Jo Draper obituary

My friend Jo Draper, who has died aged 68 from cancer, was an author, editor, archaeologist, museum curator and an authority on post-medieval pottery. Much of her considerable output focused around Dorset and her adopted home town of Dorchester.

Born near Winchester, Hampshire, the daughter of John and Betty Draper, Jo espoused the common-sense values of her farming background. Encouraged by a teacher at Fareham girls' grammar school to take part in an archaeological dig in Portsmouth in 1964, she moved on to join Barry Cunliffe's key excavations at Portchester Castle and Fishbourne Roman Palace, near Chichester, West Sussex. She then enjoyed a happy stint at Southampton University, where she met and married Christopher Chaplin, then an archaeologist and later a land surveyor for the Ordance Survey.