Jill Allibone

Jill Spencer Allibone (26 April 1932 – 3 February 1998) was an English architectural historian and the founder of the Mausolea and Monuments Trust. She wrote studies of Anthony Salvin and George Devey, and was a justice of the peace for over 20 years.

Early life

Allibone was born Jill Spencer Rigden in Abadan, Iran, on 26 April 1932, where her father, Horace Walter Rigden, managed the Anglo-Persian oil refinery. She spent her youth in Iran apart from a period during the Second World War where she was evacuated to South Africa. She was educated at Godolphin School, Salisbury, and then St Martin's School of Art. In 1954 she joined the Courtauld Institute where she was a contemporary of Brian Sewell. At that time she met her future husband, the solicitor David Allibone, whom she married in 1957 before she had finished her degree. They lived in Kent. She took her finals while pregnant with her first child. According to Sewell, she only married David Allibone after first enquiring about Sewell's intentions towards her, apparently being unaware that he was gay.

Career

After the birth of three daughters, Allibone returned to the Courtauld to complete a PhD on the Gothic architect Anthony Salvin, which was published in 1987. Her supervisor was Nikolaus Pevsner, the first chairman of the Victorian Society, with which Allibone became closely involved.

Allibone was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Outside architecture Allibone was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the South Westminster Bench in 1966, George Devey: Architect 1820–1886, Lutterworth Press, 1991. Wall Paintings of Garton-on-the-Wolds, Pevsner Memorial Trust, 1991.