This new volume is a collection of papers first read in Guernsey in 2006 but more recently updated by the authors. In June 2006 Guernsey Museums and Galleries mounted a major exhibition on the remarkable Lukis family of Guernsey in the Channel Islands entitled: Pursuits and Joys Great Victorian Collectors and Intellects: The Lukis family of Guernsey and their contemporaries. The exhibition was to celebrate the live and work of Frederick Corbin Lukis and his family alongside their antiquarian contemporaries. Lukis lived in Guernsey from 1788-1871 during which time he created a remarkable archaeological archive, the majority of which is now held in the collections of Guernsey Museums and Galleries. He and his family worked at a very interesting and exciting time in the development of scientific thought in the nineteenth century, when archaeology was evolving into the discipline we know today. The archive created by Lukis and his family, not least W.C. Lukis, covers not just Guernsey and the other Channel Islands but also many parts of Britain and Europe. To coincide with the opening of the exhibition a short conference on the work of Lukis and his contemporaries in the nineteenth century was held from 2nd - 4th June 2006 at Guernsey Museum to discuss the development of archaeology and related disciplines in the nineteenth century. The keynote address was by Professor Timothy Champion of the University of Southampton who spoke on the possibility for archaeology developing while Lukis and his family and other great Victorian archaeologists throughout Europe were active. The actor Adrian Lukis, who is the last surviving member of the family and the great, great, great, grandson of Frederick Corbin Lukis visited Guernsey with his family to open the exhibition. Alongside the keynote speaker Professor Timothy Champion, the other speakers Dr Gregory Stevens-Cox and Dr Darryl Ogier both historians living in Guernsey, Alan Howell, senior Curator at Guernsey Museum, Mark Bowden, Senior Archaeological Investigator at English Heritage Dr Anne O'Connor, formerly Research Associate on the William Greenwell project at Durham University, Dr Corinne Roughley form Cambridge University (also on behalf of the late Dr Andrew Sherratt both representing the AREA project), Dr Stephen Briggs formerly of RCAHMW, Dr Serge Cassen from the University of Nantes, Dr Megan Price of Oxford University and Dr Ana Martins from the Society of Portuguese Archaeologists and Geoff Carver from the University of Dusseldorf in absentia. The volume, edited by Heather Sebire, formerly Archaeology officer at Guernsey Museum, is a contribution to the growing corpus of work on the History of Archaeology as a discipline on a European front in the nineteenth century.
About the Author: Dr Heather Sebire FSA is currently a Property Curator with English Heritage in the west of England but was formerly Archaeology Officer at Guernsey Museum. A Classics graduate from London University she worked in archaeology in London and Wessex before moving to Guernsey. During her time as Archaeology Officer at Guernsey Museum she regularly wrote and broadcast about the archaeology of Guernsey and the other Channel Islands. During her career at Guernsey Museum she became aware of the importance of the large archive of the Lukis family that was in the care of the museum and so undertook doctoral research which completed in 2004. This was followed by research to place Lukis in an international context. This book is the results of collaborative research with European colleagues on the History of Archaeology in the nineteenth century.