Archer Cust

{{Short description|British civil servant and art historian (1896–1962)}}

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{{Use British English|date=July 2017}}

File:ירושלים - חברי ועדת החקירה , משמאל - סנלל, מוריס סיר בטרטון הגברת בטרטון , קוסט וסיר שאו-JNF023076.jpeg 1929]]

Colonel Sir Lionel George Archer Cust {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CBE}} (6 June 1896 – 22 May 1962) was a British civil servant, art historian, and General Secretary of the Royal Empire Society.

He was the son of Sir Lionel Henry Cust, grandson of Henry Cockayne Cust, and great-grandson of Brownlow Cust, 1st Baron Brownlow and Francis Needham, 1st Earl of Kilmorey. He was educated at Eton and joined the Royal Artillery.{{cite book |title= Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knighthood|publisher=Burke's Peerage & Gentry |editor= Mosley, Charles |editor-link= Charles Mosley (genealogist) |edition=107 |year= 2003 |page=544 |ref=Burke |isbn=0-9711966-2-1}}

He received the OBE in 1939 and the CBE in 1954. He was knighted in 1959. He was a member of the Mandatory Palestine Civil Service from 1920-36. From December 1928 he was the Private Secretary to the High Commissioner of Palestine.Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, Number 232, 1 April 1939, page 265.

Cust is notable for authoring the best known summary of the Status quo of Holy Land sites in 1929: The Status Quo in the Holy Places.{{cite book|last1=Breger|first1=Marshall J.|last2=Reiter|first2=Yitzhak|last3=Hammer|first3=Leonard|title=Holy Places in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Confrontation and Co-existence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nROPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24|date=16 December 2009|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-26812-1|pages=24–}}

He was a cousin of Ronald Storrs.{{cite book|last=Cohen|first=Raymond|title=Saving the Holy Sepulchre: How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue their Holiest Shrine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T7KmnQ65XooC&pg=PA22|date=10 March 2008|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-971990-7|pages=22–}}