Fox, Sir Cyril Fred (1882-1967), archaeologist and museum director

Person

Fox, Sir Cyril Fred (1882-1967), archaeologist and museum director

16 December 1882 - 15 January 1967

Cyril Fox was born in Chippenham, Wiltshire, on 16 December 1882, the first son of Charles Frederick Fox, a bank official, and his wife, Henrietta Maria Paul. His family moved to the Isle of Wight when he was a boy and he was educated at Christ's Hospital and then in London (1895–8). Illness led to him leaving school at sixteen to take up market gardening in Worthing, Sussex. In Sussex he met a Cambridge bacteriologist, Louis Cobbett, who obtained for him a position as a clerk at the bovine tuberculosis research station in Stansted, Essex. This institution moved to Cambridge in 1912. After the war he returned to the research station as superintendent of its field laboratories, but post-war reorganisation made his future there uncertain, and at thirty-six he changed to archaeology as a career.

Fox gained entry to Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1919, as a part-time student of archaeology, at first reading for the English tripos, and was much encouraged by Professor H. M. Chadwick, who had him transferred to work for a PhD. In 1923 his thesis was published as The Archaeology of the Cambridge Region. This was a landmark in archaeological thinking, and gave Fox an immediate standing among scholars. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in the same year, and was appointed to an assistantship in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge. He was elected to the Kingsley Bye Fellowship at Magdalene in 1924.

In 1924 he was nominated keeper of the National Museum of Ireland, but the electors' choice was not confirmed at a higher level and instead a German archaeologist, Walter Bremer, was appointed. Fox then applied for the keepership of archaeology at the National Museum of Wales. In 1926, he became director, and guided the affairs of the National Museum of Wales until his retirement in 1948. Fox's time as director saw great developments and he succeeded in unifying the regional and local museums of the principality by affiliation to the National Museum.

Fox served with distinction on public bodies such as the royal commissions on ancient and historical monuments in Wales and in England, and on the Ancient Monuments Board of the Ministry of Works. He also continued his field studies and publishing works.

1934 - president of the Museums Association.
1935 - knighted for his services to museums.
1940 - elected fellow of the British Academy.
1944-1949 - served as president of the Society of Antiquaries of London was awarded the society's gold medal in 1952.
1947 - an honorary DLitt of Wales.
1952 - an honorary fellow of Magdalene.

On 6 May 1916 Fox married Olive, daughter of Arthur Congreve-Pridgeon, vicar of Steyning in Sussex. She was drowned off the Gower peninsula in 1932. They had two daughters, Helen Felicity, an art critic, and Penelope Eames, the author of a work on medieval furniture (1977).
On 6 July 1933 he married his second wife, Aileen Mary Henderson, an active archaeologist, daughter of Walter Scott Henderson, solicitor, of Surrey. They worked together in the field. He retired to Exeter, where she held a position of university lecturer in archaeology. They had three sons.
Fox died at the Cranford Nursing Home, Cranford Avenue, Exmouth, Devon, on 15 January 1967.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography