Alexander Keiller

Alexander Keiller (1 December 1889 – 29 October 1955) was a Scottish archaeologist, pioneering aerial photographer, businessman and philanthropist. He worked on an extensive prehistoric site at Avebury in Wiltshire, England, and helped ensure its preservation.

Keiller was heir to the marmalade business of his family, James Keiller & Son, that had been established in 1797 in Dundee, and exported marmalade and confectionery across the British Empire. He used his wealth to acquire a total of of land in Avebury for preservation, where he conducted excavations and re-erected some standing stones. He also pioneered aerial photography for archaeological interpretation.

At Avebury, Keiller founded the Morven Institute of Archeological Research, now the Alexander Keiller Museum. In 1943 he sold the land at Avebury to the National Trust for its agricultural value only.

His fourth wife, Gabrielle Keiller, was also an archaeological photographer, whom he met in connection with Avebury.

Early life and education Alexander Keiller was born at Binrock House in Dundee on 1 December 1889, the only child of businessman John Mitchell Keiller (1851–1899) and Mary Sime Greig (1862–1907), of the Dundee medical family.

When Keiller was nine, his father died, leaving him the sole heir to the wealth generated by the family's business. He was sent to Hazelwood School at Limpsfield in Surrey and from there went on to Eton College. When he was seventeen, his mother died, and he returned home to administer the family business.

Family life and death On 2 June 1913, Keiller married Florence Marianne Phil-Morris (1883–1955), the daughter of artist Philip Richard Morris. They moved into Keiller's house in London. After the First World War, they were divorced. alt=A black and white portrait photograph of a man in a hat, a light coloured long sleeve jumper, and light coloured trousers. He is leaning against a car door, and holding a notebook in his hand. On 29 February 1924, Keiller married Veronica Mildred Liddell (1900–1964). Veronica shared his interest in archaeology and visited Avebury with him later that year. She was one of the supervisors for the 1925–1929 Windmill Hill excavations, near Avebury, alongside her sister Dorothy Liddell. Following a separation, Keiller divorced Veronica in 1934.

On 16 November 1938, Keiller married for a third time; his new wife was Doris Emerson Chapman (b. 1901), an artist. She had joined the Morven Institute of Archaeological Research, founded by Keiller, in 1937. Her contributions in this field include detailed illustrations of the stones as part of the West Kennet Avenue excavations and the creation of visual reconstructions of faces from skulls, four of which were from a burial mound at Chippenham. Keiller and Chapman divorced in 1951.

He later married a fourth time, to Gabrielle Style (1908–1995). She lived past his death in 1955, and in 1966 she donated the museum and its contents to the nation.

Keiller died in October 1955, although Piggott's obituary for him wrongly stated September.

Career

In 1913, Keiller funded the establishment of Sizaire-Berwick, an Anglo-French manufacturer of luxury cars.

After the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a temporary lieutenant, moving to the Royal Naval Air Service in December 1914. In 1915 he was invalided out of the service, but in 1918 he joined air intelligence, where he remained until the end of the war.

Keiller began to pursue an interest in archaeology. In 1922 he and O. G. S. Crawford undertook an aerial survey of archaeological sites in south western England. This led to their publication of Wessex from the Air in 1928, which Lynda Murray notes was "the first book of aerial archaeology to be published in the UK". As he discovered buried stones, he had them re-erected, and marked the vacant stone-holes with pillars.

Stuart Piggott, who was part of Keiller's 'staff' during excavations at West Kennet Avenue and Avebury, notes that Keiller "adopted a policy of imaginative but judicious conservation and restoration of the Avebury monuments, and systematically purchased land to preserve these and their surroundings".

In 1938, Denis Grant King arrived at Avebury and persuaded Keiller to employ him at first on a temporary, then permanent basis. Keiller's team discovered the famous barber surgeon of Avebury skeleton in the south west quadrant. Keiller opened his museum that year, to display finds from the Windmill Hill, West Kennet, and Avebury excavations.

Keiller leased and restored Avebury Manor & Garden, now a National Trust property consisting of an early 16th-century manor house and its surrounding garden.

The Second World War ended excavations at Avebury. Keiller joined the special constabulary at Marlborough and as his duties left little time for archaeology, he had the museum mothballed.

Legacy

In 1943, Keiller sold his holdings in Avebury to the National Trust for £12,000, simply the agricultural value of the he had accrued, and not reflecting the investment he had made at the site. His excavations at Avebury were unpublished at his death, but his widow, Gabrielle Keiller commissioned archaeologist Isobel Smith to publish the records, which she completed in 1965. In 1966 Gabrielle donated the Avebury museum and its contents to the nation.

In 1986, UNESCO designated Avebury (together with Stonehenge and associated sites) as a World Heritage Site. In 2000, it received over 350,000 visitors.