An Oxford historian has died just days before her diamond wedding anniversary, aged 84.

Christina Colvin died in a nursing home on August 7.

She was born in Oxford in 1919 but grew up in London, where she attended St Paul's Girls School and University College, where her father was a professor of Latin.

She moved back to Oxford in 1948, when her husband, historian Sir Howard Colvin, 83, became a fellow of St John's College.

Both her grandfathers, AG Butler and AF Pollard, were Oxford dons, as well as her father, HE Butler. Her aunts Ruth and Violet were fellows of St Anne's.

She was town as well as gown, as her maternal grandmother was the daughter of William Lucy of the foundry family.

For 55 years she led an active life in north Oxford, working on Oxfordshire volumes of the Victoria County History. She published two books of her own, scholarly editions of the letters of Irish novelist, Maria Edgeworth, one of which won a literary prize, the Rose Mary Crawshay award, in 1973.

She is survived by her husband, who lives in Plantation Road, two sons and six grandchildren.

Her funeral was held on Monday, August 18, at St Giles Church.