O. G. S. Crawford

Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford

O.G.S. Crawford in 1912.
Born (1886-10-28)28 October 1886
Breach Candy, Bombay, India
Died 28 November 1957(1957-11-28)
Nursling, Hampshire, UK
Nationality British
Occupation Archaeologist
Known for Aerial photography pioneer

Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford (28 October 1886 – 28 November 1957), better known as O. G. S. Crawford, was a British archaeologist who specialised in the study of prehistoric Britain. Working for most of his career as the archaeological officer of the Ordnance Survey, he authored a range of books on archaeological subjects and was a keen proponent of aerial archaeology.

Born in Bombay, British India to a wealthy middle-class Scottish family, Crawford moved to England as an infant and was raised by his aunts in London and Hampshire. He studied geography at Keble College, Oxford and worked briefly in that field before devoting himself professionally to archaeology. Employed by the philanthropist Henry Wellcome, Crawford oversaw the excavation of Abu Geili in Sudan before returning to England shortly before the First World War. During the conflict he served in both the London Scottish Regiment and the Royal Flying Corps, where he was involved in both ground and aerial reconnaissance along the Western Front. After an injury forced a period of convalescence in England, he returned to the Front, where he was captured by the German Army in 1918 and held as a prisoner of war. After the conflict he returned to Britain, where he was employed by the Ordnance Survey in 1920.

In this position he toured Britain to plot the location of archaeological sites in the landscape, in the process identifying a number of previously unknown sites. Increasingly interested in aerial archaeology, he obtained photographs of the landscape taken from the air by the Royal Air Force and identified the extent of the Stonehenge Avenue, excavating it in 1923. With the archaeologist Alexander Keiller he conducted an aerial survey of many counties in southern England and raised the finances to secure the land around Stonehenge for The National Trust. In 1927, he established the scholarly journal Antiquity, which contained contributions from many of Britain's most prominent archaeologists. An internationalist and socialist, he came under the influence of Marxism and became a sympathiser with the Soviet Union, although repudiated this connection in the late 1940s. During the Second World War he worked with the National Buildings Record, photographically documenting Southampton. After retiring in 1946, he refocused his attention on Sudanese archaeology and authored several further books prior to his death.

While friends and colleagues remembered Crawford as a cantankerous and irritable individual, his contributions to British archaeology – namely in the form of Antiquity and his promotion of aerial archaeology – have been widely acclaimed, with some referring to him as one of the great pioneering figures in the field. Crawford was the subject of a 2008 award-winning biography by Kitty Hauser.

Early life

Childhood: 1886–1904

O. G. S. Crawford was born on 28 October 1886 at Breach Candy, a suburb of Bombay in British India.[1] His father, Charles Edward Gordon Crawford, was a civil servant who had been educated at Marlborough College and Wadham College, Oxford prior to his move to India, where he became a High Court Judge at Thanah.[1] The Crawford family hailed from Ayrshire, and the child's great-uncle was the politician Robert Wigram Crawford.[2] Crawford's mother, Alice Luscombe Mackenzie, was the daughter of a Scottish army doctor and his Devonshire wife.[3] However, Mackenzie died a few days after her son's birth.[4] When he was aged three months old, Crawford was sent to England aboard the P&O liner Bokhara, during the journey being entrusted to the care of his paternal aunt Eleanor, who was the head of the Poona Convent of the Wantage Community.[3]

Crawford developed a love of archaeology through visiting sites like Stonehenge (pictured in 1877)

After his arrival in Britain, he spent the next seven years with two paternal aunts who lived together near to Portland Place in the Marylebone district of central London.[4] Like his father, they were devout Christians, having been the children of a Scottish clergyman.[5] Crawford saw his father on the few occasions that the latter visited England, prior to his death in India in 1894.[3] In 1895, Crawford and his two aunts moved to a rural house in East Woodhay in Hampshire.[6] Initially educated at Park House School, which he enjoyed, he subsequently moved on to Marlborough College, his father's alma mater, but was unhappy there, complaining about bullying and enforced sporting activities, and characterising it as a "detestable house of torture".[7]

At the school, Crawford was influenced by his housemaster, F. B. Malim, who presided over the archaeological section of the college's Natural History Society and encouraged the boy's interest in the subject.[8] With the society, Crawford visited such archaeological sites as Stonehenge, West Kennet Long Barrow, Avebury, and Martinsell.[9] It was also through the society that he obtained Ordnance Survey maps of the landscape, allowing him to explore the downs near to his aunts' home.[10] He began excavation of a barrow near to Bull's Copse, thus attracting the attention of the antiquarian Harold Peake, who was then involved in compiling the Victoria County History of Berkshire.[11] Peake and his wife lived a Bohemian lifestyle, being vegetarians and social reformers, and their ideas influenced Crawford.[12] The Peakes' rejection of Christianity was also embraced by Crawford, who rejected his religious upbringing in favour of a rationalist world-view based in science.[13] Moreover, from Peake, Crawford gained an appreciation for the understanding of past societies through geographical landscape rather than through texts or lone artefacts.[14]

University and early career: 1905–1914

Keble College, Oxford

Crawford won a junior scholarship to study at Keble College, Oxford.[15] There he began reading literae humaniores in 1905 but – after gaining only a third-class score in his second year exams – he changed to study geography in 1908.[16] In 1910 he gained a distinction for his diploma, for which he had conducted a study of the landscape surrounding Andover.[17] Reflecting his interest in the relationship between geography and archaeology, during a walking tour of Ireland he had also written a paper on the geographic distribution of prehistoric flat bronze axes and beakers in the British Isles. It was presented to the Oxford University Anthropological Society before being published in The Geographical Journal.[18] After Crawford graduated, he was offered a job as a junior demonstrator in the university's geography department by Professor A. J. Herbertson; Crawford took on the position for a year, during which he taught students.[19] Through Herbertson, Crawford was introduced to Patrick Geddes.[20] Deciding that he wanted to focus his attentions on archaeology rather than geography, he sought a professional position in the field, although very few existed in Britain at the time.[21]

He unsuccessfully applied for a Craven Fellowship and a post at Bombay Museum.[22] In 1913 Crawford joined William Scoresby Routledge's expedition to Easter Island as an assistant. However, after departing from Britain aboard the schooner Mana, Crawford quarrelled with Routledge and left the ship at Cape Verde in order to return to Britain.[23] He then gained employment from the wealthy philanthropist Henry Wellcome, who sent him to gain training in archaeological excavation from G. A. Reisner in Egypt before sending him on to Sudan, where Crawford was appointed in charge of the excavation of the Meroitic site at Abu Geili; he remained there from January to June 1914.[24] On his return to England, where he was planning on sorting through the artefacts found in Sudan, he and his friend Earnest Hooton began excavation of a long barrow on Wexcombe Down.[25]

First World War: 1914–1918

It was during this excavation that the United Kingdom entered the First World War.[25] At Peake's encouragement, Crawford enlisted to serve in the British Army, joining the London Scottish Regiment which was sent to reinforce the First Battalion in France.[25] The regiment marched to Béthune to relieve the British line, there fighting on the Western Front at Givenchy.[26] Afflicted with influenza and malaria, in February Crawford was invalided back to England, being stationed at Birmingham for his recuperation.[27] After recovery, he applied to join the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) but was deemed too heavy.[27] In July 1915 he was successful in his application to join the Royal Berkshire Regiment as part of the Third Army, being stationed at Beauval and then St. Pol.[28] Utilising his existing skills, he served as the regiment's maps officer, responsible for mapping the areas around the front line, including the German Army positions.[29] He also took various photographs which were used for British propaganda purposes,[30] and in 1916 he guided the writer H. G. Wells around the trenches on the latter's visit to the Front.[31]

"[Archaeology] will provide new material for the education of future generations — material that, if it is used at all, must help to weaken the consciousness of nationality and strengthen that of universal brotherhood. It has done that for me at any rate."

— Crawford, in a letter to H.G. Wells.[32]

In January 1917, Crawford successfully applied to join the RFC as an observer with the 23rd Squadron, as part of which he flew over enemy lines to make observations and draw maps.[33] On his maiden flight, the German Army opened fire on his aircraft, in which his right foot was pierced by bullets and badly injured.[33] To recuperate, he spent time at various hospitals in France and England before eventually being sent to the RFC Auxiliary Hospital at the Heligan estate in Cornwall.[34] During this time in England he spent a weekend at Wells' home in Dunmow, Essex, embracing Wells' desire for a united world government and the idea that writing about global history was a step towards that.[35] While at Heligan, Crawford began working on a book, Man and his Past, which examined a broad sweep of human history from an archaeological and geographical perspective.[36]

In September 1917 Crawford – who had been promoted to the position of squadron intelligence officer – joined the 48th Squadron, during which he again took aerial photographs during flying reconnaissance meetings.[37] While on one flight in February 1918, Crawford's aircraft was shot at and forced to land in German-held territory; he and his co-pilot were taken as prisoners of war.[38] He was initially imprisoned at Landshut in Bavaria, from where he tried to escape by swimming down the River Isar; the river current proved too strong and he was soon recaptured.[38] He was then transferred to Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp, where he was aware of an escape plan involving tunnelling out of the camp, but did not take part. Instead he sent much of his time reading works by Wells, Carl Jung, and Samuel Butler, and working on Man and his Past.[39] Crawford remained in the camp for seven months, until the declaration of armistice, at which he returned to Britain and was demobilised.[40]

Career: 1920–1945

Ordnance Survey and Antiquity

"I appointed O. G. S. Crawford to the Ordnance Survey as Archaeological Officer in October 1920. I consulted Marett and he said that Crawford was just the man for the post, which I established to get the archaeology of the national maps into order: for there still survived 'giants' graves' and such titles, and a larger number of objects of antiquarian interest remained unmarked on the maps... No one could have been more thorough and capable in carrying out this most interesting work, and, so far as his labours extended the maps presented to the public a mass of archaeological information shown by no other national surveys."

— Charles Close[41]

Back in England, Crawford finished writing Man and his Past.[42] The work fitted within the theoretical trend of culture-historical archaeology by discussing geographical methods for delineating cultures, however it did not attempt to apply the concept of culture in a systematic fashion.[43] For the Cambrian Archaeological Association, he conducted excavations in both Wiltshire and Wales.[42] During the summer of 1920, he then excavated at Roundwood in Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight for Sir William Portal.[44]

His expertise resulted in him being invited by Charles Close, the Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, to join that organisation as their first archaeological officer. Accepting the position, Crawford moved to Southampton and began work at the project in October 1920.[44] His arrival generated some resentment, with co-workers often seeing his post as superfluous and archaeology unimportant.[45] His job entailed correcting and updating information on archaeological monuments as the Ordnance Survey was revised, and involved him undertaking much fieldwork, checking the location of already-recorded sites and discovering new ones.[27] He began in Gloucestershire in the autumn and winter of 1920, visiting 208 sites around the Cotswolds and adding 81 previously unknown barrows to the map.[46] As a result of his research in this region, in 1925 he published his book Long Barrows and the Stone Circles of the Cotswolds and the Welsh Marches.[41]

As part of his job, he travelled around Britain, from Scotland in the north to the Scilly Isles in the south, often conducting his fieldwork by bicycle.[47] On his visits he took photographs of archaeological sites, which were stored in his archive,[48] and he also obtained aerial photographs of archaeological sites taken by the Royal Air Force.[49] In this he was aided by regional antiquarian societies and by his correspondents, whom he called his "ferrets".[50] In 1921, the Ordnance Survey published Crawford's work, "Notes for Beginners", in which he explained how amateur archaeologists could identify traces of old monuments, roads, and agricultural activity in the landscape.[51] He also began producing 'period maps' in which archaeological sites were marked; the first of these was on Roman Britain, and featured Roman roads and settlements. First published in 1924, it soon sold out, resulting in a second edition in 1928.[52] He followed this with a range of further maps in the 1930s: 'England in the Seventeenth Century', 'Celtic Earthworks of Salisbury Plain', 'Neolithic Wessex', and 'Britain in the Dark Ages'.[53] Although his position had initially been precarious, in 1926 it was made permanent, despite the reluctance of the Treasury.[54] By 1938, he had been able to persuade the O.S. to employ an assistant, W. F. Grimes.[55]

The Avenue at Stonehenge looking NEE towards Old and New King Barrows

Crawford became particularly interested in the new technique of aerial archaeology, believing that this new process was to archaeology what the telescope was to astronomy.[56] He produced two OS leaflets containing various aerial photographs, in 1924 and again in 1929.[57] Through these and other works he was keen to promote aerial archaeology, coming to be firmly identified with the technique.[57] His association with it to such an extent that in his 1939 novel The Shape of Things to Come, Wells named a survey aeroplane that discovers an ancient archaeological device "Crawford".[58]

Using RAF aerial photographs, Crawford determined the length of the The Avenue at Stonehenge before embarking on an excavation of the site with A. D. Passmore in the autumn of 1923.[59] This project attracted press attention, resulting in Crawford being contacted by he marmalade magnate and archaeologist Alexander Keiller. Keiller invited Crawford to join him in an aerial survey, financed by Keiller himself, in which they flew over Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset, and Wiltshire in the spring and summer 1924, taking photographs of any archaeological traces in the landscape.[60] Many of these images were published in Wessex from the Air in 1928.[61] In 1927 Crawford and Keiller helped raise the finances to buy the land around Stonehenge and present it to The National Trust in order to prevent it facing agricultural or urban development.[62]

In 1927 he founded Antiquity; A Quarterly Review of Archaeology, a quarterly journal designed to bring together the work of archaeologists working across the world to supplement the variety of regional antiquarian periodicals that were then available.[63][64] Although designed to have an international scope, the journal exhibited a clear bias towards the archaeology of Britain,[65] with its release coinciding with the blossoming of British archaeology as a field of study.[66] It contained contributions from a variety of young archaeologists who would come to dominate the field of British archaeology, among them Stuart Piggott, Cyril Fox, Christopher Hawkes, Mortimer Wheeler, V. Gordon Childe, T. D. Kendrick, and Grahame Clark.[67] Crawford himself was known as "Ogs" or "Uncle Ogs" to a number of these individuals,[68] who shared his desire to professionalise the field and take it in a more scientific direction and away from the domination of antiquarian hobbyists.[49] Antiquity sought to spread news of archaeological discoveries to a wider public, thereby being more accessible than pre-existing scholarly journals.[69] However, it resulted in Crawford receiving letters from proponents of various pseudo-archaeological ideas, such as the ley line theory of Alfred Watkins; he filed these letters under a section of his archive titled "Crankeries" and was annoyed that educated people believed such ideas when they were demonstrably incorrect.[70]

Foreign visits and Marxism

"Above all [Crawford] has shown what can be done by a combination of intensive field-work with methodical revision and interpretation, to build up a fabric of scientific knowledge out of scattered and inexpert observations, and literally to "put upon the map" the outlines of British prehistory."

— John L. Myres, 1951[1]

Crawford enjoyed foreign travel and left Britain on a number of occasions.[71] In 1928 the OS sent him to the Middle East, there to collect aerial photographs that had been produced during the First World War.[71] In the summer of 1931 he visited Germany and Austria, there furthering his interest in interest in photograph through the purchase of a Voigtländer.[72] He later visited Italy with the intent of examining the possibility of producing OS maps featuring the country's archaeological sites; in November 1932 he met with the Italian leader Benito Mussolini, who was interested in Crawford's ideas about creating an OS map of archaeological sites in Rome.[73] Holiday destinations included Germany, Austria, Romania, Corsica, Malta, Algeria, and Tunisia, and in 1936 he bought a house in Cyprus. During these vacations, he visited archaeological sites and met with local archaeologists, encouraging them to contribute articles to Antiquity.[74]

Crawford believed that society would progress with the growth of internationalism and the increased application of science,[75] and politically he had moved toward socialism under the influence of his close friend Childe.[76] He expressed the view that socialism was "the natural corollary of science in the regulation of human affairs".[77] He attempted to incorporate Marxist ideas into his archaeological interpretations,[78] publishing an article on "The Dialectical Process in the History of Science" in The Sociological Review journal.[79] He became enthusiastic about the Soviet Union, a state governed by the Marxist Communist Party, viewing it as the forerunner of a future world state.[80]

With his friend Neil Hunter, he travelled to the Soviet Union in May 1932, sailing to Leningrad aboard the Smolny. Once there, they followed a prescribed tourist itinerary, visiting Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Stalingrad, Rostov-on-Don, Tiflis, Armenia, Batum, and Sukhum.[81] He admired what he perceived as the progress that the Soviet Union had made since the fall of the Tsarist regime, the increasingly classless and gender-equal status of its population, and the respect accorded to scientists in planning its society's development.[82] He described his holiday with glowing praise in a book, A Tour of Bolshevy, stating that he did so in order to "hasten the downfall of capitalism" while at the same time making "as much money as possible" out of capitalists. The book was rejected by the publisher Victor Gollancz, after which Crawford decided not to approach other publishers, instead giving copies of the work to his friends.[83] Although he became involved with the Friends of the Soviet Union and wrote several articles for the Daily Worker newspaper, he never joined the Communist Party of Great Britain or became involved in organised politics, perhaps fearing that to do so would jeopardise his employment in the civil service.[84]

In 1938, Crawford was guided around the Danebirke by German archaeologists

In Britain, he photographed a number of sites associated with the prominent Marxists Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin,[85] as well as photographing the signs erected by landowners and religious groups, believing that in doing so he was documenting the traces of capitalist society before they would be swept away by socialism.[86] Both in Britain and on a visit to Germany he photographed both pro-fascist and anti-fascist propaganda and graffiti,[87] and like many leftists at the time, he believed that fascism was a temporary, extreme expression of capitalist society that would soon be overcome by socialism.[88] He nevertheless expressed admiration for the German archaeological establishment under the Nazi government, highlighting that the British government lagged far behind in terms of funding excavations and encouraging the study of archaeology in universities; he refrained from commenting on the political agenda that the Nazis had in promoting archaeology.[89]

In the spring of 1938 he lectured on aerial archaeology at the German Air Ministry; they published his lecture as Luftbild und Vorgeschichte, and Crawford was frustrated that the British government did not publish his work with the same enthusiasm.[90] From there, he visited Vienna, to meet with his friend, the archaeologist Oswald Menghin, who took him to an event celebrating the Anschluss where he met the prominent Nazi Josef Bürckel.[90] Shortly after, he holidayed in Schleswig-Holstein, where German archaeologists took him to see the Danevirke.[91] Throughout his experiences, he believed in collaborating with all foreign archaeologists, regardless of political or ideological differences.[92]

In the late 1930s he began work on a book titled Bloody Old Britain, which he described as "an attempt to apply archaeological methods to the study of contemporary society" and in which he was heavily critical of his homeland.[93] It examined 1930s Britain through its material culture, with Crawford reaching the judgement that it was a society in which appearances were given greater importance than value, with clothing for instance emphasising bourgeois respectability over comfort. He attributed much of this to the impact of capitalism and consumerism on British culture.[94] The work fitted within an established genre of 1930s publications which lamented the state of British society, in particular the quality of its food and manufactured products as well as its increasing suburbanisation.[95] However, by the outbreak of the Second World War the work had become less marketable due to its un-patriotic nature, and when he proposed it to Methuen Publishing in 1943 they turned it down; he gave copies to a few friends, but never published it.[96]

World War II

Crawford developed an interest in the historical architecture of Southampton, which includes this 16th century building

In anticipation of the Second World War, Crawford expressed the view that he would "remain neutral" and not take sides, not because he favoured fascism over liberal democracy but because he saw both as repugnant forms of capitalist society which would ultimately be swept away by a socialist revolution; in his words the war would be "a clash of imperialisms, a gangsters' feud".[97] After war broke out, he decided that in the event of a German invasion of Britain he would destroy all of his leftist literature lest he be persecuted for possessing them.[98]

In November 1940, the German Luftwaffe began bombing Southampton, where the OS offices were located. Crawford removed some of the old OS maps and stored them in the garage of his house at Nursling, while also unsuccessfully urging the Director-General to remove the OS' archives of books, documents, maps and photographs to a secure location. Subsequently, the OS headquarters were destroyed in the bombing, resulting in the loss of most of their archive.[99] The refusal of the OS administration to take his warnings seriously infuriated Crawford, exacerbating his pre-existing anger about the civil service's red tape and bureaucracy.[100] In his words, "trying to get a move on in the Civil Service was like trying to swim in a lake of glue".[101] Resigning his membership of various British societies, he unsuccessfully tried to find employment abroad.[102]

With little for an archaeology officer to do at the OS in wartime, in the summer of 1941 Crawford was seconded to the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England "for special duties during wartime".[103] They assigned him to carry out a project of photographic documentation in Southampton for the National Buildings Record, producing images of many old buildings or architectural features lest they be destroyed in the Blitz. He appreciated the value of this work, taking 5000 photographs over the course of the war.[104]

Later life: 1946–1957

In 1946, at the earliest possible opportunity, Crawford resigned his post at the OS, where he was replaced by Charles Philips.[105] He nevertheless retained his interest in Southampton and its architecture, in particular that of the Middle Ages, and in 1946 was a founding member of a lobby group, Friends of Old Southampton, who sought to protect the city's historic architecture from destruction amid post-war development.[106] During the post-war period he also came to be preoccupied and terrified by the prospect of a nuclear war, urging archaeological authorities to make copies of all their information and disperse it in different locations to ensure that knowledge survived any forthcoming World War III.[107] In 1945 and 1946, he had some involvement with the Labour Party.[108] In the latter part of the 1940s, he came to be increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet Union after reading such works as Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, a book about Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and Moscow show trials, as well as learning of how Soviet scientists who did not support the ideas of Trofim Lysenko had been persecuted.[109] In 1950, after reading the memoir of Margarete Buber-Neumann, he declared himself to be "fanatically anti-Soviet [and] anti-communist".[110]

In The Eye Goddess, Crawford argued that the Neolithic concentric circles found in Europe represented the eye of a goddess

Crawford returned his attention to Sudanese archaeology, describing Sudan as "an escape-land of the mind at a time when the island of Britain was an austere prison".[106] At the invite of the Sudanese government, he visited the country on an archaeological reconnaissance trip in January 1950, before visiting the Middle Nile in 1951.[106] At Nursling, he wrote a book on the northern Sudanese Funj Sultanate of Sennar.[111] Another of Crawford's book projects in this period was a short history of Nursling,[112] as well as an introductory guide to archaeology, Archaeology in the Field, published in 1953.[112] In 1955 he then published his autobiography, Said and Done.[112]

In 1957, he then published The Eye Goddess, a book in which he argued for the existence of a religion devoted to a Mother Goddess that was found across the Old World from the Palaeolithic through to the period of Christianisation, and which he believed was evidenced through various abstract depictions of eyes in prehistoric rock art.[113] Similar ideas of a Neolithic religion devoted to a great goddess were also espoused in the works of Childe and Glyn Daniel that same decade, resulting in the later historian Ronald Hutton stating that "whether or not there was ever an 'Age of the Goddess' in Neolithic Europe, there certainly was one among European intellectuals in the mid twentieth century".[114] Crawford's book was nevertheless not well received academically.[115]

Another of Crawford's interests was cats, and he learned how to mimic cat noises, performing these on a BBC broadcast, "The Language of Cats", which proved popular and resulted in him receiving a range of fan letters. A publisher in the United States invited him to write a book on the subject, but Crawford never completed it.[116] In the mid-1950s, Crawford began to take an interest in astronomy and cosmological ideas about the origin of the universe, favouring Fred Hoyle's steady state thory about an eternal universe with no beginning or end.[117]

In 1951, an edited volume, Aspects of Archaeology in Britain and Beyond: Essays Presented to O. G. S. Crawford was published, having been edited by Grimes and brought out to mark Crawford's 65th birthday.[118] Reviewing the anthology for Antiquity, J. v. d. Waals and R. J. Forbes described it as "an exquisite birthday present".[119] Many of Crawford's associates worried about him, aware that he lived alone – with only the company of his elderly housekeeper and cats – at his cottage in Nursling, lacking either a car or telephone.[120] Crawford died in his sleep.[121] He arranged for some of his letters and books to be destroyed, while others were to be sent to the Bodleian Library, with the proviso that some of them would not be opened until the year 2000.[121] His body was buried in the church graveyard at Nursling.[121] As per his instructions, the title "Editor of Antiquity" was inscribed on his gravestone, reflecting his desire to be remembered primarily as an archaeologist.[122] On Crawford's death, editorship of Antiquity was taken on by Daniel.[123]

Personality

"Let it be recorded in letters of brass that here was no mere spirit of mischief, no subliminal grievance seeking outlet. Crawford's overriding quality was a complete integrity which robbed his passion and his prejudice of all poison, even when (as on occasion) it seemed to some of us least apt. His directness, let us call it, was a facet of that vital integrity."

— Mortimer Wheeler, 1958[124]

Crawford's socialist beliefs were known to his colleagues and associates,[122] as was his antipathy toward religion.[125] He was fond of cats, and kept several as pets,[126] and was also a heavy smoker, known for rolling his own cigarettes.[122] He was known for his lack of patience,[122] and when angry or frustrated was known to fling his hat to the floor in a gesture of rage.[127] His biographer Kitty Hauser noted that "apparently trifling events left an indelible mark on him", for he would remember a perceived slight for decades.[128]

Hauser characterised him as "a very British combination of a snob and a rebel",[129] as well as being "no great intellectual".[78] Similarly, the journalist Neal Ascherson described Crawford as "not conventionally intellectual".[130] He described Crawford as "withdrawn, generally ill at ease with other members of the human species except on paper, and suspicious of personal celebrity", in this way contrasting him with his "gregarious" contemporaries Wheeler and Glyn Daniel.[130] Based on Hauser's work, Jonathan Glancey referred to Crawford as "a compelling if decidedly cantankerous anti-hero" and an "essentially Victorian eccentric".[131]

Crawford was often irritable and some colleagues found him exasperating to work with.[132] Hauser remarked on his "opinionatedness, his dogmatism, and his disdain for those who did not view the past through the same archaeological lens that he did".[122] Piggott noted that Crawford was "somehow unable to sympathize with the viewpoints" of those studying past societies through a discipline other than archaeology, such as history or art history, and that he moreover couldn't sympathise with "anyone not as passionately concerned as himself in field antiquities".[133] The archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes commented that in Crawford's editorials for Antiquity, he expressed "righteous indignation" that was directed toward "everybody from the State, Dominion and Colonial Governments, Universities and Museums, to tardy reviewers and careless proof-correctors. There are few indeed who have not failed in their duty towards archaeology."[134]

Wheeler, who considered Crawford to be "one of my closest friends", claimed that that the latter was "an outspoken and uncompromising opponent" and a man who had a "boyish glee in calling the bluff of convention".[124] He added that Crawford exhibited the "divine impatience of the pioneer" and that he had an "inability to work in harness. If he joined a committee or a sodality, he did so only to resign at the first opportunity."[135] Piggott related his Crawford had encouraged his early investigations in archaeology, describing the latter as a mentor who "was encouraging, helpful, and unconventional: his racy outspoken criticism of what then passed for the archaeological Establishment was music to a schoolboy's ear".[136]

Reception and legacy

According to Hauser, at the time of his death Crawford had "acquired an almost mythical status among British archaeologists as the uncompromising – if eccentric – progenitor of them all."[115] In 1999, the archaeologist John Charlton referred to Crawford as "one of the pioneers of British archaeology this century",[137] while nine years later the archaeologist Neal Ascherson described him as "beyond question one of the great figures of the 'modern' generation which transformed British archaeological practice and its institutions between 1918 and — say — 1955."[130] Ascherson noted that Crawford's contributions to archaeology had little to do with archaeological theory and more to do with "the institutions and tools... which he bequeathed to his profession", including Antiquity.[130]

"When the history of British Archaeology comes to be written, it is safe to say that the name of O. G. S. Crawford will bulk more largely than the record of his own substantial achievements in research. He is likely to be remembered both as an innovator and even more for the stimulus he gave to others."

— Grahame Clark, 1951[138]

Crawford was recognised for his contributions to bringing archaeology to a wide sector of the British public. The archaeologist Caroline Malone stated that many viewed Crawford as "an 'amateur's' archaeologist, providing the means to publish and comment outside the restrictions of local journals and to offer a vision of a new and universal discipline".[123] The archaeologist Grahame Clark expressed the view that Crawford "always hankered to restore the flesh and blood and to make the past a reality to the living generation", and in doing so helped to attract a greater public audience for British archaeology than many of his colleagues.[138] Wheeler remarked that "he was our greatest archaeological publicist; he taught the world about scholarship, and scholars about one another."[135] Commenting on Crawford's editorship of Antiquity, Hawkes expressed the view that his "skill in steering between over-simplification and over-specialization has enabled the Magazine to succeed admirably in its role as go-between for experts and public."[139]

In the 21st century, his photographic archive stored at Oxford University's Institute of Archaeology was still consulted by archaeologists seeking to view how various sites appeared during the first half of the 20th century.[140] In 2008, Kitty Hauser's biography, Bloody Old Britain, was published. Reviewing her work for The Guardian, Glancey described it as "a truly fascinating and unexpected book".[131] Writing in Public Archaeology, Ascherson described it as "full of clever perception and sympathetic insight" but was critical of its lack of references and "occasional mistakes of fact".[141]

Bibliography

An anonymously assembled list of Crawford's publications up to 1948 was published in his 1951 festschrift.[142]

Year of publication Title Co-author(s) Publisher
1925 The Long Barrows of the Cotswolds  –
1928 Wessex from the Air  –
1928 Air Survey and Archaeology  –
1929 Air-Photography for Archaeologists  –
1948 A Short History of Nursling - H. W. Edwards
1949 Topography of Roman Scotland North of the Antonine Wall  –
1953 Archaeology in the Field -
1955 Said and Done: The Autobiography of an Archaeologist -
1957 The Eye Goddess -

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 Myres 1951, p. 2.
  2. ↑ Myres 1951, pp. 2–3.
  3. 1 2 3 Myres 1951, p. 3.
  4. 1 2 Myres 1951, p. 3; Hauser 2008, p. 1.
  5. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 1–2.
  6. ↑ Myres 1951, pp. 3–4; Hauser 2008, p. 1.
  7. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 4; Hauser 2008, p. 3.
  8. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 4; Hauser 2008, pp. 5–6.
  9. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 4; Hauser 2008, pp. 6–7.
  10. ↑ Myres 1951, pp. 4–5.
  11. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 5; Hauser 2008, pp. 7, 9–10.
  12. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 10–14.
  13. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 39.
  14. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 14–15.
  15. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 4; Hauser 2008, pp. 7–8.
  16. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 7–9.
  17. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 6; Hauser 2008, p. 16.
  18. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 15–16.
  19. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 18.
  20. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 22.
  21. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 6; Hauser 2008, p. 8.
  22. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 6.
  23. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 6; Hauser 2008, p. 23.
  24. ↑ Myres 1951, pp. 6–7; Hauser 2008, pp. 24–25.
  25. 1 2 3 Hauser 2008, p. 25.
  26. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 27–28.
  27. 1 2 3 Hauser 2008, p. 29.
  28. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 7; Hauser 2008, pp. 29, 33.
  29. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 29–30.
  30. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 33.
  31. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 35–36.
  32. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 44.
  33. 1 2 Myres 1951, p. 7; Hauser 2008, p. 38.
  34. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 38.
  35. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 40, 44.
  36. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 38, 46.
  37. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 49–50.
  38. 1 2 Myres 1951, pp. 7–8; Hauser 2008, p. 51.
  39. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 8; Hauser 2008, p. 52.
  40. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 8; Hauser 2008, p. 53.
  41. 1 2 Myres 1951, p. 9.
  42. 1 2 Hauser 2008, p. 53.
  43. ↑ Trigger 2006, p. 242.
  44. 1 2 Myres 1951, p. 8; Hauser 2008, p. 54.
  45. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 57.
  46. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 59.
  47. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 60.
  48. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 65, 67.
  49. 1 2 Hauser 2008, p. 72.
  50. ↑ Piggott 1976, p. 185; Hauser 2008, p. 60.
  51. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 62–63.
  52. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 70.
  53. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 70–71.
  54. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 73–74.
  55. ↑ Charlton 1999; Hauser 2008, pp. 74, 222.
  56. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 78.
  57. 1 2 Hauser 2008, p. 82.
  58. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 90.
  59. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 78–79.
  60. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 80.
  61. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 12; Hauser 2008, p. 80.
  62. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 13; Hauser 2008, p. 102.
  63. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 11; Hauser 2008, pp. 72, 92.
  64. ↑ Jim Cole; Tony Stankus (25 February 2014). Journals of the Century. Routledge. pp. 146–. ISBN 978-1-317-72014-0.
  65. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 94–95.
  66. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 95.
  67. ↑ Hawkes 1951, p. 172; Hauser 2008, p. 72.
  68. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 71.
  69. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 92.
  70. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 111–112.
  71. 1 2 Hauser 2008, p. 102.
  72. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 141.
  73. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 102–103.
  74. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 103.
  75. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 105–106.
  76. ↑ Green 1981, pp. 49–50; Hauser 2008, pp. 110, 172.
  77. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 204.
  78. 1 2 Hauser 2008, p. 109.
  79. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 134.
  80. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 130.
  81. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 116–118.
  82. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 121, 123.
  83. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 118–119, 137.
  84. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 171.
  85. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 175–177.
  86. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 167–169.
  87. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 179–182.
  88. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 185–186.
  89. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 216–217.
  90. 1 2 Hauser 2008, p. 215.
  91. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 215–216.
  92. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 214–215.
  93. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 189.
  94. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 190–195.
  95. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 206–210.
  96. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 189–190.
  97. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 211.
  98. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 224.
  99. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 225–228.
  100. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 228–229.
  101. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 229.
  102. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 231–232.
  103. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 232.
  104. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 233.
  105. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 241.
  106. 1 2 3 Hauser 2008, p. 253.
  107. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 250–251.
  108. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 246.
  109. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 245–250.
  110. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 252.
  111. ↑ Myres 1951, p. 17; Hauser 2008, p. 253.
  112. 1 2 3 Hauser 2008, p. 254.
  113. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 255–257.
  114. ↑ Hutton 2013, p. 72.
  115. 1 2 Hauser 2008, p. 257.
  116. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 255.
  117. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 260.
  118. ↑ Waales & Forbes 1953, p. 110.
  119. ↑ Waales & Forbes 1953, p. 115.
  120. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 259.
  121. 1 2 3 Hauser 2008, p. 261.
  122. 1 2 3 4 5 Hauser 2008, p. 258.
  123. 1 2 Malone 2002, p. 1074.
  124. 1 2 Wheeler 1958, p. 3.
  125. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 164, 258.
  126. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 87, 258.
  127. ↑ Charlton 1999; Hauser 2008, p. 228.
  128. ↑ Hauser 2008, pp. 258–259.
  129. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 135.
  130. 1 2 3 4 Ascherson 2008, p. 139.
  131. 1 2 Glancey 2008.
  132. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 75.
  133. ↑ Piggott 1976, p. 186.
  134. ↑ Hawkes 1951, p. 171.
  135. 1 2 Wheeler 1958, p. 4.
  136. ↑ Piggott 1976, p. 185.
  137. ↑ Charlton 1999.
  138. 1 2 Clark 1951, p. 49.
  139. ↑ Hawkes 1951, p. 172.
  140. ↑ Hauser 2008, p. 151.
  141. ↑ Ascherson 2008, p. 142.
  142. ↑ Anon 1951, pp. 382–386.

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Further reading

McGregor, A., 'An aerial relic of O.G.S. Crawford', Antiquity 74, 283 (2000) 87-100.

Siehe Jo Anne van Tilburg: O. G. S. Crawford and the Mana Expedition to the Easter Island (Rapa Nui), 1913-15. In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 111, 2002, S. 65-78

External links

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