Edith Mary Smallwood (8 December 1919 – 4 September 2023) was a British historian and a professor of Romano-Jewish History at the Queen's University, Belfast.
Smallwood was born in Wandsworth, Surrey (now London) in December 1919. She received her education [1] at the Mary Datchelor Girls’ School, Camberwell, and at Girton College, University of Cambridge, to which she won a scholarship. She graduated with First Class Honours in Classics (1942), [2] and was later a Research Fellow at Girton, gaining her PhD in 1951 under the supervision of Prof. Jocelyn Toynbee.
Mary Smallwood was appointed lecturer [3] in classics (in the Latin dept) at the Queen's University, Belfast, in 1951. She became senior lecturer in 1963, reader in 1967, and was awarded a personal chair as professor of Romano-Jewish History in 1978. [4] For the 1971–72 academic year she was a member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1972. She retired to Edinburgh in 1983. [5]
Smallwood died at Cluny Lodge, Edinburgh on 4 September 2023, at the age of 103. [6] [5]