We regret to note that Dr Ann Teresa Hankey died on Tuesday 3 March 2026.
From the beginning of the 1980s, pressure was on the UK university system in general to cutback. Certain subjects were targeted (the Arts/Humanities, as usual, being first in line), then it was small departments. Classics at Kent had its share of threats to be amalgamated with another institution’s department elsewhere or to receive surviving stalwarts another department. In the event, the latter was agreed and two survivors from the annihilated department in Sussex joined Kent’s Board of Classics in 1985: Drs Hankey and Chaffin, who augmented its already wide range of expertise with theirs. Dr Hankey’s fluent Italian directed her academic research interest to centre on a medieval Italian historian, Riccobaldo of Ferrara, and Dr Chaffin’s was in Patristics. This extended the contributions the Board made to other Boards of Study and consolidated its place in the Humanities Faculty.
Teresa was a meticulous and conscientious scholar whose research was well-received by her peers. She undertook her teaching with dedicated enthusiasm covering both interdisciplinary courses such as Myth, Allegory and The Tale, as well as subjects in more specialised field including some Latin language. She also played her part, especially in retirement, in local activities in Rough Common where she lived. A devout Christian, she was strongly and loyally attached to the little St Gabriel’s Chapel nearby. (Her recent loyal defence of its fate was well documented by the Kentish Gazette).
She was a formidable opponent in matters of principle and we are impoverished by her passing.
Words by Margaret Anderson.