Augustus Pitt Rivers | |
---|---|
Born |
Augustus Henry Lane-Fox 14 April 1827 Bramham cum Oglethorpe, Wetherby, Yorkshire, UK |
Died | 4 May 1900 Rushmore Estate, Wiltshire, UK |
(aged 73)
Nationality | English |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Ethnology, archaeology |
Influenced | Mortimer Wheeler |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ |
British Army |
Years of service | 1845–1882 |
Rank | Lieutenant general |
Battles/wars |
Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers (14 April 1827 – 4 May 1900) was an English officer in the British Army, ethnologist, and archaeologist. He was noted for innovations in archaeological methodology, and in the museum display of archaeological and ethnological collections. His international collection of about 22,000 objects was the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford while his collection of English archaeology from the area around Stonehenge forms the basis of the collection at The Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire.
Throughout most of his life he used the surname Lane Fox, under which his early archaeological reports are published. In 1880 he adopted the Pitt Rivers name on inheriting from Lord Rivers (a cousin) an estate of more than 32,000 acres in Cranborne Chase.
Born Augustus Henry Lane-Fox at Bramham cum Oglethorpe near Wetherby in Yorkshire, he was the son of William Lane-Fox and Lady Caroline Douglas, sister of George Douglas, 17th Earl of Morton. The politicians George Lane-Fox and Sackville Lane-Fox were his uncles.
In 1880, Lane-Fox inherited the estates of his cousin, Horace Pitt-Rivers, 6th Baron Rivers and with it the remainder of the Richard Rigby fortune. It was "an event that transformed his life." He was required to adopt the surname Pitt-Rivers as part of the bequest. On 3 February 1853, Pitt-Rivers (still under the surname Fox) married The Honourable Alice Margaret Stanley (1828–1910), daughter of the politician Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley and of the women's education campaigner Henrietta Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley.