Mary Désirée Anderson (1902–1973) was a British specialist in
Christian iconography and early
Church drama, as well as a leading expert on English
medievalwoodcarving. She was a poet in her own right.[1] Photographs contributed by Maisie Anderson to the Conway Library are currently being digitised by the
Courtauld Institute of Art, as part of the Courtauld Connects project.[2] She published under the name M. D. Anderson.[3]
Personal life
Anderson married Sir George Trenchard Cox (1905–1995) in 1935, a fellow art historian, and museum director (
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the
V&A).[4] Her parents were British physiologist and academic
Hugh Kerr Anderson (1865–1928)[5][6] and Jessie Mina Innes (d. 1946). Anderson died in 1973.[7]
Archive
Her memoirs, diaries (1918–1933), sketchbook, letters, poems and pamphlets, are held at Gonville and Caius College Archive, Cambridge, having been donated by her husband, Sir
George Trenchard Cox.[8][9] Her reminiscences of life at Cambridge feature in A History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 (1870–1990), edited by Christopher Brooke, Christopher N. L. Brooke, Damian Riehl Leader, Victor Morgan, and Peter Searb.[7]
Selected works
Academic writing
The Medieval Carver,1935, Cambridge U. P.
Animal Carvings in British Churches, 1938, Cambridge U. P.
Design for a journey, 1940, Cambridge U. P.
British Women at War, 1941, John Murray; Pilot Press
Looking for history in British Churches, 1951, John Murray
Choir Stalls of Lincoln Minster, 1951, Friends of Lincoln Cathedral
Misericords. Medieval life in English woodcarving. 1954, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books
The Imagery of British Churches, 1955, John Murray
Drama and Imagery in English Medieval Churches, 1963, Cambridge U.P.
Grey Sisters, 1972, Chatto and Windus
A saint at stake: the strange death of William of Norwich 1144, 1964, Faber
History by the Highway, 1967, Faber & Faber, 1967
The Changeling Niobid, 1969, Chatto & Windus
History and imagery in British churches, 1971, J. Murray
Poetry
Bow Bells are Silent [poems], 1943, Williams & Norgate
Her poem 'The Black-Out' published in Peace and War: A Collection of Poems, edited by Michael Harrison, Christopher Stuart-Clark (1989), p. 97
Her poem 'The Time of Dunkirk' in Shadows of War, British Women's Poetry of the Second World War, ed. Anne Powell (Sutton Publishing, 1999), p. 41
^admin (21 February 2018).
"Cox, Trenchard". Bayley, Stephen. "Vitrol & Ambition: It's One of the World's Great Museums [etc.]." The Independent (London), July 28, 2000, p. 1; Ireland, George. "Sir Trenchard Cox." The Independent (London), December 23, 1995, p. 14; "Sir Trenchard Cox." The Times (London). December 23, 1995; Saxon, Wolfgang. "Sir Trenchard Cox, 90, Author And Longtime Museum Director." The New York Times, January 2, 1996, p. 36. Retrieved 17 August 2020.