Humphrey Case

The following obituary was contributed by our Fellow Arthur MacGregor.

Humprey John Case, who died on 13 June 2009 at the age of 91, will be remembered professionally for contributions to the study of prehistory – particularly that of England, Ireland and France – made during a long career at the Ashmolean Museum.

He was born at Frome on 26 May 1918 into a family in the leather trade, and although the business survived until comparatively recently, with Case acting as its chairman in later years, his career-path lay elsewhere. After Charterhouse and St John’s College, Cambridge, where he read English, he saw war service from 1939 to 1946 and was commissioned into the Somerset Light Infantry. A peacetime post in the Board of Trade failed to engage his commitment and in 1947 he enrolled in the diploma course at the Institute of Archaeology in London, where Gordon Childe was a major influence.

In 1949 he was appointed an Assistant Keeper at the Ashmolean, at the time a centre for regional archaeological fieldwork; the combination of field research and object-based studies perfectly suited Case’s abilities. While redisplaying and cataloguing the collections, he undertook and published a wide series of excavations on sites dating from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age and extending as far as Ireland and France. Later he would be much against changes in national policy that saw the Ashmolean sidelined in its excavating role and as the principal repository for finds from the Oxford region, but he remained influential as Deputy Chairman of the Oxfordshire and the Upper Thames Archaeological Committees, and he also played an major role in the creation of the Oxford Archaeological Unit.

His wide field experience and knowledge of museum collections in the British Isles and on the Continent provided him with the basis of a number of thought-provoking papers.  Neolithic Explanations, published in 1969, sought to bring precision to the concepts of colonization, invasion, immigration and cultural influence much bandied about by prehistorians of the day. His devotion to the Neolithic - and, in particular, to the crucial and enigmatic period of Beaker usage in Britain and in Europe - is witnessed in his extensive bibliography. His most substantial work was Settlement Patterns in the Oxford Region, co-produced with Alasdair Whittle in 1982 and presenting the work of numerous excavators whose work over the previous thirty years had failed to see the light of day: one reviewer described it as ‘a staggering achievement to have salvaged so much of lasting value from these difficult formative years of British rescue archaeology’ and singled out Case’s introductory essay as ‘of characteristic stimulation and verve’.

Another enduring interest was heralded with an important survey paper written with H H Coghlan on ‘Early metallurgy of copper in Ireland and Britain’. At the last, Case continued to work on a project on the Copper Age in Ireland, an investigation first recommended to him at the outset of his career by Childe. His achievements were recognized by election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; he served for a time on the Society’s Council, on the Council (sometime Vice President) of the Prehistoric Society, and on influential working groups, such as the Bronze Age Forum and the Neolithic Studies Group.

He taught widely within his university and examined for numerous others throughout Britain and Ireland. The student population with whom he came into contact at Oxford remember him as endlessly encouraging and supportive. Following the Archaeological Society’s excavations at Madmarston, Case played a discreet but extensive role in shaping and editing the final texts for publication, in the process introducing several figures who would later rise to prominent positions to the exigencies of report writing. He was no less accommodating to visiting scholars of whatever degree of distinction, and even gave encouragement to those still at school; his generosity with time, facilities and advice is remembered with gratitude.

Somewhat reserved and precise by nature, with an almost exaggerated courtesy, his words were carefully chosen; he deplored what he termed the ‘rotund prose’ that characterized so much archaeological writing, but he had a waspish and infections humour that he enjoyed mobilizing in the face of any display of pretension. He was a man of resolute opinions, delivered with authority but in a quiet, almost diffident manner. He championed his department (of which he was appointed keeper in 1973) alongside three fellow departmental keepers, over whose private fiefdoms the university appointed David Piper as the museum’s first director in 1973. Within the museum, Case ran a tight ship and little escaped his notice: it was his custom to pace his departmental territory every morning, casting a keen eye on any curatorial lapses among his junior colleagues and, when necessary, pointing out the error of their ways.

In 1976 he married his third wife Jo, with whom he settled in Warborough, Oxfordshire, continuing an active life there following his retirement in 1983. Together they surveyed hedges for the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, for which Case became the county chairman. He also chaired his local amenity society and was vigorously involved in the public consultation process concerning the proposed route of the M40 and the landscaping of the prehistoric sites at Avebury and Stonehenge. With accustomed quiet authority, he led the responses following a recent lecture on Stonehenge at the Society of Antiquaries. He is survived by Jo, his two sons, three step-children and a number of grandchildren, all of whom brought him a great deal of joy.

The following obituary, by our late Fellow, Paul Ashbee, first appeared in the Guardian on 18 September 2009.

Humphrey Case, who has died aged 91, was a prehistorian and archaeologist whose pursuit of the subject, in the field and at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford – where he was keeper of antiquities from 1973 to 1982 – set a pattern for a generation. An authority on the Beaker culture – the Neolithic people characterised by their bell-shaped ceramic vessels – he was insistent on the nature of archaeological evidence and often critical of the many who impose their sometimes perverse notions on it.

Case was born in Frome, Somerset, and educated at Charterhouse and St John's College, Cambridge, where he read history. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was commissioned into the Somerset Light Infantry. Although reticent about his war experiences, he told me that he was stationed in Gibraltar, where he patrolled the frontier with Spain and tried to catch Italian mini-submarines creeping in to attack shipping.

After demobilisation in 1946, he took the postgraduate diploma of prehistoric archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, London University, where I met him in 1949. That year, Mortimer Wheeler, fresh from India, organised a summer excavation school at St Albans, Hertfordshire, with his Maiden Castle team. Here, Humphrey and I found ourselves digging together and, later, we graduated to site planners. A friendship evolved and, across the years, we met and discussed our activities and ideas.

In September 1949, Humphrey was appointed Assistant Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean. He progressed to deputy keeper and then keeper. Visitors to Oxford never found him in an office but always in the galleries working in cases, notably the many Palaeolithic hand-axes from the classic gravel exposures of the 19th century. He was tireless in his collation and presentation of the collections and became a revered personality.

At the same time, he directed significant, often intricate, excavations, principally of Neolithic sites in England, Ireland and France. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1954 and was vice-president of the Prehistoric Society from 1969 to 1973. Here, he was criticised for securing the cancellation of a planned conference of the society in Cork because of his perceptions of the political troubles in Northern Ireland.

Down the years, Humphrey was asked to write books on his areas of specialist knowledge such as the Neolithic Beakers and the late Neolithic, but he remained adamant that journals were the place for detailed undertakings. His remarkable series of papers began with the narrative 'Abingdon Ware' (1955) and he then reconsidered the 'Neolithic Causewayed Camp at Abingdon, Berkshire '(1956), which had previously been only partially published. This was followed by 'Neolithic Explanations' (1969).

The Beakers were a great interest as they may have been the initial metallurgists in the British Isles. In 1954 he considered Irish and British early copper artefacts and, in 1965, tin-bronze with Bell-Beaker associations. This work was a prelude for his notion that the Beakers had introduced metallurgy to Ireland from other parts of Europe.

His work in Northern Ireland would make a handsome monograph. How Humphrey's almost fervid interest in Ireland came about is far from clear, although an under-populated countryside and the many ancient land-patterns may have interested him. He defined 'Neolithic Settlement Patterns in the North Irish Neolithic' (1969) and, with others - including G W Dimbleby and G F Mitchell - determined patterns from Neolithic times until today. He also wrote the papers 'Irish Neolithic Pottery: Distribution and Sequence '(1961) and 'Foreign Connections in the Irish Neolithic' (1963).

His publication activities lessened as his responsibilities at the Ashmolean increased, although he was still able to write numerous notes and reviews. Many felt that he should have been the President of the Prehistoric Society but, after his earlier experiences with the society, he adroitly avoided such offices.

Humphrey had a happy home life. His first marriage, which took place in 1942, went the way of many wartime liaisons. He found great happiness with Jean Orr, whom he married in 1949 and with whom he had two sons, and, after their divorce, with Jocelyn Herickx, whom he married in 1979.

In later life he did not lose touch with the details of European prehistory, and continued to write papers, including 'Beakers: Deconstruction and After' (1993), and a contribution to the 1998 colloquium Bell Beakers. He remained a more than competent draughtsman, an omnivorous reader, and was fond of music, gardening and plant propagation.

He is survived by Jocelyn and his two sons, and by a stepson and two stepdaughters.