Dame Rachel Elizabeth Waterhouse DBE (née Franklin; 2 January 1923 – 14 October 2020) was an English local historian, consumer affairs activist and writer.
Rachel won a scholarship to King Edward VI High School for Girls in the city, then an exhibition to study history at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating in 1944.
After the Second World War she returned to Birmingham where she married John Waterhouse, a university lecturer, in 1947.
[1] Waterhouse became a founder member of The Victorian Society in 1958 and was instrumental in setting up the Birmingham Branch in 1967, serving as its first Chairman between 1967 and 1971.
She was survived by her children (Matthew, Edmund, Deborah and Rebecca), eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.