Reginald Allender Smith Explained

Reginald Allender Smith (1873 – 18 January 1940) was an archaeologist of Palaeolithic to late Anglo-Saxon materials.^[1] He was Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum from 1927-1938, and authored several books and British Museum catalogues.^[2]

Smith attended University College, Oxford. He was first appointed to a job at the British Museum in 1898, and was succeeded by T D Kendrick upon his retirement from the role of Keeper. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1903, serving as vice president from 1926 to 1929 and as director from 1929 to 1940.

He was on the side of the skeptics during the inquiry as to whether or not Piltdown man was genuine, known for having offered a single line of testimony concerning a "bone implement" purported to be a tool. He remarked simply, it was reported, on "the possibility of the bone having been found and whittled in recent times."^[3]

Selected publications

• Smith . Reginald Allender . Reginald Allender Smith . 1907–1909 . Notes on Bronze Hanging-Bowls and Enamelled Mounts . Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London . Society of Antiquaries . 2nd series . XXII . 63–86 .
• A Guide to the Antiquities of Roman Britain in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1922.
• British Museum Guide to Anglo-Saxon Antiquities. British Museum. Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities, 1923. Reprinted: Ipswich, Suffolk: Anglia Pub., 1993.
• . London: British Museum, 1928.

Notes and References

1. News: Obituaries. 20 January 1940. The Times. 14 February 2019. 9.
2. L. E. T.. April 1940. Reginald Allender Smith: died 18th January 1940. The Antiquaries Journal. 20. 2. 291–293. 10.1017/S0003581500009732. 1758-5309. free.
3. Quoted in Charles Dawson and A. Smith Woodward, "On a Bone Implement from Piltdown (Sussex)." Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society Vol 71 (1915, p. 144). See also Joseph Sidney Weiner and Chris Stringer's . Oxford University Press, 2003. p.50.