Helen Maud Palmer, editor: born Cheltenham, Gloucestershire 14 January 1915; Assistant Editor, Dictionary of National Biography 1950-75; died London 14 January 2003. Though never overtly feminist and never a household name, Helen Palmer in her quiet way made a distinctive contribution towards advancing careers for women, as did many 20th-century women holding conservative views and pursuing traditional roles. The private incomes and leisured lives of many cultivated Victorian women led them unobtrusively to contribute, voluntarily or part-time, towards many scholarly projects, but in the 20th century they needed an income, and at first pursued low-paid though often significant roles, while remaining unobtrusive. Elizabeth Lee, sister of the second editor, Sidney Lee, contributed 81 articles between 1892 and 1901, and by the 1920s women were providing crucially important back-up to the male editors of the Dictionary's chronological supplements. The historian Margaret Toynbee from 1923 to the mid-1940s was paid a retainer for her editorial role, and did much to keep the show on the road. But, whereas Toynbee never gained more than acknowledgement in the prefaces to three of the supplements, Helen Palmer made the breakthrough of being the first woman to appear as an editor on the title-page.Born in 1915 in Cheltenham, daughter of William Palmer, a pharmacist, and his wife Mary Dibb, Helen was educated at the local grammar school and trained as a secretary.

Her family were staunch Anglicans, but her conversion at 18 to Roman Catholicism, much to her family's consternation, reflected the independence and determination that shaped the rest of her life.Clever, witty and forceful, she would in later generations have gone to university, but in the mid-1930s she moved to London to work for the publishers Putnams and for the Times Book Club. She joined the Ministry of Information in the Second World War and spent most of the time in the British Embassy at Madrid, but without subsequently saying much about how her time had been spent. There she became a fluent Spanish speaker and met the Catholic publisher Douglas Woodruff; after the war she accompanied him as Assistant Editor to The Tablet, where he had been Editor since 1936.In 1950, however, she moved to Oxford, partly to be nearer her mother, for whom she helped to care in her old age Helen was appointed Assistant Editor to E.T (from 1973, Sir Edgar) Williams, who with L.G. Wickham Legg was then co-editing The Dictionary of National Biography's supplement for 1941-50 (published in 1959). It was initially a secretarial post, but Helen Palmer wrote 14 articles for the supplements, including that on King George VI, and more importantly she became the efficient and meticulous mainstay of that supplement and of its successor for 1951-60 (published in 1971).Working largely on her own in the Bodleian Library, she provided crucially important support for the editors Legg and Williams, and moved first into editing contributions and later into commissioning authors. Williams acknowledged her "tenaciously conscientious pursuit of accuracy" in his preface to the supplement published in 1959, together with her "persistent and perceptive industry and.

friendship", and in 1962 Oxford University awarded her an honorary MA.She was to rise higher: so grateful did Williams remain that he promoted her to co-editor of the supplement for 1951-60, which he said could not have appeared but for a "continued devotion" which caused her to undertake "by far the heaviest load from beginning to end".Helen Palmer retired in 1975, but she had set a precedent. Her successor was Christine Nicholls, who chose the title "Dr C.S. Nicholls" because, as she once told an interviewer, I found I got a far better response when people thought I was a man. I was treated better, and people were more inclined to do what I asked them.Nicholls co-edited the two supplements covering the years 1971-85 (published in 1986 and 1990), and edited the supplement for 1986-90 (1996) together with the supplementary volume for the entire Dictionary, Missing Persons (1993).Helen Palmer when in Spain had come under the influence of St Teresa of Avila, and in 1952 had joined the secular order of Mount Carmel. In retirement she remained in Oxford, living in rented accommodation, and gave more time to organising her local group of Carmelites, and to supporting her local church of St Aloysius and the Carmelite priory on Boars Hill.Self-effacing and much loved by her nephew and her two nieces, she had a dry and slightly sardonic sense of humour which reflected her sharp and shrewd intellect. To authority (especially to local government, and after her retirement even to the Oxford University Press), she could display a principled persistence that made her seem formidable.After a serious stroke in the late 1980s she was cared for in Nazareth Houses, first at Cowley, and then in London at Hammersmith – where she died on her 88th birthday.Brian Harrison. Shane Warne withdrew from the World Cup today, announcing he had failed a doping test.

The Australian Cricket Board has referred the matter to its anti-doping panel, and still hopes the leg spinner can be reinstated for the tournament. admitted he had taken a fluid reduction tablet on the eve of the limited-overs match against England at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 23 January , his return to international cricket after dislocating his shoulder against the English in December."I'm shocked and absolutely devastated," Warne said. "I am shocked because I don't take performance enhancing drugs in any shape or form."The ACB said it would await the outcome of a second test, or B sample, before announcing any sanctions. In the meantime, Warne will return to Australia for a hearing.ACB chief executive James Sutherland, said it would be inappropriate to speculate on details of the case until the evidence had been finalized and examined by the independent anti-doping committee.The ACB said it was proactive in the case, advising the International Cricket Council of Warne's situation and asking the World Cup Event Technical Committee for approval to replace him in its World Cup squad.