John Leland (or Leyland; 1503-52) was appointed King’s Antiquarian in 1533 and authorised by Henry VIII (56; r.1509-47) to access the libraries of cathedrals, abbeys, priories and any other places where records were stored. Leland travelled to many places including Somerset (1533), York (1534) and St Albans (1535). Many documents were saved that otherwise would have been lost during the dissolution of the monasteries (1536-41). In 1539 he began travelling England and Wales again, this time to visit and describe ancient monuments. But he became insane in 1550 and died two years later.
In 1577 William Camden (1551-1623) began his Britannia (1586), a study that relates landscape, geography, antiquarianism and history. He wanted to show how the traces of the past could be discerned in the existing landscape. Camden did not simply accept older authorities unquestioningly, but travelled throughout Britain looking at documents, sites and artefacts for himself. His first-hand research set new standards for the time. He even learned Welsh and Old English for the task.
John Aubrey (1626-97) is recognised as the first person to realise the true importance of the megalithic remains at Avebury, which he came across whilst he was out fox-hunting in 1649. Plans of Avebury and Stonehenge are included in his Monumenta Britannica (1982). At Stonehenge, Aubrey noted the shallow pits now known to be postholes and have been named the Aubrey Holes.
While still a student, William Stukeley (1687-1765) made summer expeditions across the English countryside describing and drawing historical artefacts. He realised the importance of accurate records in the preservation of information about the past and published the results of his travels in his Itinerarium Curiosum (1724). He became the first secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1718. His field activities included excavations at Stonehenge and Avebury. He was the first to note the solstice alignments at Stonehenge but mistaken in his belief that the monument was built by the druids
For over a decade Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) and William Cunnington (1754-1810) surveyed, excavated and classified the finds from ancient barrows and earthworks around Salisbury Plain. They published their findings in a book called Ancient Wiltshire (1812-21). Hoare dedicated the volume to Cunnington who had developed the methods of excavation and supervised most of the digging.
General Augustus Pitt-Rivers (1827-1900) was born Augustus Henry Lane Fox but he inherited an estate from his great uncle and adopted the name Pitt-Rivers in his honour. By the time of his retirement from his career in the army he had amassed a huge collection of ethnographical items from all over the world. He arranged them chronologically and typologically in order to highlight the cultural trend in these human artefacts. In 1880 he inherited the Cranborne Chase estate in Dorset, which contained many archaeological sites. He had a meticulous approach to excavation and was interested in recording all finds on a given site – not just the most spectacular. From 1882 he served as Britain’s first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, charged with cataloguing archaeological sites and protecting them from destruction.
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