Secretariat

Barbara May

Members will be very sorry to learn of the death, on 28 February 2005, of Ms Barbara May.

Barbara May read History at St Hildas College, Oxford, graduating in 1955. Following successful completion of a PGCE course at the University of London, she taught History for several years at schools including Leeds Girls High School, Liverpool College for Girls, and Ackworth School, Pontefract. In 1964, she was appointed to a Lectureship in History at the College of St Matthias in Bristol, where she was held in the highest regard, not least for the happy and co-operative atmosphere she engendered as Warden of one of the Colleges Halls of Residence. That experience was to stand her in good stead when she successfully applied to become the full-time Warden of Ellerslie Hall at Leeds, at that time one of the Universitys Halls of Residence for female students.

Taking up her appointment in April 1969, Barbara May became an excellent, widely admired and well-liked Warden, who contributed much to the development and communal life of Ellerslie Hall, and to the pastoral care of its residents. The Wardens appointment was made on the basis that the incumbent would also undertake some duties in an academic department. In Ms Mays case, this took the form, until the early 1980s, of a Part-time Lectureship in the School of Economic Studies, where she taught mainly Medieval and Modern British Economic History. During this time, she was also awarded an MPhil for a thesis on the industrial evolution of Hunslet in the second half of the eighteenth century. Later, Ms May developed an association with the School of History, which, following a general re-organisation of Wardens responsibilities and duties, matured into a full-time appointment as Senior Teaching Fellow from August 1991. In this capacity, she was responsible for the provision of a number of new and well-subscribed courses. At the same time, Ms May retained the wardenship of Ellerslie Hall, but on a part-time basis; she eventually relinquished this position in July 1996 and retired from her post in the School of History in September 1998, having served the University in several capacities for twenty-nine years.

Barbara May was married to Dr Michael Hudson, former Lecturer in the School of Economic Studies, who died last year.