Augustus Pitt Rivers

Infobox Scientist
name = Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers
birth_date = 14 April, 1827
birth_place = Bramham cum Oglethorpe, Wetherby, Yorkshire
death_date = 4 May, 1900
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nationality = English
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field = ethnologist, and archaeologist
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Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (14 April, 1827 – 4 May, 1900) was an English army officer, ethnologist, and archaeologist. He was noted for his innovations in archaeological methods, and in the museum display of archaeological and ethnological collections.

Born Augustus Henry Lane Fox at Bramham cum Oglethorpe, Wetherby, Yorkshire on 14 April 1827, he was the son of William Lane Fox and Lady Caroline Douglas, a sister of George Douglas, 17th Earl of Morton. Educated at the Royal Military College Sandhurst and commissioned into the Grenadier Guards, Lane Fox had a long and successful military career, primarily as a staff officer; he served in the Crimea as a lieutenant. He retired in 1882 as a Lieutenant-General. Two years before retirement, Lane Fox inherited the estates of a cousin: Henry Pitt, Baron Rivers and consequently the remainder of the fabulous Richard Rigby fortune. He thereafter adopted the surname Pitt Rivers in honour of his benefactor. Three notable descendants of Augustus are his grandson, the anthropologist and eugenicist, George Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, his great-grandson, the anthropologist and ethnographer, Julian Alfred Lane Pitt-Rivers, and his great-great-grandson, William Speed Lane Fox-Pitt, the equestrian.

Pitt Rivers' interests in archaeology and ethnology began in the 1850s, during postings overseas, and he became a noted scientist while he was still a serving military officer. He was elected, in the space of five years, to the Ethnological Society of London (1861), the Society of Antiquaries of London (1864) and the Anthropological Society of London (1865). 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. This style of arrangement, designed to highlight the evolutionary trends in human artefacts, was a revolutionary innovation in museum design. Pitt Rivers' ethnological collections today form the basis of the Pitt Rivers Museum which is still one of Oxford's leading attractions.

The estates that Pitt Rivers inherited in 1880 contained a wealth of archaeological material from the Roman and Saxon periods. He excavated these over seventeen seasons, beginning in the mid-1880s and ending with his death. His approach was highly methodical by the standards of the time, and he is widely regarded as the first scientific archaeologist to work in Britain. His most important methodological innovation was his insistence that "all" artefacts, not just beautiful or unique ones, be collected and catalogued. This focus on everyday objects as the key to understanding the past broke decisively with past archaeological practice, which had often verged on treasure hunting. It is Pitt Rivers' most important, and most lasting scientific legacy. Moreover his work inspired Mortimer Wheeler among others to add to the scientific approach of archaeological excavation techniques.

Pitt Rivers created the Larmer Tree Gardens, a public pleasure garden, on the Rushmore estate near Tollard Royal.

From 1882 Pitt Rivers served as Britain's first Inspector of Ancient Monuments: a post created by anthropologist and parliamentarian John Lubbock who was married to 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.

References

* Bowden, Mark (1984) "General Pitt Rivers: The father of scientific archaeology". Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. 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) " [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/past/past34.html#pittrivers Lieutenant-General A.H.L.F. Pitt Rivers] ", "Past" - Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society, 34 (April)
* Thompson, M.W. (1977) "General Pitt Rivers: Evolution and archaeology in the nineteenth century". Bradford-on-Avon : Moonraker Press. ISBN 0-239-00162-1

External links

* [http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/ The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford]
* [http://www.salisburymuseum.org.uk/galleries/index.php?Action=2&obID=10 The Pitt Rivers Galleries at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum]
* [http://history.prm.ox.ac.uk/collector_pittrivers.html Pitt Rivers Museum biography of Pitt Rivers]