AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE LIFE OF A.D. PASSMORE 275 
barrow North of Sugar Hill around 1896 and 
finding skeletons: ‘. . . unfortunately I arrived too 
late to get the skull but brought away some of the 
bones’ (ADP unpublished, 6). His collecting efforts 
after only four years were impressive enough to be 
displayed during the forty-fifth general meeting of 
the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History 
Society, held at Swindon on 5-7 July, 1898: 
.. . Mr. Passmore’s collections of local antiquities, 
chiefly gathered within the last four years, show what 
can be done in a single locality by anyone who 
possesses the requisite amount of knowledge, 
patience, and perseverance, in saving and bringing 
together objects which would otherwise be lost or 
destroyed. The number of stone implements is large, 
and includes one or two small specimens of 
apparently Palaeolithic flints from the gravels near 
Swindon — a couple of ground axes of a hard green 
stone, a very rough long flint chisel in its buck’s-horn 
handle — and a ground celt perforated at the butt end 
for suspension — as well as a curious rough axe-head 
of sarsen — and an object like a gigantic bead some 6 
or 7 inches in diameter formed from a dark volcanic 
stone full of holes — all of which were found in the 
neighbourhood of Swindon. There were two or three 
cases filled with the Samian and other pottery, the 
painted wall plaster, and other remains from the 
Roman house at Weslecote, and others with the 
earlier fragments of pottery, &c., from the British 
settlement within the ramparts of Lyddington Castle. 
A nice series of Saxon remains, urns, spear-head, 
knives, necklaces of blue glass, and amber beads, are 
part of a large find of Saxon objects at Shefford, near 
Lambourne, Berks, the remainder of which are now 
in the British Museum. The pot discovered lately at 
Latton, whether it is of late Celtic or Romano-British 
date, is certainly of a very unusual and remarkable 
type. Mr. Passmore also exhibited good specimens of 
circular pack-horse bells, marked R.W. (probably R. 
Wells, of Aldbourne), and apparently of seventeenth 
century date, a man-trap, watchman’s rattle, and an 
interesting sword, found in a barn at Stratton, of 
Civil War date, with ‘Andrea Ferrara’ on the blade. 
The collection included a considerable number of 
Saurian remains from the Kimmeridge Clay of 
Swindon: vertebrae, jaws, and limb bones of 
Ichthyosaurus Pleiosaurus, Plesiosaurus, and 
Teleosaurus-the most notable specimen amongst them 
being a very large bone, as to which authorities have 
not as yet been able to decide, either the species of the 
beast or the position in its body, to which it belonged. 
Altogether the collection is a remarkable one and 
shows what may be done by anyone who takes the 
trouble to keep his eyes open (Anon 1898, 91-2). 
Passmore’s first encounter with the military 
was in 1899, during the South African War. He 
enlisted in the No.l Company of the Royal 
Wiltshire Yeomanry [RWY] and was stationed in 
Trowbridge for training. In March 1900 the RWY 
arrived in Cape Town, and participated in various 
battles with the Boers until being sent back to 
England in July 1901 (Graham 1908). Passmore was 
awarded the prestigious Distinguished Conduct 
Medal (Anon 1960). 
After his war experience, Passmore returned to 
Swindon and resumed his acquisition of 
archaeological specimens. His field notebook for 
1902 records that he found a flint axe and scrapers 
in a ploughed field South of Fargo Plantation, 
Amesbury (ADP unpublished 1902, 55), and 
bought a pot full of burnt bones and an incense cup 
found at Wilton, North Wiltshire (ADP 
unpublished 1902, 74-5). 
In Swindon, Passmore’s activities included 
buying and selling objects around Wiltshire for the 
family business, which meant frequent trips to 
auctions in the area and in London. His 
archaeological projects primarily consisted of 
opening barrows and searching gravel quarries for 
fossils and stone tools. He systematically recorded 
his finds in his field notebook, along with 
observations on natural history, and discoveries 
made during farm or construction work. Passmore 
was a dedicated letter writer, and corresponded 
frequently with Hercules Read and Reginald Smith 
in the Department of British and Medieval 
Antiquities at the British Museum,’ and often sent 
them objects for their opinion so that he could 
describe them in the Wiltshire Archaeological and 
Natural History Magazine. 
From 1909 to 1912, Passmore spent time in 
Sudan, apparently on an archaeological excavation 
(Cunnington 1912, 532), and Egypt, particularly in 
Thebes, Luxor and Cairo. He collected a large 
number of Acheulian hand axes from the desert 
west of Thebes, that are now in the Ashmolean 
Museum. He worked in Luxor, where he collected 
objects later sold in London and was a student for a 
short period in Cairo. He also travelled into 
Abyssinia. 
Passmore returned to Wiltshire in 1912, and 
resumed his usual activities, including his local 
archaeological endeavours: he excavated a mound 
at Chandler’s Farm, Aldbourne; a mound and a 
