Joan Thirsk
Irene Joan Thirsk, (née Watkins; 19 June 1922 – 3 October 2013) was a British economic and social historian, specialising in the history of agriculture. She was the leading British early modern agrarian historian of her era, as well as an important social and economic historian. Her work highlighted the regional differences in agricultural practices in England. She also had an interest in food history and local English history, in particular of Hadlow, Kent. Life Joan Watkins was born on 19 June 1922 in St Pancras, London. Her father was the steward of a club in central London, and her mother had worked as a dressmaker. She studied at Primrose Hill Primary and Camden School, and pursued a university degree in German and French in 1941 at Westfield College. In 1942, she enrolled in the ATS, attached to the Intelligence Corps. She was posted to Bletchley Park as an intelligence analyst, providing information that assisted Hut 6 in the breaking of the Enigma ciphers. The German messages they decripted helped Allied forces reconstruct the location and strength of the German army throughout Europe. Her future husband Jimmy (30 May 1914 – 2 June 2018) worked alongside her in the Sixta