Blog by Madelin Evans who is currently working at the British School in Athens on the arrangement of the Pendlebury Family Papers. The project will last for 6 months – during which time she will arrange, catalogue to item-level and oversee the digitisation of the collection. The purpose of this blog is to act as a diary for the project, to document the processes of arrangement, cataloguing and digitisation.

The John Pendlebury Family Papers, which cover the period from 1913 to 1964, document the life of archaeologist and WWII hero John Pendlebury from his early years as a schoolboy in England through his career as an innovative archaeologist in the Mediterranean. The letters, notebooks and photographs in the collection offer insights into the man himself, as well as his family (notably his wife, Hilda, and his parents). They provide a unique narrative of John and Hilda’s travels and encounters around Greece, Egypt, and Britain during the 1920s to 1930s; a first-hand view of the events of World War II, especially in Crete where John was stationed; and the efforts of friends and family to commemorate him after his untimely death during the Battle of Crete in May 1941.