Vivien Noakes, 1937-2011. An Obituary by Jean Liddiard

Vivien Noakes (right) and Michael Noakes with Linda Hart. Photo: Pam Blevins. 

Dr Vivien Noakes (16 February 1937 – 17 February 2011) was a distinguished scholar, editor and biographer. She was especially notable in the field of First World War studies for her definitive variorum edition of The Poetry and Plays of Isaac Rosenberg (OUP 2004), alsofor the revised 2008 edition Isaac Rosenberg which initiated OUP’s series 21st-century Oxford Authors, and included Rosenberg’s letters, paintings and drawings.

Her interest in First World War culture and history was active and ongoing. Voices of Silence: the Alternative Book of First World War Poetry (Sutton Books 2006) took a characteristically original approach to a familiar area by concentrating only on the poems of largely unknown writers, for which as she said in her introduction she ‘searched through trench newspapers and hospital gazettes, private scrapbooks and autograph albums, old newspapers, magazines and journals, gift books and collections …and many slim volumes of single poets’ work….’ Notable among her contributions to journals and reference works, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, was her essay ‘War Poetry, or the Poetry of War’ in the Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry (OUP 2007).

Always receptive to new ways of communicating  her range of knowledge, in addition to a busy university lecture programme in Europe and America she was appointed to the steering committee for Oxford University’s First World War Poetry Digital Archive, the key online multimedia resource of primary material and artefacts for all those interested in the subject. Here her scholarly research in the Imperial War Museum archives on Isaac Rosenberg’s manuscripts proved invaluable.

Educated at Dunottar School, Reigate she subsequently received a first in English from Harris Manchester College, Oxford as a mature student. Then, at Somerville College, she became a Senior Scholar and lecturer while gaining her D. Phil; afterwards, she lectured at Somerville, Harvard University and the Yale Centre for British Art. She was also elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Isaac Rosenberg of course was also an artist; Vivien contributed to the catalogue of the 2008 exhibition Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg and his Circle at the Ben Uri Gallery in London, commemorating the 90th anniversary of Rosenberg’s death. This made a link with her other great area of expertise, the life and work of the Victorian artist and writer Edward Lear, whose biography she published and whose exhibition she curated in New York and at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Those who came to know her, both professionally and personally, remember above all her generosity in sharing her expertise and understanding. I recall in particular her passing on to me reminiscences on Rosenberg’s life as a soldier she had gathered from a former officer in whose unit Rosenberg briefly served. I was then embarking on my biography of Rosenberg in the 1970s when she at that period did not have the time to work on him. We kept in touch over many years, and when she had published her major edition of his work for OUP and I had brought out the edition of his unpublished letters for Enitharmon Press, we both participated in Rosenberg events round the 90th anniversary of his death in 2008. In particular I remember the launch of her Rosenberg book at the Imperial War Museum, and her speaking at the WPA Rosenberg poetry day at the British Library –she always responded to her subject with fresh insight and understanding, grounded in her meticulous scholarship. Latterly we had been meeting as colleagues on a project with the Jewish East End Society to commission and erect a statue to  Rosenberg in the East End of London; her immense knowledge of Rosenberg‘s work, her experience of the art world and her enthusiasm made her contribution uniquely helpful.

Vivien’s achievement in the field of First World War studies, above all her work on Isaac Rosenberg, remains a lasting memorial.My last contact with her was when she asked the WPA if I would take over her role in their forthcoming Rosenberg/Blunden tour of the battlefields in October 2011. It is a privilege for me to do so, although a sad one.  She died of cancer in Malvern Hospital on 17 February 2011, the day after her 74th birthday.

She was married for over 50 years to the well-known artist Michael Noakes, (Past President, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and former Council Member, Royal Society of Portrait Painters), and had two sons and a daughter.

Jean Liddiard

March 2011.