Jill Spencer Allibone, J.P., Ph.D.

Jill Rigden was born on 26 April 1932 in Abadan, Iran, where her father managed an oil refinery. She was sent to boarding school in England at the age of four but returned to Abadan on the outbreak of war in 1939. When the Persian Gulf came under threat she was evacuated to South Africa and finally finished her schooling when the war was over at the Godolphin School, Salisbury. Her education continued to progress by fits and starts: after a short spell at St Martin's School of Art in London, she transferred to the Courtauld Institute to read for a degree in art history, but married David Allibone, a young solicitor, during the course and took her finals in 1957 while heavily pregnant. The ensuing decade was devoted to the birth and upbringing of the couple's three daughters, running the home and helping to administer David Allibone's growing legal practice. By 1967 the practice was established, the children were attending school, housekeeping was organized, their weekend house, Hempstead Toll, near Benenden, had just been acquired and Allibone was ready to embark on a career of her own. She was appointed to the bench and served as a South Westminster Justice of the Peace for the next thirty years and, more importantly for scholarship, she decided to complete her formal education with a doctorate from the Courtauld Institute. Her supervisor, Nikolaus Pevsner, persuaded her to take as her subject the work of the little-known Victorian architect, Anthony Salvin, one of the restorers of Windsor Castle. Allibone's thesis was published under the title Anthony Salvin: Pioneer of Gothic Revival Architecture, 1799-1881, in 1988, by which time she had become a very active member of the Victorian Society and was campaigning for the conservation of examples of nineteenth-century architecture ranging from grand country mansions to industrial workshops, farms, seaside villas, artisans' houses and churches, particularly those of her adopted county, Kent. Her research into another Victorian architect was published in 1991, George Devey: Architect, 1820-86, and she also prepared a catalogue of his drawings in the R.I.B.A. collection. Allibone was elected Vice-Chairman of the Victorian Society in 1994, having participated in many of its activities since her appointment to the buildings sub-committee in 1977, notably the organization of immensely popular outings to off-beat buildings, conducted with her customary enthusiasm, precision and sense of humour. Her last, and perhaps most important project, was the establishment in 1996 of the Monuments and Mausolea Trust to conserve the vast number of neglected funerary memorials to be found in churchyards and cemeteries throughout the British Isles. In most cases the owning families had either died out or lost interest and the Trust had assumed ownership of five mausolea during Allibone's lifetime, and she was seeking funds for their restoration and maintenance. This was pioneer work and it is hoped that her colleagues and supporters will ensure that the Trust flourishes. The magnificent 10-acre garden at Hempstead Toll which David Allibone created, with Jill's help, was a source of great comfort to her in the last months before she died, aged 65, on 3 February 1998.