Carline, George R.
Museum Assistant, active c.1914-1917
George Reginald Carline (life dates: 15 March 1885 - 24 December 1932). Anthropologist and folklorist.
Likenesses:
George Reginald Carline. Photograph, 1926. Wellcome Collection 14422i
George R Carline by Sydney Carline. Sketched designs for a medal, 1911. British Museum 1980,0126.21
Work at WHMM
Museum Assistant at WHMM, c.1914-1917. One of four original staff members of the permanent WHMM in 1914 under C. J. S. Thompson (with T.W. Huck, Francis Shirreff and Arthur Amoruso).
Biographical notes
(See obituaries and articles by Symons 1993 and Petch [undated].)
George Carline studied anthropology at Exeter College, Oxford and was part of the student archaeological society. After graduating he worked at the Oxford English Dictionary (see Gilliver 2016).
His family were well-known artists, including mother Annie Smith, father George F. Carline, younger brothers Sydney and Richard, sister Hilda and brother-in-law Stanley Spencer.
George Carline became a museum assistant at WHMM at the time of its permanent opening in 1914. He was one of four original staff members working under curator C.J.S. Thompson.
Carline remained at WHMM during World War 1, having a medical exemption from military service. He left the museum in 1917 to join the Civil Service. (Symons 1993, pp.13-14).
After war ended he became an assistant curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and remained there until 1926. Carline was also involved with Folklore Society from 1919.
He did archaeological work on the 1925-6 excavations at Fayum in Egypt with Gertrude Caton-Thompson and William Flinders Petrie, and anthropological field work in South Africa in 1929.
Carline became curator of the Bankfield Museum, Halifax, Yorkshire in 1926 where he worked on the costume collections and an ethnographic gallery. He remained in post until his death in 1932 aged 47.
He is buried in a family plot in Sunningwell, Oxfordshire. See sources below for information on Carline family history and genealogy.
WA/HMM archives
WA/HMM/ST/Ear/A.16 - Staff file, Apr 1914-Feb 1921. On his work as museum assistant, and also regarding acquisition of objects.
WA/HMM/PR/2 - Press cuttings related to Carline. 3 articles reporting his death (page image 71): Yorkshire Observer 27 Dec 1932; Yorkshire Observer 30 Dec 1932; Nature 21 Jan 1933.
Sources
Obituaries
Mr. G. R. Carline. Nature 131, 86 (21 January 1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131086a0
H. C. L. “George Reginald Carline.” Folklore, vol. 44, no. 1, [Folklore Enterprises, Ltd., Taylor & Francis, Ltd.], 1933, pp. 115–16, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255921
General references
Gilliver, Peter. The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. 2016. Oxford University Press.
Petch, Alison. “George Reginald Carline”. ENGLAND: THE OTHER WITHIN. Analysing the English Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. [undated] Pitt Rivers Museum online resource.
Symons 1993, pp. 13-14.
Archaeological society membership at Oxford University:
Excavations at Fayum, Egypt 1925-1926: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/fayum/fayumainf.html
Genealogy
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/genealogy/records/george-francis-carline-24-8yl48q
http://www.calderdalecompanion.co.uk/c.html#c2345 (search ‘Carline, George Reginald’)
https://billiongraves.com/grave/George-Reginald-Carline/32290767 (burial and family information)
Tags: museum staff; practical staff
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