Wilts Obituary. 



81 



necessary, and probably no more fortunate occurrence for archaeology 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 

 Eushmore estates of Lord Eivers, 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 Eushmore 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 Eoman 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 Eome, 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 

 Eoman 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 w T ere, 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 mile& or so of Eushmore. 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 everything 

 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 Eoyal, 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 



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