Anderson, AO and MO

The Andersons were a married couple of historians and palaeographers, based in St Andrews. Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson was born in St Andrews and after gaining an English degree at Oxford, she returned North to work as researcher for Alan Orr Anderson when his eyesight began to fail. They later married in 1932. 

They collaborated on a number of books on early Scottish history, including The Chronicle of Holyrood and Adomnan's Life of Columba.

Marjorie carried on with the work after Alan’s death in 1958, including Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland and a revision of her husband’s Early Sources of Scottish History. She was awarded an honorary DLitt from St Andrews University in 1973, and continued to research and write into her 90s.

The collection contains correspondence, research notes, Latin word lists, copies of texts, books on palaeography and facsimiles of manuscripts. A large number of early cameras, glass plate negatives and photographs were transferred to the care of the Photographic Department.

List in preparation. 

Images of the collection