Violet A Rodgers

Violet A Rodgers (7 February 1914 – 8 May 1978) was a British museum curator. Biography Rodgers came to York in 1938 to work for John Lamplugh Kirk at the newly-opened York Castle Museum. Kirk died in 1940 and Rodgers ran the museum as Deputy Curator during the Second World War. During this time she expanded the education offer and developed an interactive approach to the collections by allowing visitors to handle objects. In addition to her curatorial duties, Rodgers also served in the Royal Observer Corps throughout the war. Rodgers was one of the first women to achieve the Museums Association Diploma. In June 1947 she married Wladyslaw Włoch and left the museum for Poland. Immediately before her departure she made a plea in the Museums Journal for British museums to help replenish the lost collections of the Historical Museum of Kraków, damaged during the war, by donating duplicates. She became a Curator at the Historical Museum of Kraków and was awarded the Polish Cross of Merit for her work. During her time in Poland, Violet and her husband Wladyslaw also worked to improve the Pharmacy Museum in Krakow - Wladyslaw received the Ignacy Łukasiewicz medal from the Pharmaceutical Society of Poland for their dedication to the museum, which included a 'York apothecary shop'.