Rachael Emily Poole (née 'Mallerson; June 13, 1860, London—April 9, 1937, Oxford) was an historian of portraiture, with a particular focus on miniatures, active in the United Kingdom.[1][2] She played a key part in cataloguing local and university artwork and architecture in Oxford.[3]
Her most important work was the three volume Catalogue of Oxford Portraits (1919-1925).[2] She also wrote An Outline of the History of the De Critz Family of Painters (published by the Walpole Society in 1912), which included important work on Cornelius de Neve.[4][5] She published articles on portraitists active in Tudor England, such as Marcus Gheeraerts (both the Elder and the Younger), who came to England from the Netherlands,[6] as well as seventeenth-century sculptor Edward Pierce.[7]
She played an active, if voluntary, role in the life of Oxford University, and beyond her research efforts, was a founding member of the Bach Choir and served on the council of the Association for Promoting the Education of Women at Oxford.[2]
For her academic work, she was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1926 and received an honorary MA from Oxford in 1932.[2]
She married Oxford historian and archivist Reginald Lane-Poole and was the mother of Austin Lane Poole.[2][3]