Augustus Pitt Rivers
Augustus Pitt Rivers FRAI | |
---|---|
Born | Augustus Henry Lane Fox 14 April 1827 |
Died | 4 May 1900 Rushmore Estate, Wiltshire, UK | (aged 73)
Nationality | English |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Ethnology, archaeology |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | British Army |
Years of service | 1845–1882 |
Rank | Lieutenant General |
Battles/wars | Crimean War
|
Throughout most of his life he used the surname Lane Fox, under which his early archaeological reports are published. In 1880 he adopted the Pitt Rivers name on inheriting from Lord Rivers (a cousin) an estate of more than 32,000 acres in Cranborne Chase.[3]
His family name is often spelled as "Pitt-Rivers".[4] His middle name is sometimes spelled as "Lane-Fox".[5][6]
Early life and family
Born Augustus Henry Lane-Fox at Bramham cum Oglethorpe near Wetherby in Yorkshire,[7] he was the son of William Lane-Fox and Lady Caroline Douglas, sister of George Douglas, 17th Earl of Morton. The politicians George Lane-Fox and Sackville Lane-Fox were his uncles.
In 1880, Lane Fox inherited the estates of his cousin, Horace Pitt-Rivers, 6th Baron Rivers and with it the remainder of the Richard Rigby fortune. It was "an event that transformed his life." He was required to adopt the surname Pitt-Rivers as part of the bequest 'either alone or in addition to his or their surname'.[8] On 3 February 1853,[9] Pitt-Rivers (still under the surname Fox) married The Honourable Alice Margaret Stanley (1828–1910), daughter of the politician Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley and of the women's education campaigner Henrietta Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley. Alice had a slew of siblings active in the public issues of the day, several of whom married into prominent families. The Pitt Rivers Museum suggests that some of the founding collection, particularly some Indian items, may have come from John Constantine Stanley (1837-1878), younger brother of Alice.[10]
Descendants
Augustus and Alice had nine children who reached adulthood; they were born between 1855 and 1866.[11] As they were all born before Augustus took the new surname in 1880, their births are registered under the name of Fox (or Lane-Fox).
- Alexander Edward Lane Fox-Pitt-Rivers, 2 November 1855 – 19 August 1927.
- St. George Lane Fox-Pitt, 14 September 1856 – 6 April 1932, electrical engineer, author, and student of psychic phenomena.
- William Augustus Lane Fox-Pitt, 9 January 1858 – 1945?.
- Ursula Katharine Lane Fox-Pitt, 1859? – 1942.
- Lionel Charles Lane Fox-Pitt, 5 November 1860 – 1937?.
- Alice Augusta Laurentia Lane Fox-Pitt, circa 1862 – 11 March 1947.
- Agnes Geraldine Fox-Pitt, 25 July 1863 – 7 December 1926.[12]
- Douglas Henry Lane Fox-Pitt, 17 December 1864 – 19 September 1922.
- Arthur Algernon Lane Fox-Pitt, 12 April 1866 – 6 November 1895.
Augustus had several notable descendants. One grandson was the anthropologist, eugenicist, and anti-Semite
Lane–Fox–Pitt–Rivers family tree | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Military career
Lane Fox had a long and successful military career as a
Archaeological career
Pitt Rivers' interests in archaeology and ethnology began in the 1850s, during postings overseas, and he became a noted scientist while he was a serving military officer. His interest began with the evolution of the rifle, which extended to other weapons and tools, and he became a collector of artifacts illustrating the development of human invention. His collection became famous, and, after being exhibited in 1874–1875 at the
In 1867, Pitt Rivers left full-time military service and went on
By the time he retired, he had amassed ethnographic collections numbering tens of thousands of items from all over the world. Influenced by the evolutionary writings of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, he arranged them typologically and (within types) chronologically. He viewed archaeology as an extension of anthropology and, as consequence, built up matching collections of archaeological and ethnographic objects to show longer developmental sequences to support his views on cultural evolution.[27] This style of arrangement, designed to highlight evolutionary trends in human artefacts, was a revolutionary innovation in museum design.
Pitt Rivers' ethnological collections form the basis of the Pitt Rivers Museum which is still one of Oxford's attractions. His researches and collections cover periods from the Lower Paleolithic to Roman and medieval times, and extend all over the world.[28] The Pitt Rivers Museum curates more than half a million ethnographic and archaeological artifacts, photographic and manuscript collections from all parts of the world. The museum was founded in 1884 when the university accepted the gift of more than 20,000 artifacts from Pitt Rivers. The university awarded him the Doctorate of Civil Law in 1886, and he was later named a Fellow of the Royal Society.[22] The collections continue to grow, and the museum has been described as one of the "six great ethnological museums of the world".[29]
Pitt Rivers' Wessex Collection is housed in
The estates Pitt Rivers inherited in 1880 contained a wealth of archaeological material from the
Following the passage of the Ancient Monuments Protection Act 1882, Pitt Rivers became the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments: a post created by anthropologist and parliamentarian John Lubbock who married Pitt Rivers' daughter, Alice. Charged with cataloguing archaeological sites and protecting them from destruction, he worked with his customary methodical zeal but was hampered by the limitations of the law, which gave him little real power over the landowners on whose property the sites stood. On the advice of Pitt-Rivers, Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House, Kent, were among the first ancient British remains to be protected by the state. Railings were erected around the stones there to prevent vandalism.[30]
Pitt Rivers was a leading member of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, and was president of the society from 1890[31] to 1893.[32]
Other interests
The Rushmore estate near Tollard Royal in Wiltshire was part of his 1880 inheritance, and there he created the Larmer Tree Gardens, a pleasure garden which was opened to the public in 1885.[33]
In 1884 he served as High Sheriff of Dorset.[34]
Pitt Rivers was an advocate for cremation. Even though many people believed that it was immoral to destroy a corpse, the cremation movement favoured a practical way to dispose of bodies. Pitt Rivers was cremated after his death in 1900.
Bibliography
Among the publications of August Pitt Rivers are:
- Fox, Lane (1858). On the improvement of the rifle, as a weapon for general use. London: W. Clowes and Sons. . Retrieved 2 August 2020.
- Excavations on Cranborne Chase (4 volumes)
- Excavations on Bokerly and Wansdyke
Notes
- ^ "Excavating Pitt-Rivers project". Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
- ^ Green (2014).
- JSTOR 529871.
- ^ Spelling as "Pitt-Rivers" e.g. in Tylor 1901, Green 2014, "RPR", Excavating Pitt-Rivers.
- ^ Spelling as "Lane-Fox" e.g. in Chisholm (1911) and in Pitt-Rivers (1906) – The Evolution of Culture.
- ^ See also: "What's in a name? Or a hyphen?". web.prm.ox.ac.uk. Rethinking Pitt-Rivers. May 2011. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
- ^ "Pitt Rivers and Yorkshire". Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 20 January 2016. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4711-8804-6.
- ^ http://www.freebmd.org.uk/ – search on Fox or Stanley
- ^ "Stanley family's collection of ethnographic objects". web.prm.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 31 May 2021.
- ^ Burt, Daniel. "Biography of General Pitt-Rivers". web.prm.ox.ac.uk. Rethinking Pitt-Rivers. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55591. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Griffiths, Richard (1998). Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British Anti-Semitism 1939–40. Constable. pp. 54, 65.
- ^ "No. 20471". The London Gazette. 16 May 1845. p. 1472.
- ^ Evans, Christopher (30 January 2014). "Soldiering Archaeology: Pitt Rivers and 'Militarism'". Bulletin of the History of Archaeology. 4 (24). Archived from the original on 28 April 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
- OCLC 85009924.
- ^ "No. 21123". The London Gazette. 2 August 1850. p. 2132.
- ^ "No. 21640". The London Gazette. 12 December 1854. p. 4052.
- ^ "No. 22002". The London Gazette. 15 May 1857. p. 1734.
- ^ "No. 22107". The London Gazette. 2 March 1858. p. 1258.
- ^ "No. 23223". The London Gazette. 26 February 1867. p. 1025.
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
- ^ public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pitt-Rivers, Augustus Henry Lane-Fox". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 678. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ a b c Petch, Alison (March 2009). "Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers and Yorkshire". England: The Other Within. Oxford University. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
- ^ Petch, Alison (March 2009). "Pitt Rivers' excavations in Yorkshire". England: The Other Within. Oxford University. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33542. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 0-521-400775.
- JSTOR 2793146.
- .
- ^ "History of Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House".
- ^ "Annual General Meeting, 30 July 1890". Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine. 25 (75): 235. 1891 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library .
- ^ "Annual General Meeting, July 1893". Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine. 27 (81): 194–196. 1894 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library .
- ^ Historic England. "Larmer Tree Grounds (1000478)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
- ^ "No. 25325". The London Gazette. 4 March 1884. p. 1117.
References
- Petch, A (2007). "Notes and Queries and the Pitt Rivers Museum". Museum Anthropology. 30: 21–39. .
- Bowden, Mark (1984) General Pitt Rivers: The father of scientific archaeology. ISBN 0-947535-00-4.
- Bowden, Mark (1991) Pitt Rivers: The life and archaeological work of Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-40077-5
- Bowden, Mark (2000) "Lieutenant-General A.H.L.F. Pitt Rivers", Past – Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society, 34 (April)
- Evans, C (2014). "Soldiering Archaeology: Pitt Rivers and 'Militarism'". Bulletin of the History of Archaeology. 24: 4. doi:10.5334/bha.244.
- Green, Adrian (2014). "Salisbury Museum and General Pitt-Rivers's Wessex Collection, 1975–2014". Museum History Journal. 7 (2): 224–243. S2CID 162219980.
- Penniman, T.K. General Pitt Rivers Man, Vol. 46, (July – August 1946), pp. 73–74. Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Article Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2793146
- Thompson, M.W. (1977) General Pitt Rivers: Evolution and archaeology in the nineteenth century. Bradford-on-Avon : Moonraker Press. ISBN 0-239-00162-1
- Tylor, Edward Burnett (1901). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co. . In
Further reading
- Waterfield, Herminone; King, J. C. H. (2006). Provenance: Twelve Collectors of Ethnographic Art in England 1760–1990. Paris: Somogy éditions d'art. ISBN 978-1903470961.
External links
- Works by or about Augustus Pitt Rivers at Wikisource
- The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, with biography
- The Pitt Rivers Galleries Archived 2 August 2009 at the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
- Augustus Pitt-Rivers on In Our Time, with links and further reading
- Works by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers at Internet Archive
- William Tomkin (W.S. Tomkin) Assistant 1882–1890