Courtnay Arthur Ralegh Radford, O.B.E., M.A., D.Litt., F.B.A.

Ralegh Radford was born on 7 November 1900 and was the Society’s senior Fellow in more respects than a mere seventy years inclusion in the Fellows List would indicate. He was a leading figure in twentieth-century European archaeology, though his influence was perhaps greater than his own achievement. Born in Hillingdon, Middlesex, the family’s roots were in the west country and they moved to the Manor at Bradninch, a splendid Jacobean house, when Radford was in his teens. He was the only son of Arthur Lock Radford, an authority on Devon rood screens and a noted collector of stained glass, who was elected a Fellow in 1904; two of Radford’s uncles, an aunt and a cousin were also Fellows, so it could be said that his antiquarian instincts were inherited along with the capital (amassed from coal) that enabled him to pursue his archaeological interests independently, though his distinction as a scholar secured the friendship and cooperation of the leading archaeologists of the day. Radford went up to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1918 and in 1919 attended Francis Haverfield’s last lecture before his sudden death, having first met him at the Glastonbury excavations with his father at the age of ten - one of Radford’s many links with nineteenth-century scholars. After assisting Charles Peers, then Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments, at Whitby Abbey Radford spent several years travelling in Europe, and studied at the British Schools at both Rome and Athens. At Rome he met the legendary Dr Thomas (Titus) Ashby, who had been the School’s first scholar in 1901 (when he was elected FSA) and Director from 1906. At home, Radford participated in excavations at Richborough, Kent, writing most of the Notes on the small objects in Bushe-Foxe’s Research Report, Excavations at the Roman Fort at Richborough, volume II, published by the Antiquaries in 1928. In 1929 he joined the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, Office of Works, and was appointed Inspector for Wales. He wrote a number of guides to sites in the Principality, all minutely researched, cogently expressed and reprinted repeatedly over thirty years, but his work on the fortified medieval manor house, Tretower Court, Breconshire, remains controversial. Essentially reconstruction rather than conservation it is frowned upon by heritage experts, though liked by the locals. In 1933 Radford began his excavations at Tintagel, which were to continue until the outbreak of war. The first edition of his official Guide to the site appeared in 1935 and the fourth in 1985, after which his conclusions were called into question. From the outset Radford adopted the Cornish historian Henry Jenner’s speculation as fact, i.e. that though the site might have started as a Roman or pre-Roman fortification it later became a religious establishment of Celtic saints or monks. This premise was reflected in interpretations of evidence from Tintagel for the next fifty years, but the development of aerial photography, a re-examination of pre-war finds deposited in a Department of the Environment store, and a fire on the island in 1983 which occasioned a detailed survey by RCHME, led younger archaeologists, notably Charles Thomas, Radford’s erstwhile disciple, to re-think the strengths and weaknesses of his conclusions. In 1936 Radford returned to Rome as Director of the British School but, since foreign-sponsored digs were banned by the Fascist regime, he was forced to leave Italy every summer to excavate elsewhere: Castle Dore, Tintagel, and on the hill-forts of northern France with Mortimer Wheeler. Lack of opportunity for excavation focused Radford’s mind on other matters; he raised funds for the completion, in 1938, of the south wing of the School’s Lutyens designed building, launched a new series of The Papers of the British School at Rome, introduced courses for teachers and, it is now postulated, probably worked for British intelligence on the side. Certainly, the wholesale burning of papers when the School was closed in 1939 lends credence to this theory. Radford escaped from the continent in the nick of time before the outbreak of war.With his friends OGS Crawford and Frederic Kenyon he had attended the international classical congress at Potsdam in late August 1939 and, with the last aeroplane to England gone, he and Kenyon had to travel by train to Milmo, ferry to Copenhagen and, after a week’s wait, a flight to England. Although technically still Director of the BSR, Radford worked during the war for the European Service of the BBC, the Air Ministry and, finally in 1943, as Chief Intelligence Officer in the Department of Psychological Warfare at Allied HQ in Algiers with the rank of staff colonel. He returned to Rome as deputy director of this department in June 1944 and also as Director of the School, which housed the Psychological Warfare Branch’s offices. The war over, Radford resigned from the School and was briefly employed as acting Secretary of the Welsh Royal Commission on Historical and Ancient Monuments from 1946-8; thereafter he worked independently. From 1949-51, and again in 1953, he excavated at Whithorn Priory, St Ninian’s Chapel and St Ninian’s Cave and began work at Glastonbury in 1951. Radford’s knowledge of the complex history of the place was unrivalled and the chroniclers’descriptions, which he knew by heart, were fully supported by the digs which continued with a few interruptions until 1964. James P.Carley and Lesley Abrams edited a collection of essays in honour of Radford’s ninetieth birthday entitled The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey (1991), the first publication devoted to the excavations and research on which Radford had stamped his authority although, regretably, he never published more than notes on the subject. Radford often called himself a Christian archaeologist and his gift for combining the interpretation of documentary and physical evidence was best seen in his work on the medieval church. His work at Whitby Abbey, Bangor Cathedral, St Paul’s, Jarrow, Bury St Edmunds Abbey and St Alkmund’s Church, Derby, as well as his more celebrated excavations, reflected this central research interest and begot his eightieth birthday Festschrift, The Early Church in Western Britain and Ireland, edited by Susan M. Pearce (1982). Radford was much in demand as a consultant. He was a member of the Ancient Monuments Board for England, 1936-74; for Wales, 1950-74 and for Scotland, 1964-74; the RCHM (Wales and Monmouth) 1935-46 and England, 1953-76 and Chairman of the National Monuments Record (England) Management Committee, 1974-76. He supported many learned societies and served as president of the Prehistoric Society, 1954-8; the Royal Archaeological Institute, 1960-3; the Cambrian Archaeological Association, 1960; and the Society for Medieval Archaeology, 1969-71. He was also president of the Standing Conference for Devon History in 1975, his involvement in the county dating from 1928 when the Devon Archaeological Society was founded. He was a member of its first executive committee from 1929, a vice-president and editor from 1932 and author of the first paper in the first issue of the Proceedings. Radford served as president of the Devon and Exeter Institution, 1950-62, as joint editor of the Devon and Cornwall Record Society through the late 1950s and 60s and, on his own doorstep, encouraged the formation of the Uffculme Local History Society. He was awarded an Hon.D.Litt. by the University of Exeter in 1973 and gave many of his personal collection of books to its library. Radford paid regular visits to London until well into old age. He stayed at the Athenaeum, whence he glided serenely and short-sightedly to Burlington House. He often held court in the library, free with knowledge from his capacious memory and wealth of experience, delivered in his thin, expressionless, clerical voice. His arguments were always expressed in perfectly turned sentences and his method of reviewing a book for Antiquaries Journal was a lesson in penetration, selection and despatch. Having read it already, he would collect the book in the morning and return it at five o’clock, together with his review, lean and lucid, written with a blunt pencil on scrap paper, but ready for publication (after typing, which he didn’t do). Radford served the Society well: vice-president in 1936-7, a member of Council in 1935, 1951 and 1970-1, benefactor of books to the library and original textiles and Kelmscott Press books to Kelmscott Manor (his grandfather and father having been friends of William Morris) and Gold Medallist in 1972. Presenting the Medal, Dr Nowell Myres said, `He has become almost the personification, the lar familiaris, as it were, of British antiquity, looking the part to perfection, and combining the best of its amateur and professional traditions with a total and tireless dedication to its study and promotion. …We honour him thus as a scholar of exceptional talent, wide-ranging knowledge, and originality of mind, who has given a lifetime of service to our subject, and we wish him many years of happy continuance in those beneficient activities which have proved of such great value for so long.’ Radford did, indeed, enjoy a happy continuance for another quarter of a century. He gave his Gold Medal to the University of Glasgow soon after he received it and, appropriately, always wore Wheeler’s Gold Medal, deposited in the Burlington House safe, at the Society’s dinners and parties, which he adorned and never failed to attend over many years. Although he valued the approbation of his peers, Radford had no time for official honours granted by the state. He made no mention in Who’s Who of his OBE for wartime service and many of his establishment friends welcomed the offer of the CBE, which Radford did not hesitate to refuse. Austere in appearance, Radford nevertheless enjoyed congenial company and some Fellows will remember his eightieth birthday dinner at the Athenaeum, to which he escorted a lady guest. When the time came, in his nineties, for him to enter a nursing home, his pills were washed down with dry sherry and he was consistently addressed by staff as `Dr Radford’ never, as in contemporary medical parlance, by his Christian name. Radford’s considerable estate was divided between the Antiquaries, the University of Exeter and the British School at Rome, and his papers are deposited with the Royal Commission at Swindon. The contents of his house, Culmcott, were sold after his death at auction at which the Society acquired a portrait of Arthur Lock Radford, FSA, by Seymour Lucas, which hangs in the Fellows Room. Although the Society’s share of the bequest was unconditional, the wish was expressed that money should be spent on Kelmscott and the Library. Thus, the connection of the Radford family with William Morris will continue and Ralegh Radford’s own delight in the books he read and the company he kept in the library will be commemorated. (He knew the layout of the library as well as the librarian did and could find books on his own subjects blindfold.) Radford died on 27 December 1998 and is buried at Uffculme.