XVIII.—Excavations on the site of the Roman city at Silchester, Hants, in 1908

Extract

Before submitting to the Society, on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Silchester Excavation Fund, an account of the work carried out last season, I must say a few words on the loss we have sustained by the death of our two colleagues, George Edward Fox and Frederick George Hilton Price. It was chiefly on account of the interest created by our late Director's excavations on the site, of which he communicated a description to the Society in 1886 that I was able to persuade Mr. Fox to associate himself with the scheme for the complete and systematic excavation of the site which we had the honour of laying before the Society in February, 1890. With the carrying out of this scheme both our departed friends were intimately associated. As Honorary Treasurer to the Excavation Fund our late Director not only devoted a good deal of valuable time, but was himself the contributor of a handsome annual subscription to the work he had so largely inspired. Of Mr. Fox's part it is hardly necessary to speak. Most of the earlier records of our operations were written by him, and to his skill with pencil and brush we owe the beautiful drawings of architectural remains and mosaic pavements that from time to time have been enshrined in Archaeologia. Although increasing feebleness and ill health in recent years hindered our friend from visiting Silchester as often as formerly, his interest to the last was unabated, and it is sad to think that his death should have occurred within a few weeks of the end of the great work on which he had so set his heart.