Cyril Fox
{{Short description|British archaeologist (1882–1967)}}
{{for multi|the Newfoundland politician|Cyril J. Fox|the English mining engineer and geologist|Cyril Sankey Fox}}
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{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix = Sir
| name = Cyril Fox
| honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FSA|FBA|MRIA}}
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| image = Cyril Fox in 1946.jpg
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| caption = Fox in 1946
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1882|12|16}}
| birth_place = Chippenham, Wiltshire, England
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1967|01|15|1882|12|16}}
| death_place = Exeter, Devon, England
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| fields = Archaeology, museum director
| workplaces = National Museum of Wales
| spouse = {{marriage|Olive Congreve-Pridgeon|1916|1932|reason=died}}
{{marriage|Aileen Mary Henderson|1933}}
| children = 2 daughters, 3 sons
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Sir Cyril Fred Fox {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FSA|FBA|MRIA}} (16 December 1882Antiquaries Journal, Volume 47, Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 337 – 15 January 1967) was an English archaeologist and museum director.
Fox became keeper of archaeology at the National Museum of Wales, and subsequently served as director from 1926 to 1948. Many of his most notable achievements were collaborative. With his second wife, Aileen Fox, he surveyed and excavated several prehistoric monuments in Wales.Charles Scott-Fox Cyril Fox, Archaeologist Extraordinary Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2002. {{ISBN|1842170805}} With Iorwerth Peate, he established the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagans, and with Lord Raglan, he authored a definitive history of vernacular architecture, Monmouthshire Houses.
Early life
Sir Cyril Fred Fox was born in Chippenham, Wiltshire. He was educated at Christ's Hospital school.{{cite web|last1=National Library of Wales|title=Sir Cyril Fox Papers|url=http://arcw.llgc.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php?coll_id=78561&inst_id=1&term=Archaeology%20%7C%20Wales|website=Archives Wales|accessdate=6 September 2017|date=2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170906223517/http://arcw.llgc.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php?coll_id=78561&inst_id=1&term=Archaeology%20%7C%20Wales|archive-date=6 September 2017|url-status=dead}} His first job, at the age of 16, was as a gardener. He served as a clerk in a government commission on tuberculosis and then as director of a small research station in Cambridge. He moved to work part-time for the university's museum of archaeology and anthropology, and in 1919 was admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge, as a part-time student of archaeology, at first reading for the newly-founded English tripos. Spotted by Professor H. M. Chadwick, he was soon allowed to proceed straight to doctoral study, and in 1922 he completed a Ph.D thesis entitled Archaeology of the Cambridge Region.{{cite ODNB |title=Fox, Sir Cyril Fred (1882–1967), archaeologist and museum director |id=33230 |date=2009 }} This work was published under the same title in 1923, and met with immediate success, with his election to a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in the same year.
Career
File:Four Elms, 17 Heol Wen, Rhiwbina, Cardiff.png, Cardiff, carries a Blue plaque commemorating Fox’s occupancy]]
In 1922 Fox was appointed curator of archaeology at the National Museum of Wales by his close friend Mortimer Wheeler and in 1926 succeeded Wheeler as its director. He was additionally president of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 1944 to 1949, and concurrently the president of the Council of British Archaeology.{{cite web |title=Fox, Sir Cyril Fred, (1882–15 Jan. 1967), Hon. Fellow, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1953 |url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U51783 |website=Who Was Who |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=26 August 2024 |language=en |date=1 December 2007}}
He produced a remarkable range of publications. They include The Personality of Britain (1932), drawing attention to the differences between upland and lowland Britain; Offa's Dyke (1955), a seminal study of that great earthwork, and studies on Celtic Art, on the major discovery of early ironwork at Llyn Cerrig Bach in Anglesey; and Monmouthshire Houses, co-authored with Lord Raglan.
For his administrative and scholarly work he gained a wide range of honours, including a knighthood (1935) and Fellowship of the British Academy (1940). Together with his colleague Nash-Williams at the Museum of Wales, he collaborated with the artist Alan Sorrell on reconstruction drawings of the Roman excavations at Caerwent which were published in the Illustrated London News 1937–1942. Among other achievements, he worked with his colleague Iorwerth Peate on the development of what became in 1946, under Peate's curatorship, the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagans, near Cardiff (now the St Fagans National History Museum).Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig 1951–1970 (London 1997)National Welsh Biography (1951–1971)
Personal life
In 1916, Fox married his first wife, Olive Congreve-Pridgeon, with whom he had two daughters. The year after her death in 1932, he married Aileen Scott-Henderson, a fellow archaeologist. They had three sons.{{cite web|url=https://biography.wales/article/s2-FOX0-FRE-1882|title=Sir Cyril Fred Fox (1882–1967), Director of the National Museum of Wales, 1926–1948|publisher=Dictionary of Welsh Biography|access-date=27 December 2021}} The family lived at Four Elms, a house in Rhiwbina Garden Village, in the north of Cardiff from 1928 until Fox’s retirement in 1948.{{cite web|url=http://rhiwbinacivicsociety.org/RCS/Welcome.html|title=Fourth Blue plaque at 17, Heol Wen|publisher=Rhiwbina Civic Society|access-date=27 December 2021}} They then moved to Exeter, Devon, following Aileen’s appointment to a post at the University of Exeter. Fox died in 1967.{{cite news|url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/62957607/rhiwbina-living-issue-49|title=Rhiwbina's Blue Plaque Club|date=December 2019|work=Rhiwbina Living magazine|accessdate=27 December 2021}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-33230?rskey=MIx4Yw&result=1 Oxford DNB index entry]
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Category:English archaeologists
Category:Members of the Cambrian Archaeological Association
Category:People from Chippenham
Category:Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge
Category:People associated with Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales
Category:People educated at Christ's Hospital
Category:Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Category:Fellows of the British Academy