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ROBIN COLLINGWOOD
 Archaeologist of Roman Britain
 

[ Oscar Gnosspelius ] [ Robin Collingwood ] [ Watercolours by W G Collingwood ]

 By Mandi Lea Abrahams - Armitt Magazine Editor & Membership Secretary.

If you look up Robin George Collingwood in a biographical dictionary, you will find that he is chiefly remembered as a philosopher who attained the Waynflete Chair of Moral Philosophy at Oxford in 1935. For people in the Lake District, and particularly around Ambleside, he is better known as an archaeologist.

Collingwood’s interest and involvement in the archaeology of Roman Britain was lifelong. .His daughter, Teresa Smith, records that he was carried as a baby, only three weeks old, in a carpenter’s bag to Hardknott Fort where his father William Gershom Collingwood was excavating. The role his father played in building his interest was pivotal, and they remained close collaborators until his father’s death in 1932. Through him, Collingwood was given an introduction to the distinguished archaeologist F Haverfield when he went up to Oxford as an undergraduate. Haverfield was then Camden Professor of Ancient History and later served as President of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society (CWAAS). Haverfield was pioneering huge advances in the understanding of Roman Britain and was chiefly responsible for much of the recording and excavating that was being newly undertaken at the turn of the 19th century. He recognised Collingwood’s skills in draughtsmanship and engaged him as his assistant in the task of documenting all the Roman inscriptions then extant.

With his father, Collingwood had already worked on the excavation of the native village at Ewe Close, Westmorland in 1907. The results of this work were published in the Transactions of the CWAAS. It was on Haverfield’s recommendation that he was given his first digs, at Corbridge on Hadrian’s Wall and at Papcastle. In 1912, the year that saw the founding of the Armitt Trust, Borrans Field, Ambleside, came up for sale. As the site of Borrans Ring, as it was then called, a Roman fort which had already been partially excavated by amateurs in 1846, a scheme was launched, largely at the behest of WG Collingwood, for the purchase of the field by the National Trust. The purchase was completed in 1913. The CWAAS was offered the responsibility of carrying out the excavation, and it was Haverfield again who suggested that Robin Collingwood be put in charge of the work He was then 24 and had been a member of the CWAAS since 1909. The excavation was carried on between 1913-15 being “well done and quickly and admirably recorded”. Full descriptions of the Galava excavations and finds are reported in two successive volumes of the Transactions (New Series, xiv & xv). Unfortunately the war intervened and Collingwood went to take up duties at the Admiralty Office, which in 1918 included setting up the Versailles negotiations. The subsequent difficulties over ownership of the finds, their display and the role of the Armitt Trust are documented by Eileen Jay in her book The Armitt Story. In his Autobiography, Collingwood wrote,

“Every summer I spent serving on the staff of some large excavation, and from 1913 onwards directing excavations of my own. This became one of the greatest pleasures of my life.”

From this time on, despite a heavy workload as a Fellow and Tutor at Pembroke College, Oxford, Collingwood spent his summer vacations pursuing his interest in Romano-British archaeology. He was frequently at Hadrian’s Wall where he developed the system of numerical references for the milecastles and turrets. He often led the CWAAS summer tour of Hadrian’s Wall and produced an annual report on findings there. He became recognised as an authority on Roman coins, using them to correct previous misconceptions regarding the dates of certain sites and historical events. His book Archaeology of Roman Britain was described by the Roman historian Ian Richmond as “a brilliant study which [could hold] its own even against Haverfield”.

However, it was the work on the Roman inscriptions that held most of his attention. On October 1 1919, Haverfield died and the responsibility for this monumental work passed to Collingwood. Haverfield had entered into negotiations with the Clarendon Press for an edition of a New Corpus of Roman Inscriptions in Britain and had secured Collingwood’s services as draughtsman and assistant. From 1920 onwards, most of Collingwood’s spare time was spent scouring the country for inscriptions, recording them with his accurate pen, deciphering and cataloguing. From 1921 to 1936, Collingwood published his findings every year in the Journal of Roman Studies. On Collingwood’s death, Richmond wrote to Mavis Taylor, Collingwood’s long-time collaborator at the Journal of Roman Studies,

“Professor Collingwood’s most valuable contribution to archaeological research was his work on the Corpus of Inscriptions. He set a standard both in the reading of inscriptions — in cases of very worn and damaged inscriptions, he always judged by touching — and in reproducing which has rarely been equalled.”

In 1936, Collingwood saw that his health was no longer robust enough to sustain the level of detail required for the inscriptions project and R P Wright was appointed as assistant. The full work was not published until 1965 since when it has been a cornerstone of scholarship in Romano­British archaeology.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of Robin Collingwood’s work in the field was his collaboration with his father. He always acknowledged his debt to his father in establishing his lifelong love of the subject. William Gershom Collingwood had come to Coniston to act as Ruskin’s secretary, being himself an artist, historian, archaeologist and translator of Icelandic sagas. After Ruskin’s death, he devoted his attention to the archaeology of Northumbria, and in particular to the recording of the ancient Northumbrian stone crosses. He was editor of the Transactions of the CWAAS from 1901-1925, and President from 1920-1932, having succeeded Haverfield. From 1920, Robin assisted his father in editing the Transactions, eventually taking over the task completely in 1925.

After his father’s death in 1932, Collingwood took on the mantle of President but was himself forced to resign in 1939 due to ill-health. From 1940, he did no further work in the archaeological field reserving himself for his last great work of philosophy, his New Leviathan. Plagued in his last years by successive cerebral haemorrhages, he was often only able to write a few words each day. Yet in a copy of a manuscript letter from this date seen by the present writer, in which he complains that writing is torture to him, his handwriting remains a model of precise draughtsmanship.

The special relationship between father and son was recognised by his admirers. In his obituary for the Antiquaries Journal, Ian Richmond, Collingwood’s former student and close friend wrote,

“To understand the remarkable qualities which made of Collingwood a unique archaeologist, it is necessary to appreciate his antecedents... While Pembroke College elected him as Fellow and Tutor destined to teach philosophy, Haverfield picked out his artistic, archaeological and scholarly gifts and chose him to illustrate topographical articles on the Roman forts of Northern Britain and presently to collaborate in producing and illustrating a complete edition of the Roman inscriptions of Britain. Collingwood’s superb draughtsmanship always equals and often surpasses his fathers drawing infamously reproduced in Northumbria Crosses. I-us preoccupation with topography & inscriptions controlled and stimulated by the philosophical outlook, did not preclude his interest in other fields of Romano-British studies.”

In another note to Sir Frederick Kenyon, Richmond wrote,

“Whoever writes the biography should bring out the very strong influence of his father on his life, and it was from him he received his archaeological training, both in excavation, in draughtsmanship and in reporting, and it was I believe the final strain of looking after his father and helping him in his work when he was paralysed in the years 1930-32 that brought about the same condition in himself.”

It was the synthesis of history and philosophy that was Collingwood’s enduring contribution. One of his key philosophical texts was The Idea of History. He used the excavations and archaeological methods as a means of exploring the “posing a part problem and then searching for its solution”. ‘Teaching and research”, he wrote, “are alike valueless unless they are based on a reasoned conviction as to what it is we are teaching and what it is we are trying to find out”. Mavis Taylor realised this dichotomy over 15 years of working with him. She wrote,

“The more I see of all his work, the more I realise that he regarded archaeology as a hobby - he disclaimed that he was a professional archaeologist - and though he treated it seriously as he did everything he took up, it was as it were a by-product of his main interest and preoccupation.”

Robin Collingwood was much loved and respected by his fellow archaeologists, perhaps in inverse proportion to the distance he felt from his philosopher colleagues at Oxford as he described in his Autobiography. He was recognised as an excellent lecturer, the only Pembroke don able to attract outside listeners to his lectures. His ability to illustrate difficult points, his directness and his impatience with second-hand opinions were legendary. He also gave time to writing more popular versions of his works on Roman Britain, such as his lectures at the Oxford Summer Meeting of 1921, published in The World’s Manuals series, articles for the Home Reading Circle, a full description of Borrans Fort for the Antiquary Magazine, and visitor brochures for sites. This was at a time before television had made the subject alluring and alive as it is for us today. We are left with some of the remarks made at the time of his untimely death at the age of 53 in 1943 by those who had known and worked closely with him.

“As a consultant on archaeological problems he was incomparable; he brought his lucid and logical mind to bear on any question and touched unerringly the fundamental point and saw the underlying causes. One never left him without beginning to think afresh the subject under discussion. He brought order into confused thought and provoked fresh ideas. As a field archaeologist, he was less good. His written works were equally artistic productions of high finish and it was thus that he brought distinction, created an example and carried out the very best kind of publicity, showing that archaeological work should not be dry as dust or offensive to the eye or ear; on the contrary he made it interesting, satisfying and even exciting.”

“There was a time when to his friends and fellow workers his presence was a lighthouse and the outer world black. He was generous of his time, lucid in his lecturing.”

‘His wide knowledge made him conversant with a wider range of subjects than almost anyone at Oxford.”

“We deeply deplore the loss of one who did so much to forward the study of Roman antiquities in this country, and whose philosophical pronouncements were distinguished by the unusual clarity and acumen of his mind”.

I wish to thank Professor David Boucher of the Collingwood Society for his assistance in accessing some of the documents referred to in this article.

The archaeological notebooks of Robin Collingwood and R P Wright, together with fan Richmond’s diaries, are deposited in the Ashmolean Library, Oxford.

[ Oscar Gnosspelius ] [ Robin Collingwood ] [ Watercolours by W G Collingwood ]
 

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