Sir Charles Hercules Read (6 July 1857 – 11 February 1929) was a British archaeologist and curator who became Keeper of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, and President of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

, following his mentor

Augustus Wollaston Franks Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (20 March 182621 May 1897) was a British antiquarian and museum administrator. Franks was described by Marjorie Caygill, historian of the British Museum, as "arguably the most important collector in the history of ...

in the first position in 1896, and in the second from 1908 to 1914 and again from 1919 to 1924, after being Secretary since 1892. He began periods as President of the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

of Great Britain and Ireland in 1899 and 1917. He was knighted in 1912 and retired from the British Museum in 1921. He usually dropped the "Charles" in his name, especially after he was knighted, though not consistently. "A man of handsome and even striking appearance", he was a major figure in British museum curation in his day, though he published relatively little.

Career

Read was privately educated, with no university degree before he received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

in 1908. His first museum job was as secretary to a senior curator at the South Kensington Museum, now the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, where he came to know Franks. Franks then used him to work on the registration of the important collection of

Ice Age art The art of the Upper Paleolithic represents the oldest form of prehistoric art. Figurative art is present in prehistoric Europe, Europe and Prehistoric Indonesia, Southeast Asia, beginning between about 40,000 to 35,000 years ago. Non-figura ...

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

and other objects of

Henry Christy Henry Christy (26 July 1810 – 4 May 1865) was an English banker and collector, who left his substantial collections to the British Museum. Early life Christy was born at Kingston upon Thames, the second son of William Miller Christy of Woodbi ...

, which were then kept in a flat in Victoria Street, and of which Franks was a trustee. Much of the collection ended up in the British Museum under the terms of Christy's will. In 1880 he joined the British Museum itself as Franks' assistant, marrying the same year. As Keeper he was responsible for beginning the publication of catalogues, guides, books and booklets that brought awareness of the collections to a wider public. He employed the Oxford graduate

Thomas Athol Joyce Thomas Athol Joyce OBE FRAI (4 August 1878 – 3 January 1942) was a British anthropologist. He became an acknowledged expert on American and African Anthropology at the British Museum. He led expeditions to excavate Maya sites in British Hond ...

as an assistant in 1903. In his time the department of "British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography" still included areas that were later split off, such as

and "oriental" collections beyond Egypt and the

Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

, as well as others not obviously covered by its title, including Western ceramics and glass of all dates, and post-medieval European objects. At his retirement, this sprawling empire began to be divided. Read was notable for his knowledge across this vast range, rather than being a specialist in particular areas. Like Franks, he was popular with major collectors, helping to steer several significant donations to the museum, from J. Pierpont Morgan among others. A rare excursion into archaeological excavation was his supervision of the excavation of the royal Anglo-Saxon cemetery at

Highdown Hill Highdown Hill is a hill in the South Downs, with a height of . The summit of the hill and its western slopes lie in the parish of Ferring in the Arun district, while its eastern slopes lie in the borough of Worthing. It is a popular spot for pi ...

in Sussex in the 1890s, which even by the standards of that date was not a model of best practice. One unfortunate episode was his advice to the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

to decline the loan of the Anglo-Saxon

Fuller Brooch The Fuller Brooch is an Anglo-Saxon silver and niello brooch dated to the late 9th century, which is now in the British Museum, where it is normally on display in Room 41. The elegance of the engraved decoration depicting the Five Senses, high ...

, which he wrongly believed to be a modern fake; after his day it was bought by the British Museum.

Death

His health deteriorated after his retirement, and he spent the winters on the Riviera, dying in

Rapallo Rapallo ( , , ) is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, located in the Liguria region of northern Italy. As of 2017 it had 29,778 inhabitants. It lies on the Ligurian Sea coast, on the Tigullio Gulf, between Portofino and Chiavar ...

, Italy on 11 February 1929.Tonnochy, 86 He was buried in the Cimitero Urbano.

Publications

(selected) * *''The

Waddesdon Bequest In 1898, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bequeathed to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest the contents from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of a wide-ranging collection of almost 300 ''objets d'art et de vertu ...

: Catalogue of the Works of Art bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898'', 1902, British Museum, Fully available on the Internet archive The catalogue numbers here are still used, and may be searched for on the BM website as "WB.1" etc. *''The Royal Gold Cup of the Kings of France and England, now preserved in the British Museum''. ''

Vetusta Monumenta ''Vetusta Monumenta'' is the title of a published series of illustrated antiquarian papers on ancient buildings, sites and artefacts, mostly those of Britain, published at irregular intervals between 1718 and 1906 by the Society of Antiquaries o ...

'' Volume 7, part 3, 1904, the first publication of the

Royal Gold Cup The Royal Gold Cup or Saint Agnes Cup is a solid gold covered cup lavishly decorated with enamel and pearls. It was made for the French royal family at the end of the 14th century, and later belonged to several English monarchs before spending ...

Notes

References

*"Burlington": Sir Hercules Read,

The Burlington Magazine ''The Burlington Magazine'' is a monthly publication that covers the fine and decorative arts of all periods. Established in 1903, it is the longest running art journal in the English language. It has been published by a charitable organisation sin ...

(no author given), Vol. 54, No. 312 (Mar. 1929), pp. 153–154
JSTOR
* Balfour, Henry, Obituary ''Sir Charles Hercules Read, 6 July 1857 – 11 February 1929'', ''Man'' (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland), Vol. 29, (Apr. 1929), pp. 61–62
JSTOR
*Tonnochy, A. B., ''Four Keepers of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities'', ''The British Museum Quarterly'', Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep. 1953), pp. 83–88
JSTOR

External links

3 photographs online
at the National Portrait Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Charles 1857 births 1929 deaths British archaeologists Employees of the British Museum English antiquarians English art historians Knights Bachelor Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Presidents of the Society of Antiquaries of London Fellows of the British Academy Presidents of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Fellows of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland