Background
Ann Paludan was the daughter of Basil Murray. Her father was the second son of the eminent classical scholar Gilbert Murray and his wife Lady Mary Howard, and Ann would visit her grandparents at Yatscombe, on Boars Hill, particularly during her undergraduate years in Street Hugh"s College, Oxford when she cycled up to Yatscombe every Sunday. Her parents had split up when she was young and her father died in Spain when she was eight, so her visits to her grandparents gave a welcome sense of continuity.
Career
After graduating she worked as a British diplomat, marrying John Ernest Powell-Jones and starting a life abroad in 1949. Her son, Sir Mark Jones, was born on 5 February 1951. He was an art historian and museum director and has been Master of Street Cross College, Oxford since 2011.
They lived in Beijing until 1976, and thereafter she returned regularly to China on research trips.
He then served as Ambassador to Egypt in 1976 and to Iceland from 1977 to 1984, after which they retired to northern Cumbria. Ann was widowed in January 2004.
She died in late 2014.
