Wilts Obituary. 81 
necessary, and probably no more fortunate occurrence for archeology in 
this country has ever occurred than the inheritance by Major-General 
Lane-Fox (as he then was) of the thirty-one thousand acres of the 
Rushmore estates of Lord Rivers, on the borders of Dorset and Wilts. 
He was even then known as one of the foremost anthropologists of the day 
(he was for many years President of the Anthropological Institute), and 
he had already formed the magnificent collection illustrating the evolution 
of dress, of ornament, and more especially of implements and weapons, 
and the analogy between the implements of prehistoric peoples and those 
used by uncivilised tribes at the present day, which was exhibited in 1874 
at the Bethnal Green Museum, and was subsequently presented to the 
Oxford University Museum, where a special annexe was built to contain 
it. For such a man Rushmore was an ideal property--an immense 
acreage, of which a large proportion had been included in the uncultivated 
downs and wild woods of Cranborne Chase, untouched for the most part 
by the plough since the times of the Roman occupation, when the 
population on these heights must have been considerably greater than it is 
at present. Here, on his own property, were barrows and dykes, camps 
and the sites of settlements waiting for the spade of the explorer, and 
from 1881, when he began the work, the spade was never idle up to the 
time of his death. Immense sums, he said, were spent on excavations 
in Assyria, in Egypt, in Palestine, in Rome, whilst the evidences of the 
early history of our own country were neglected as not worth the trouble 
of unearthing. He determined to devote the remainder of his life towards 
remedying that defect so far as his own property was concerned; and he 
succeeded. In the four quarto volumes, which he printed privately 
between 1887 and 1898 he has given us a picture of the village life of the 
country people of this part of England during the later years of the 
Roman occupation and afterwards such as certainly is not to be found 
elsewhere. Their dwellings, their implements, and weapons, their ways 
of life, and the kinds of cattle that they kept, as well as the manner of 
men that they themselves were, all this may be read in the volumes 
which the author gave away so lavishly wherever he really believed they 
would be appreciated, or seen in the cases of the museum which he 
established at Farnham, within four miles or so of Rushmore. In this 
museum, in addition to the large series of models already mentioned, 
and the objects found in his excavations, he had gathered a marvellous 
collection specially illustrative of peasant industries, costume, and 
ornament, from all parts of the world. Here are to be seen pottery of 
all ages and countries—primitive household utensils—personal ornaments 
and dress—rude agricultural implements and appliances—a whole 
collection illustrating the evolution of locks and keys—and every thing 
concerned with peasant life. To the end of his life he remained a 
voracious collector—of the things that appealed to him—and did not 
mind what he gave to secure them. In addition to the Farnham Museum 
he fitted up King John’s House, at Tollard Royal, as a sort of miniature 
South Kensington, and filled it with furniture, ornaments, and a series 
of pictures, beginning with mummy portraits from the Fayoum, and 
VOL. XXXI.—NO. XCIII. G 
