Radford, Courtenay Arthur Ralegh, 1900-....

(Courtenay Arthur) Ralegh Radford (1900-1998), archaeologist, was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex, and was the only son of Arthur Lock Radford and his wife Ada Minnie Bruton. Radford was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he read modern history. He was involved with the excavations at Whitby Abbey in the early 1920s, travelled in central Europe and the Balkans and held scholarships at the British Schools at Athens and Rome. He became the inspector of ancient monuments for Wales and Monmouthshire in 1929, surveying numerous sites. He was appointed director of the British School at Rome in 1936 and remained there until its closure. He then returned to Britain, taking up war work and was appointed OBE in 1947. He then resumed his archaeological work, and was secretary of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and Monmouthshire between 1946 and 1948. His specialism was in the medieval period, with particular interests in Glastonbury and Tintagel.

He received the gold medal of the Society of Antiquaries in 1972, and was at various times President of the Prehistoric Society, Royal Archaeological Institute and Society of Medieval Archaeology. He was appointed Devon Local Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London in May 1929, and was resident at The Manor, Bradninch, Devon, at this time. He was also elected as a Bard of the Gorsedd of Cornwall in 1937. He retired to Uffculme near Cullompton, Devon, and died in Cullompton, Devon, in 1998. He bequeathed his private library to the University of Exeter, including these archival materials.

From the guide to the Courtenay Arthur Ralegh Radford Collection: further correspondence and notes, 1933-1978, (University of Exeter)