The Early Research of Reginald Campbell Thompson

In 2024 the Society acquired some papers belonging to Reginald Campbell Thompson. They had originally been given to John Nicholas Postgate, former professor of Assyriology at the University of Cambridge, by Reginald Campbell Thompson’s daughter in 1966. Professor Postgate contacted the Griffith Institute, Oxford, as a potential institution to house this material. However, as the Griffith Institute held no allied material, they contacted this Society to see if the papers would be better placed here. We were delighted to accept this donation which sits well alongside Thompson’s  film and glass slides already within our collections. Over the past few weeks, one of our volunteers, Alex Williamson, has created the catalogue for this material and, this week, he created a new display in our Reading Room (pictured above).

The papers comprise of six handwritten notebooks and two pamphlets, which mainly relate to Thompson’s early research interests, including as a schoolboy. Somehow the young Reginald learnt to transcribe and translate Assyrian inscriptions. He entered this work for a school prize and has later recorded in the notebook:

“This is the MS which I submitted to the “Smee Prize” at St Paul’s School in 1894, together with a portfolio of the text enlarged (duplicated). The High Master, F.W. Walker, blessings on his head for all his encouragement (I dedicated my first book to him), recommended it – God help us! – for a special prize of £10. I have the books which I bought with this in my shelves.”

It seems, even as a teenager, Thompson had decided where his interests lay and was working towards fulfilling his dreams. He was born on 21 August 1876 and educated at St. Paul’s School before attending Cambridge from 1895 to 1899. His career began as an assistant in the Egyptian and Assyrian Department of the British Museum from 1899 to 1905. During this time, he took trips to Algeria, Egypt, Tripoli, and Iraq, where he first visited Nineveh. The papers within our collection mainly relate to this time. Alongside the school notebook, there is a journal of his trip to Algeria in 1901. This wasn’t an archaeological expedition – the notebook reveals this as a hunting trip with letters to various authorities to enquire where mouflon (Barbary sheep) and gazelles could be found and photographs of various locations.

The third notebook is entitled ‘Kodak Sinaiticus or Grads and Ghouls’ and concerns a trip that Thompson made to Egypt in 1902. Inserted within the notebook are some memoranda of agreement between Thompson and Brahim Abulgadayil to rent camels and camel drivers.

The fourth notebook is a  journal of Reginald Campbell Thompson’s trip to Tripoli in 1902 and his subsequent trip to Nineveh, Iraq in 1904 – 1905. This was the first time that Thompson explored Nineveh and may give insight into why Thompson was attracted to it as an archaeologist.

The fifth notebook shows a different side of Thompson’s character.  It contains newspaper cuttings, letters and translation notes from different years, the majority of which are connected to Reginald Campbell Thompson’s published fiction books written under the pseudonym, John Guisborough. Thompson published a series of novels, mainly based around archaeology, with the publisher Mills and Boon. Titles included A Pilgrim’s Scrip, A Song of Araby and The Mirage of Sheba.

The final notebook consists of a catalogue of Assyrian clay tablets giving details of their inscriptions and their size. The pamphlets also included in the papers are A list of words and phrases in the Basrah Dialect of Arabic, published in 1915 as an aid for soldiers during the Mesopotamia campaign of WW1, and On traces of an indefinite article in Assyrian, a work on Assyrian cuneiform published in 1902.

These papers therefore relate mainly to his early life before or while at the British Museum. After leaving the British Museum, Thompson participated in surveys of Sudan (1905-1906) before serving as a professor at the University of Chicago from 1907 to 1909. Subsequently his archaeological endeavours took him to Anatolia (1909), Carchemish (1911), and Egypt (1913-1914). He was also involved in the Mesopotamian Campaign during World War I. In 1923, Thompson received a Stipendiary Fellowship at Merton College, Oxford. He extensively excavated in Nineveh in successive seasons from 1927-1932. He died on 23 May 1941, leaving behind a significant legacy in the field of archaeology.

These papers, now catalogued, are available for researchers to use. We are very grateful to Alex for the work he has done in researching and cataloguing this material to make it accessible for others.

Nancy Charley, 7 February 2025.