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Man of Many Talents: An Informal Biography of James Douglas 1753-1819
Light soiling to spine of DJ, a very good copy, previous owners name on ffep
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
About the author
Ronald Jessup
13 booksRonald Frederick Jessup (1906-1991) British banker and archaeologist.
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June 6, 2025
Ronald Jessup was a distinguished British archaeologist and the author of many outstanding works on the subject. In this book he presents the biography of the Reverend James Douglas, a man who encouraged the process of turning amateur antiquaries, who wanted to fill their curiosity cabinets with coin collections and grave goods, into serious archaeologists studying all of the past and not simply its treasures.
When it comes to Douglas' archaeology, his digs – unfortunately when it came to burial mounds Douglas insisted on using the term ransacking - his publications and presentations to the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries, and his correspondence, Ronald Jessup's prose style is ideal. He is knowledgeable and clearly has a great empathy for Douglas and his many problems. Where the biography falls a little is in failing to provide a study of Douglas' very interesting life outside archaeology.
Douglas was not born into the aristocracy. His parents ran the Hercules Pillars Inn in Hyde Park Road, London, which was later demolished to make way for Apsley House. He was educated in Manchester Grammar School, one of his older brothers having made a considerable living in the cloth trade in that area. He showed little of the business acumen of others in his family and, while it is not clear, that may have given rise to his military career. He seems to have been employed by his brother William in Italy, presumably in the export side of William's textile business. When William finally grew tired of his lack of ability and spendthrift habits he and the family arranged for James to enter a military academy in Flanders where he enrolled as a cavalry cadet in the Austrian army, going on to reach the rank of lieutenant. It sounds so interesting, but there is more.
His senior officer, Prince John of Liechtenstein no less, ordered him to travel to England to arrange the purchase of some horses. James returned home and simply never went back. Despite what seems to have been an act of desertion he obtained a commission with the rank of lieutenant in the Leicester Militia and went on to gain employment at the British Board of Ordnance and Corps of Royal Engineers. It seems strange that the Imperial Austrian Army was not pursuing him, especially as later in his life he returned to Flanders and visited Switzerland. I wanted to know more, but all of this is in the first two chapters. After that he settles down to his antiquarianism, his ransacking, his innovative archaeology, and enters the Church – nine chapters of it.
It is certainly interesting to find out that Douglas was one of the first to develop the techniques of field archaeology and to discuss the use of crop marks – obviously viewed from a hill or ridge overlooking the field and not from the air – and to use his own drawings to depict excavations and finds accurately. However, the man behind it tends to disappear with only a few hints of his individuality as a character emerging. In his letters to a fellow antiquary, Henry Faussett, he insists on the playful familiarity of referring to Henry's children as “the brats” and his attitude to his persistent lack of cash, which must have tormented his wife, seems to have been not unlike Mr. Micawber. Of the book's 282 pages of text, 104 are given over to reproducing a selection of his letters to his various colleagues. That may be an indication of a shortage of source material for a full biography and, as it goes, that leaves the book interesting but frustrating.
When it comes to Douglas' archaeology, his digs – unfortunately when it came to burial mounds Douglas insisted on using the term ransacking - his publications and presentations to the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries, and his correspondence, Ronald Jessup's prose style is ideal. He is knowledgeable and clearly has a great empathy for Douglas and his many problems. Where the biography falls a little is in failing to provide a study of Douglas' very interesting life outside archaeology.
Douglas was not born into the aristocracy. His parents ran the Hercules Pillars Inn in Hyde Park Road, London, which was later demolished to make way for Apsley House. He was educated in Manchester Grammar School, one of his older brothers having made a considerable living in the cloth trade in that area. He showed little of the business acumen of others in his family and, while it is not clear, that may have given rise to his military career. He seems to have been employed by his brother William in Italy, presumably in the export side of William's textile business. When William finally grew tired of his lack of ability and spendthrift habits he and the family arranged for James to enter a military academy in Flanders where he enrolled as a cavalry cadet in the Austrian army, going on to reach the rank of lieutenant. It sounds so interesting, but there is more.
His senior officer, Prince John of Liechtenstein no less, ordered him to travel to England to arrange the purchase of some horses. James returned home and simply never went back. Despite what seems to have been an act of desertion he obtained a commission with the rank of lieutenant in the Leicester Militia and went on to gain employment at the British Board of Ordnance and Corps of Royal Engineers. It seems strange that the Imperial Austrian Army was not pursuing him, especially as later in his life he returned to Flanders and visited Switzerland. I wanted to know more, but all of this is in the first two chapters. After that he settles down to his antiquarianism, his ransacking, his innovative archaeology, and enters the Church – nine chapters of it.
It is certainly interesting to find out that Douglas was one of the first to develop the techniques of field archaeology and to discuss the use of crop marks – obviously viewed from a hill or ridge overlooking the field and not from the air – and to use his own drawings to depict excavations and finds accurately. However, the man behind it tends to disappear with only a few hints of his individuality as a character emerging. In his letters to a fellow antiquary, Henry Faussett, he insists on the playful familiarity of referring to Henry's children as “the brats” and his attitude to his persistent lack of cash, which must have tormented his wife, seems to have been not unlike Mr. Micawber. Of the book's 282 pages of text, 104 are given over to reproducing a selection of his letters to his various colleagues. That may be an indication of a shortage of source material for a full biography and, as it goes, that leaves the book interesting but frustrating.
Displaying 1 of 1 review