SAMUEL

See also:

• BIRCH
• BIRCH (Betula)
• SAMUEL BIRCH (1813–1885)
• BIRCH, THOMAS (1705-1766)

BIRCH (1813–1885)  , English Egyptologist and antiquary, was born on the 3rd of November 1813, being the son of the rector of St Mary Woolnoth, London . From an early age he manifested a tendency to the study of out-of-the-way subjects, and after a brief employment in the Record Office obtained in 1836 an appointment in the antiquities department of the British Museum on account of his knowledge of Chinese . He soon extended his researches to Egyptian, and when the cumbrous department came to be divided he was appointed to the charge of the Egyptian and Assyrian branch . In the latter language he had assistance, but for many years there was only one other person in the institution—in a different department—who knew anything of ancient Egyptian, and the entire arrangement of the department devolved upon Birch . He found time nevertheless for Egyptological work of the highest value, including a hieroglyphical grammar and dictionary, translations of The Book of the Dead and the Harris papyrus, and numerous catalogues and guides . He further wrote what was long a standard history of pottery, investigated the Cypriote syllabary, and proved by various publications that he had not lost his old interest in Chinese . Paradoxical in many of his views on things in general, he was sound and cautious as a philologist; while learned and laborious, he possessed much of the instinctive divination of genius . He died on the 27th of December 1885 .