Oswald Guy Stanhope Crawford, often known as Ogs, was a towering figure in archaeology in the first half of the twentieth century. He was also an author, editor, photographer, Marxist social critic and a cat mimic.

Ernest was born in Breslau in eastern Germany. His family, described as ‘professional and academic … with a liberal tradition’, came to England as refugees in 1935. He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and the Leys School in Cambridge, where the family initially settled, and soon become proficient in English.

Annie was born in Paddington and appears to have resided for most of her life in this part of London. Her death was recorded in Hampstead. She never married. Nothing has been discovered about her education or what stimulated her interest in history, beyond noting that at some point she was awarded a BSc. In…

William Curtis was born in Alton, Hampshire one of ten children of William Curtis and Elizabeth (nee Heath). Privately educated, then apprenticed to his father, an apothecary/surgeon, he spent time in Edinburgh and London before joining his father’s practice.

Max Dacre was a ‘Geordie’ who left school at 13 and was in Jarrow at the time of the ‘Jarrow March’ (1936).  This early experience fostered in him a fighting spirit which was evident throughout his life.

‘[With] the death of Mr. William Dale’ states the obituary notice in Volume 10 of the Proceedings, ‘the Hampshire Field Club lost one who served it faithfully and enthusiastically nearly from its foundation.’

It would be easy to believe that the history of Eastleigh began in 1890, when the Carriage and Wagon Works was transferred by the London and South Western Railway from Nine Elms in London, thereby creating a rich tapestry of industry and town.

Herbert Druitt was born in Christchurch, then in Hampshire, to James and Matilda Druitt. He trained as a lawyer, but was essentially a man of leisure, putting his energies into brass rubbing and collecting an enormous range of archaeological and historical material which he hoarded in various family-owned properties around the town.

He was the only son of a namesake father, who was prominent lawyer in the county, Clerk of the Peace to Winchester Court, Deputy Clerk to the Bishopric of Winchester, and Receiver General of Land Taxes in Hampshire. He owned New House Ropley, (still standing, renamed Ropley House) built by an earlier owner in the…

He was a rare example of someone born to wealth and position who wrote about his ancestors (rather than asking others to do so) with a frankness and objectivity that is rare in family histories of the great and good. For the last three years of his life he held the title 8th Baron Sherborne,…