Harold St George Gray

Harold St George Gray (born Harold Gray, 15 January 1872 – 28 February 1963) was a British archaeologist. He was involved in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and later was the librarian-curator of the Museum for the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society. He excavated at various sites in the South West of England, including Arbor Low, Glastonbury Lake Village, Avebury, and Windmill Hill.

Gray was born in 1872 in Lichfield. In 1888 he started working for the archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers and trained in archaeological techniques and later took over as his secretary.^[2] In 1899 he became assistant to Henry Balfour at the Pitt Rivers Museum before leaving to become curator at the museum in Taunton, which later became the Museum of Somerset, where he stayed until 1949 and wrote frequent papers for their journal.^[1][3] During this time he was involved in the dismissal of Frederick Bligh Bond as archaeologist at Glastonbury Abbey when he claimed that much of his work was helped by the "spirits of Glastonbury monks".^[4]

Gray married Florence Young in 1899, and they had a son, Lionel.^[5] Florence took part in excavations and field walking with Gray, and also carried out post-excavation work at the museum in Taunton.^[5][6][7]

In 1943 Gray bought the Treasurer's House in Martock to preserve it. His wife bequeathed it to the National Trust in 1970.^[8][9] Gray was president of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society from 1951 to 1952 and died in 1963.^[1]