Ann Spokes Symonds

Ann Spokes-Symonds is an author and former Lord Mayor of Oxford. Spokes, later Mrs Ann Spokes-Symonds, was born in 1925, the daughter of Peter Spokes and Lilla Clayton. Her father founded the Museum of Oxford in 1974. She is a writer on the history of Oxford. She entered St Anne's College, Oxford in 1944, where she read Philosophy, Politics and Economics; she now holds a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford. She is a trustee of the Oxford Preservation Trust, having first become a trustee in 1959. She served as Lord Mayor of Oxford in 1976/77 and also as the Chairman of Oxfordshire County Council 1981-1983. She made a donation towards a statue of Alfred Russel Wallace which has been erected at the Natural History Museum. She married the United Nations official and historian Richard Symonds (1918-2006) in 1980.