Dr Sarah Bendall

Sarah is the Development Director, an Official Fellow and Fellow Librarian and Archivist. She is also the Curator of the Douglas Finlay Museum. 

Biography

Sarah was born in Cambridge and read Geography at Jesus College, Oxford. She then became a Librarian, studying for an MA in Librarianship at Sheffield University. She first came to Emmanuel in 1984 as sub–librarian and became a member of the College. As she has always loved maps and local history, she then researched estate maps of Cambridgeshire for a PhD (1989) and was elected to a Research Fellowship in 1988. From 1991 to 1994 she was a Supernumerary Fellow, working first on a history of Emmanuel and then on a new catalogue of the College’s holding of the Library of William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury. At the same time, she was also College Archivist and edited the College Magazine. In 1994, she became a Senior Research Fellow and Librarian at Merton College, Oxford, and was also the Archivist there from 1995. In September 2000, she returned to Emmanuel as Fellow and Development Director. She remains interested in manuscript large–scale local maps of Great Britain & Ireland, and in the ma–-makers, she organises seminars in the history of cartography and is treasurer of a small trust that awards grants in the field. She is also a keen gardener and amateur cellist.

Research

Sarah's research has looked into large–scale local maps and ma–-makers of Great Britain & Ireland 1550-1850, and the entire history of Emmanuel. Her published books include: Maps, Land and Society: A History, with a Carto–Bibliography of Cambridgeshire Estate Maps c.1600–1836 (Cambridge University Press, 1992); A History of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with Christopher Brooke and Patrick Collinson (Boydell & Brewer, 1999) and The Earliest Known Map of Ely (Ely Society, 2009). She has edited the Dictionary of Land Surveyors and Local Map-Makers of Great Britain and Ireland 1530–1850 (British Library, 1997, 2nd Edition).