Lobel was born
Mary Doreen Rogers in Bristol on 25 June 1900. Her father, Frederick William Rogers was a stone merchant and her mother was Blanche Mary Lyons. The family were strong
suffragists, and would entertain suffragist gatherings. She was educated at
Clifton High School and helped
Walter Ewing Crum with cataloging translations for his
Coptic dictionary. Through Crum, she met
Edgar Lobel, a research student 12 years her senior, and the couple were effectively engaged by 1918. In 1919, Lobel attended
St Hugh's College, Oxford, reading history and taught history at
Norwich High School after she graduated in 1922. The couple married on 24 August 1927 and moved to Oxford. Mary Lobel worked for the
Victoria County History, as a contributor to
A History of the County of Oxford, from the 1930s; and as the VCH's Oxfordshire county editor from the 1950s until 1972. Thereafter she concentrated on editing the three-volume
British Atlas of Historic Towns. While editing the
Victoria County History, Lobel was also a librarian at
Somerville College, Oxford. Lobel was made an
OBE in 1990. ==Final years and death==