Marjorie Quennell (1884–1972) was a British historian, illustrator and museum curator.

Her husband was architect Charles Henry Bourne Quennell

C. H. B. Quennell

Charles Henry Bourne Quennell , was an English architect, designer, illustrator and writer.-Biography:Quennell was the son of a builder and grew up in a house at Cowley Road on the Holland Town Estate, Kennington, London. Bourne was his mother's maiden name...

 (1872–1935). They met at the Junior Art Workers Guild. They had three children, including a son Peter Courtney Quennell (1905–1993) who became a well-known writer and was editor of History Today

History Today

History Today is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it is the world's leading, and possibly oldest, history magazine. Its successful mission has always been to present serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible...

.

After World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 the Quennells wrote a series of illustrated children’s books, A History of Everyday Things in England

A History of Everyday Things in England

A History of Everyday Things in England is a series of four history books for children written by Marjorie Quennell and her husband Charles Henry Bourne Quennell between 1918 and 1934. The books concern English history between 1066 and 1914. The series has been in print as late as year 2000,...

, 4 volumes (1918–1934). The series ended with The Good New Days (1935), where modern industrial and agricultural processes, together with the problems of the future, were considered. A second series was written, Everyday Life in… (1921–26) describing living from Prehistoric to Norman times. A third series of Everyday Things (1929–32) covered Greece in antiquity. After World War II Marjorie illustrated two more books in the Everyday Life series on Biblical times, the texts being written by others. Marjorie was a painter in oils and watercolour, mostly of architectural subjects.

After her husband died in 1935 she was appointed curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

 of the Geffrye Museum

Geffrye Museum

Founded in 1914, the Geffrye Museum is a museum specialising in the history of the English domestic interior. Named after Sir Robert Geffrye, former Lord Mayor of London and Master of the Ironmongers' Company, it is located on Kingsland Road in London...

. While there she installed the series of "period rooms" on which the museum is still based to this day. She remained there until she retired in 1940, then moved to the United States

Works

Author

• Marjorie & C. H. B. Quennell, A History of Everyday Things in England
  A History of Everyday Things in England
  A History of Everyday Things in England is a series of four history books for children written by Marjorie Quennell and her husband Charles Henry Bourne Quennell between 1918 and 1934. The books concern English history between 1066 and 1914. The series has been in print as late as year 2000,...
  
  , London, B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1918-1934
  • Volume I 1066-1449
  • Volume II 1500-1799
  • Volume III 1733-1851
  • Volume IV 1852-1914
• Marjorie & C. H. B. Quennell, A History of Everyday life in.., London, B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1921-1926.
  • Everyday life in Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Norman times
  • Everyday Life in Roman Britain
  • Everyday Life in Prehistoric Times (vol. 1 The Old Stone Age, vol. 2 The New Stone Age)
• Marjorie & C. H. B. Quennell, Everyday things in Greece, London, B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1929-1932.
  • Vol 1, Homeric Greece
  • Vol 2, Archaic Greece
  • Vol 3, Classical Greece
• Marjorie & C. H. B. Quennell, The Good New Days, London, B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1935.
• Marjorie Quennell, London craftsman: a guide to museums having relics of old trades, London, London Transport, 1939.

Illustrator

• E. Lucia Turnbull and H. Dalway Turnbull, Through the gates of remembrance: first series: a trilogy of plays centred round Glastonbury, London, T. Nelson & Sons, 1933.
• Elisabeth Kyle, Disappearing Island, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1944.
• Gertrude Hartman and Lucy S. Saunders, Builders of the Old World, Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1949. [Vol 4 of the History on the March series]
• A. C. Bouquet, Everyday Life in New Testament Times, London, B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1953.
• Wallace Walter Atwood and Helen Goss Thomas, Visits in other lands, Toronto, Ginn, [1955?].
• E. W. Heaton, Everyday Life in Old Testament Times, London, Batsford Ltd, 1957.

External links

• "C. H. B. & Marjorie Quennell", a biography by Tony Woolrich (archived link).
• Works by the Quennell's at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
  (scanned books original editions color illustrated)