Mr. R. A. Smith

Abstract

MR. REGINALD ALLENDER SMITH, who retires from the office of keeper of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities of the British Museum (Blooms-bury) on January 4, has held that appointment since 1928. Mr. Smith had had a long period of previous service in the Department as assistant keeper, entering it when, under the late Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Hercules Read, it still included the exhibits in ethnography. Although the whole field of British prehistoric archæology lies within the range of Mr. Smith's expert knowledge, it is more particularly on the palæolithic period and the Iron Age that he is regarded as of the highest authority, and that on certain classes of disputed questions his judgment has been in a sense a court of final appeal. Of the official guides and other publications of the British Museum, of which Mr. Smith is sole or part author, the catalogue of the Sturge collection of stone implements is perhaps of the most enduring value to the student. Mr. Smith is not only the author of a large number of the archaeological chapters in the various volumes of the "Victorian History of the Counties of England", but he has also made numerous valuable and authoritative contributions to the literature of archaeology in the pages of learned and scientific publications dealing with the subject, more especially those published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, of which society he has acted as secretary and for some years past has been the director.