15 Facts About Leslie Grinsell

On his return to Britain, Leslie Grinsell became the treasurer of the Prehistoric Society, a position that he held from 1947 till 1970.

From 1952 to 1972, Leslie Grinsell worked as Keeper of Anthropology and Archaeology at Bristol City Museum, during which time he continued his examination of barrows, focusing on those in south-west England.

Leslie Grinsell was born at Hornsey, London on 14 February 1907, the younger son of Arthur John Leslie Grinsell, a silversmith's manager, and Janet Christine.

Leslie Grinsell was educated at St John's College, Hurstpierpoint until July 1919, in September returning with his family to London, where they lived at Crouch End, and attending the private Oakfield School there until January 1921, when he entered Highgate School, where he studied until July 1923.

Leslie Grinsell attended the Pitman School at Southampton Row, then matriculated at the University of London before in 1925 becoming a clerk for Barclays Bank, where he would work until 1949.

At the time, a number of antiquarians were still active in southern England, with Leslie Grinsell being encouraged in his interests by prominent figures in this milieu such as Eliot Curwen and Hadrian Allcroft.

Never having learned to drive, Leslie Grinsell conducted all his visits through the use of buses, trains, and on foot.

In 1932 Leslie Grinsell attended the First International Prehistoric Congress, held in London; it was here that he was introduced to Crawford, with the two becoming close acquaintances, both sharing an interest in the use of maps as part of their archaeological fieldwork.

On returning to Britain, Leslie Grinsell went back to his job at Barclays Bank.

In 1949 the archaeologist Christopher Hawkes invited Leslie Grinsell to join him and Stuart Piggott as a project assistant at Victoria County History in order to compile the Victoria County History of Wiltshire.

Leslie Grinsell accepted, leaving his bank job and moving to the Wiltshire town of Devizes, thus becoming a professional archaeologist.

Leslie Grinsell published a number of academic articles and book reviews.

Leslie Grinsell continued pursuing his interest in barrows, and by the 1970s had catalogued those examples in Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Devon.

In 1989, Leslie Grinsell published an autobiography; reviewing it for the Folklore journal, the historian Hilda Ellis Davidson praised it but noted that it does not "tell us very much about the inner life of the author".

Interested in using sources other than archaeology, Leslie Grinsell made use of documents, place-names, folklore, and the accounts of antiquarians as part of his research.