Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Bateson, Mary
BATESON, MARY (1865–1906), historian, born at Ings House, Robin Hood's Bay, near Whitby,on 12 Sept. 1865, was the daughter of William Henry Bateson [q. v.], Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, by his wife Anna, daughter of James Aikin. She spent practically all her life at Cambridge. Educated first privately, then at the Misses Thornton's school, Bateman Street, Cambridge, afterwards at the Institut Friedlander, Karlsruhe, Baden, 1880-1, and finally at the Perse school for girls, Cambridge, she became in October 1884 a student of Newnham College, of which her parents had been among the first promoters. She won a first class in the Cambridge historical tripos in 1887, being placed second in 'an exceptionally good year.' Next year she began to teach at her own college, of which she was an associate, and was long a member of the council and a liberal contributor to its funds. With occasional interruptions she continued to lecture there for the rest of her life. She furthered the interests of Newnham in every way in her power, and was popular among students and teachers, although her zeal for historical investigation made routine teaching or educational discipline secondary interests with her. She disliked and sought to amend the system of historical study prescribed by the Cambridge tripos, and was at her best in helping post-graduate students. She took a prominent part in procuring the establishment of research fellowships at Newnham. In 1903 she accepted one of these recently founded fellowships, and when it lapsed three years later resumed her teaching. Her historical work often required her to travel to libraries and archives, and when she was at home she lived, surrounded by her books, in her own house in the Huntingdon Road. She left her library and all her property to Newnham at her death. Her memory has been appropriately commemorated there by the foundation of a fellowship which bears her name.
Mandell Creighton [q. v. Suppl. I], when professor of ecclesiastical history at Cambridge, first awoke in Miss Bateson a zeal for historical scholarship. At his suggestion she wrote as a student a dissertation on 'Monastic Civilisation in the Fens,' which gained the college historical essay prize. By aphorisms of good counsel, Creighton checked a tendency to dissipate her energy in public agitation on the platform or in the press in the cause of political liberalism and women's enfranchisement, of which she was always a thorough-going advocate (see Creighton, Life and Letters, i. 108-9). He persuaded her that her main business in life was to 'write true history' and pursue a scholar's career.
She proved an indefatigable worker, and made herself a fully trained medievalist. Continuing her study of monastic history, she published in 1889 her first work, 'The Register of Crabhouse Nunnery,' for the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society. In 1890 she first contributed to the 'English Historical Review' (v. 330-352, and 550-573), of which Creighton was then editor; she wrote on the 'Pilgrimage of Grace.' The most solid result of her monastic studies was her article on the ' Origin and Early History of Double Monasteries,' published in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' (new series, xiii. 137-198, 1899).
Miss Bateson in 1899 turned to municipal history. The corporation of Leicester, the chief town of Creighton's diocese, entrusted to her the editing of extracts from its archives. In her municipal research she received much help from the writings and advice of Frederic William Maitland [q. v. Suppl. II], whose whole-hearted disciple she soon became. Her work at Leicester resulted in the three stout volumes called 'Records of the Borough of Leicester,' vol. i. 1103-1327 (1899) ; vol. ii. 1327-1509 (1901) ; vol. iii. 1509-1603 (1905). It was not only a scholarly edition of an important series of texts, but the elaborate introductions ; showed real insight and grasp of her stubborn material. She pursued her study of local history in editing 'The Charters of the Borough of Cambridge' with Prof, Maitland (1901) and 'The Cambridge Gild Records' (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1903). For the same society she issued, in 1903 and 1905, two volumes of 'Grace Book B,' containing proctors' accounts, 148&-1511 ('Luard Memorial' series, vols. ii. and iii.). This was her chief contribution to Cambridge University history. Cambridge libraries, especially the manuscript collections at Corpus, often provided her with material. From them came the texts for an edition of the hitherto unprinted poems of George Ashby [q. v.], a fifteenth-century poet (Early English Text Society, extra series, pt. lxxvi. 1899), and 'The Scottish King's Household and other Fragments' (Scottish History Soc. Miscellany, ii. 1-43, 1904). Her interest in mediaeval bibliography, a fruit of her monastic studies, she illustrated in her edition of a sixteenth-century 'Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth, 1898' and in her collaboration with Mr. R. L. Poole in editing from a Bodleian manuscript the note-book which contains the materials collected by Bishop Bale for his second edition of his 'Catalogue of British Writers' (Index Britannia Scriptorum quos ex variis bibliothecis non parvo labore collegit loannes Baleus. Anecdota Oxoniensia, 1902 ; for her share see preface, pp. xxv-xxvi). She contributed the bibliography of British and Irish mediaeval history to the 'Jahresberichte der Geschichts-wissenschaft' for 1904 and 1905 (xxvii. iii. 186-234, in German, 1906; and in ib. xxviii. iii. 79-107, in English, 1907). Her conjoint interest in municipal and monastic history is well brought out in one of her latest articles on the topography and antiquities of the borough and abbey of Peterborough in 'Victoria County Hist., Northamptonshire,' ii. 424-60 (1906). Yet she seriously studied periods of history besides the Middle Ages. She published a 'Narrative of the changes of the Ministry, 1765-7,' told by unpublished letters of the Duke of Newcastle (Royal Historical Society, 'Camden' series, 1898), and in 1893 she edited 'A Collection of Original Letters from the Bishops to the Privy Council,' 1564 (pp. 6-84)(Camden Miscellany, 1893, vol. ix.).
Unduly modest in postponing continuous literary composition, Miss Bateson spent many years in editing, calendaring, and compiling. But gradually the full extent of her powers was revealed. Her papers on the 'Laws of Breteuil,' in the 'English Historical Review' (vols. xv. and xvi. 1900-1), showed that she was a scholar of the first rank, able to grapple with the hardest problems, and possessed of rare clearness and excellent method. Here she gave the death-blow to the ancient error that a large number of English towns base their institutions on the laws of Bristol, whereas the little town of Broteuil in Normandy is the true origin. Her last and in some ways her most masterly contribution to early municipal history was her two volumes of 'Borough Customs,' edited by her for the Selden Society, with very elaborate introductions (vol. i. 1904 ; vol. ii. 1906). Her method of arranging extracts of the custumals according to their subject-matter was only possible to one who had complete command of her extensive material. Maitland anticipated that the book would fill a permanent place 'on the same shelf with the "History of the Exchequer," and the "History of Tithes." Neither Thomas Madox nor yet John Selden will resent the presence of Mary Bateson' (Collected Papers, iii. 542-3).
The freshness and individuality of Mary Bateson's work showed to advantage in her occasional efforts at popularising knowledge. Her 'Mediaeval England, 1066-1350' ('Story of the Nations,' 1903), is an original and brightly written survey of mediaeval social life. She contributed much social history of modern times to Social England' (1895-7), and gave a striking instance of her versatility by writing on 'The French in America (1608-1744)' in the 'Cambridge Modern History,' vii. 70-113. To this Dictionary she contributed 109 articles between 1893 and 1900, chiefly on minor mediaeval personages, but showing thoroughness of research and sedulous accuracy.
In 1905 Miss Bateson was Warburton lecturer in the University of Manchester. In 1906 she accepted the appointment as one of the three editors of the projected 'Cambridge Mediaeval History,' of which vol. i. appeared in 1911. In spite of her fine physique and vigour, she died on 30 Nov. 1906, after a brief illness, and after a funeral service in St. John's College chapel was buried at the Cambridge cemetery, Histon Road.
Miss Bateson had an immense variety of interests. High-spirited, good-humoured, and frank, she was innocent of academic stiffness, provincialism, or pedantry. She delighted in society, in exercise, in travel, in the theatre, in music, and in making friends with men and women of very different types. Outside her work, what interested her most was the emancipation of women and the abolition of imposed restrictions which cripple the development of their powers.
[Personal knowledge and private information; article by her Newnham colleague, Miss Alice Gardner, in Newnham College Letter, 1906, pp. 32-39, reprinted for private circulation; notice by Miss E. A. McArthur of Girton College in the Queen, 8 Dec.; The Times, 1 Dec. 1906; Manchester Guardian, 3 Dec., by the present writer; Athenæum, by Prof. F. W. Maitland, reprinted in his Collected Papers, iii. 541-3, 1911, a masterly appreciation.]