Mark Bateson
I worked for the Kent Archives Service for most of my career, initially at Canterbury Cathedral Archives and, since 2012, the Kent History and Library Centre in Maidstone. My current role, begun in 2015, is Assistant Service Manager, Kent Archives and Local History. Before that, I spent three years as the Service’s Community History Officer, working with local history and community archives groups in Kent. At CCA I was a general archivist, latterly holding the Assistant Manager remit. While there, I taught Palaeography to students taking the MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent.
At the start of my career, I spent six happy years (1983-1989) as Research Assistant of the English Place-Name Society, based at University College London. The work for EPNS was supervised by Professor J McN Dodgson, a fellow Lancastrian, and one of the EPNS editors: John’s county survey was that of Kent, and some of my transcriptions of place-name spellings from documents at the Public Record Office and British Library – fed into the Kent Survey. My interests/specialities would include Medieval Palaeography; also medieval ecclesiastical courts: my Manchester Phd (1987) was on Papal Jurisdiction and Courts in England, 1272-1327.