Katherine Routledge

Born in 1866 in Darlington, England, Katherine Routledge was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, at a time when higher education was still opening up to women. She later became known for combining academic interests with an adventurous life beyond the usual expectations of her era.

Routledge is best remembered for her work on Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island. In the early 1910s, she and her husband, William Scoresby Routledge, sailed there on their schooner Mana and carried out what is widely described as the first thorough archaeological and ethnographic survey of the island. Her research drew on both material remains and conversations with island residents, and she published her findings in The Mystery of Easter Island in 1919.

Before and beyond that expedition, she also wrote on social and cultural subjects, including a study of the Haslemere educational museum and a book about the Badminton Library. Today she is remembered as a determined early archaeologist whose work preserved important knowledge about Rapa Nui during a period of rapid change.