At Wivenhoe, in Essex, the low line of the hills has the shape of the heels of a person lying face-down. The name contains the shape: a hoh is a ridge that rises to a point and has a concave end. At Wooller in Northumberland, however, the hilltop is level, with a convex sloping shoulder. The hidden word here is ofer, “a flat-topped ridge”. Early Anglo-Saxon settlers in England, observing, walking and working the landscape, defined its ups and downs with a subtlety largely missing from modern, motorised English. Dozens of words, none of them synonymous, described the look of a hill, the angle of slope and the way trees grew upon it. And after the Anglo-Saxons, no one looked at the landscape in quite that way until Margaret Gelling. (The Economist)
"The Anglo-Saxons had about 40 words, for instance, that can be translated as hill, but there are no synonyms. All of the words refer to a different shape or size of hill. It is a vast and subtle code; but Sir Frank Stenton, bless him, described these names as 'trivial and accidental'. If you go out and use your eyes, you see that that is the most appalling mistake."
Margaret Gelling's work offered an insight into the Anglo-Saxon imagination, and provided an invaluable reference tool for archaeologists looking for previously unknown sites indicated by place-name references to, say, farming or ancient routes. She also showed how a study of place-names can help historians gain a more accurate picture of early history.
For example, she challenged the view – based largely on the writings of the sixth-century historian St Gildas – that the ancient Britons were forced out to the "Celtic fringe" by the Anglo-Saxon invaders. If that were true, she asked, why do so many place names in southern England have Celtic origins? "If you believe Gildas, the Anglo-Saxons would have been chasing the ancient Britons, catching up with one who wasn't fast enough and saying, 'Look here, before I cut off your head, just tell me the name of this place'."
In 2001 new genetic research confirmed that the majority of Britons living in the south of England share the same DNA as their "Celtic" counterparts, suggesting that, far from being purged when the Anglo-Saxons arrived in the fifth century, many ancient Britons remained in England. (Daily Telegraph)
Margaret Joy Midgley was born in Manchester on November 29 1924. "Manchester lower-middle class", as she described it. Her father worked in insurance, and the family moved to Sidcup when she was a child.
From Chislehurst Grammar School, she became the first member of her family to win a place at university and went on to read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford.
"I thought of it as a seat of learning, in my prissy schoolgirl way. I would have been regarded as a swot." However, she believed she "wasted her youth" at Oxford. She found English literature "dreadfully boring" and "a waste of time". Even into her 70s, she claimed no interest in poetry, or theatre, or cultural matters generally. Nevertheless, it was at Oxford that Dorothy Whitelock steered her linguistic interests towards place-name study.
In 1946, Sir Frank Stenton was succeeded as Director of the English Place-Name Society by Bruce Dickins, who had moved from Leeds to become Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge University. The offices of the Society moved to his Cambridge family home. "At this stage Miss Margaret Midgley, later Dr Margaret Gelling, joined the Society as Research Assistant", says the summary of their history.
It was in Cambridge, that Margaret met and, in 1952, married the young archaeologist Peter Gelling, who came from the Isle of Man and possessed a polymathic range of interests and enthusiasms.
When Peter was appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the University of Birmingham, she left the EPNS and he and Margaret set up their home in Harborne, where she was to live for the rest of her life. She accompanied him on many expeditions, including, in the 1960s, to the Alto Plano in Peru to investigate the history of potato use, including freeze-drying at altitude. As a result she became experienced at cooking over a fire of dried llama dung in a cave.
In July 1974 she was in Cyprus sorting finds in the castle at Kyrenia when the Turks invaded – she and her colleagues were forced to spend several uncomfortable hours cowering in the castle's lavatories.
Margaret Gelling's formal job with the English Place-Name Society lasted until 1953. She also lectured on place-names at Birmingham University and at an annual summer school at Oxford (she became a fellow of St Hilda's in 1993) and at symposia around the world. She was president of the English Place-Name Society from 1986 to 1998.
Her decision to join the Communist Party ensured that she was able to indulge her lifelong enjoyment of political argument. Though she eventually left the party, she was glad to have lived to have seen at least some of Marx's prognostications about capitalism come true.
Margaret Gelling was appointed OBE in 1995 and elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1998.
Her husband predeceased her in 1983. She and Peter had no children of their own, but brought up her nephew, Adrian Midgley, from the age of six. She is survived by Adrian and his family and he was the author of the obituary in The Economist quoted above.
Margaret Gelling, OBE, president of the English Place-Name Society, 1986-98. Born November 29, 1924. Died April 24, 2009, aged 84
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5297337/Margaret-Gelling.html
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13642362
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/may/04/obituary-margaret-gelling#history-
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Interview by Simon Dennison in British Archaeology, April 1995.
The Institute for Name-Studies http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/ins
