitors English women lawyers Historians of London Members of Gray's Inn People from Dedham, Essex Writers from London