Born in
Hyde, Cheshire, England, and educated at
Manchester University, Dorothy Williamson undertook postgraduate study there under
C. R. Cheney, writing her dissertation on the legation of Cardinal
Otto of Tonengo in the British Isles, 1237–1241. From 1948 to 1958, she was assistant archivist at the
Lincolnshire Archives. In 1958, she married Arthur Owen, a fellow archivist and historian, and moved to London to be archivist at
Lambeth Palace Library. In 1960, the pair moved to
Cambridge, where Arthur had been appointed to a job at
Cambridge University Library. Owen was soon instructing students in
palaeography and
diplomatic, and working on the diocesan records of Ely, recently deposited in the university library. She was formally appointed custodian of ecclesiastical archives in 1968 and keeper of the university archives in 1978. In 1969, she was elected a fellow of
Wolfson College. In 1987, she held the
Sandars Readership in Bibliography at Cambridge. In 1995, she was appointed
MBE. She died in
Thimbleby, Lincolnshire. ==Works==