Robert Newall: the unsung hero of the bluestone saga?

Some of Newall's fieldwalking finds from the Salisbury and Stonehenge area.  Now in the Salisbury Museum collection. This is a still from one of Adrian Green's YouTube videos showcasing the museum collections.

Robert S. Newall was born in England in 1884.   His first archaeological activities were undertaken as a teenager at Camp Hill, South Newton. Became interested in ethnography during a world tour in 1909, travelling and collecting stone artefacts mostly in Australia.  After the First World War he devoted himself primarily to the archaeology of Wiltshire.  He excavated at Stonehenge with Colonel Hawley between 1919 and 1926 (Newall 1929a, 1929b, 1956) and rediscovered and excavated the Aubrey holes at the site. After 1950 he wrote many editions of the Official HMSO Stonehenge Guide, with reprints into the 1970's.  He had a long association with Salisbury Museum, becoming a Trustee in 1937 and Vice-President in 1971.  He died in 1978.

So at the time of HH Thomas's famous talk to the Society of Antiquaries in 1921 and the publication of his influential paper in 1923, Newall was heavily involved in the work being done at Stonehenge by Hawley.  Although he was only permanently on-site in 1919, and intermittently present after that, he must have been a part of everything discovered and everything discussed.

Not much was achieved in 1919.  In his report of the first year (in Antiquaries Journal 1921) Hawley says:  "Preparations were begun in September 1919, but were much retarded owing to difficulties of transport and the delay in erecting two huts and the assembling of the large equipment necessary. It was not until the end of the year that work was actually begun."

Four igneous erratics (three rhyolites and one diabase) were discovered in the 1924 excavations, and the finds were reported in the Antiquaries Journal for 1926. Hawley said that his report was  "..... on behalf of Mr. Newall and myself",  suggesting that Newall played an important role in what was done and what was said by way of interpretation. But we might imagine Hawley being heavily influenced by HH Thomas's assertion that glacial ice could not possibly have had a part to play in the presence of the 4 erratics; and we might imagine Newall being rather more open-minded than his boss!  But the weight of opinion might have pushed Newall into being reluctant to express his opinions.......... 

I don't have copies of the various Official HMSO handbooks from the 1950's -- but it would be interesting to know what Newall said about the origins of the bluestones. Of course, at the same time Richard Atkinson was a key member of the archaeology establishment -- and we know what an advocate he was of the human transport myth.  Atkinson must have had a strong input into the "official story":

From Wikipedia:  Atkinson directed excavations at Stonehenge for the Ministry of Works between 1950 and 1964. During this period he helped to bring theories about the origins and construction of Stonehenge to a wider audience: for example, through the BBC television programme, Buried Treasure (1954), which, among other things, sought to demonstrate, using teams of schoolboys, how the stones might have been transported by water or over land. He also produced a theory on the creation of Stonehenge.

Robert Newall was heavily involved in the recording of Hawley's finds, and in creating an archive of drawings, plans, sections and field notes.  Much of this material is lodged in Salisbury Museum, together with correspondence and a draft copy of an unpublished work called "Stonehenge Extracts."  the original is in the museum at Avebury.  It would be really interesting to know what this contains.  In a 1934 letter, Newall said that because there were so many finds at Stonehenge, and because there was nowhere else to store them safely, he kept many of them in his home.  This explains why "Newall's boulder" came to be in his possession............

After decades of silence, when he was busy with Stonehenge guide-books and Salisbury Museum matters,  in 1969-71 Newall was in touch with Geoffrey Kellaway, and told him about the finding of the four small glacial erratics in Hawley's excavations in the early 1920's.  Newall explained that his "glacial" interpretation was overridden by Hawley.  In 1971 Kellaway published his important "Nature" article, in which he mentioned Newall and the boulder;  but he was pilloried by the archaeology establishment -- and effectively brow-beaten into submission and silence.  But then in 1989 he was in contact with Olwen Williams-Thorpe and the rest of the OU team which investigated the bluestones. In their big 1991 article (unfortunately still behind a paywall) they mention that in Kellaway's letter containing details of "Newall's boulder" he suggested that there had been official "suppression" of Newall's views on glaciation and glacial erratics.    In 1997 James Scourse, in his much-cited book chapter called "Transport of the Stonehenge Bluestones: Testing the Glacial Hypothesis", pretended that the evidence of the boulder and its striations was so insecure that it could effectively be ignored.

Because the object of interest here was so clearly a small glacial erratic, with all of the diagnostic signs on its surface, why was it not shown to a geologist with glacial expertise, for an opinion?  We may never know the answer to that question -- and now we do not know where the stone is, or the slide numbered RSN18 - ENQ2305 that was cut from it. They are both apparently lost.  Time for a serious hunt!

Over the past 20 years there have been various mentions in the literature of the "ignimbrite" boulder and Newall's links with Kellaway, and always the assumption has been that there has been too much hearsay and too little evidence for anybody to take the glacial transport hypothesis seriously.  It's only now, with the various lines of reseaqrch being smartly drawn together by Tim Daw, that we see the evidence as rock solid.

As they might have said to Newall when he was a young man in Australia before WW1, "good on yer, mate!"

This EH photo shows Hawley's 1919 team at Stonehenge.  Newall must be in it -- which one is he?  I haven't been able to find any other photos of him......

Some of the bluestone fragments in Salisbury Museum -- from YouTube video No 7, introduced by Adrian Green.  Were some of these collected by Newall?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6208ywAr2E

PS.  I have now rooted out a copy of the third edition (1959) of the official Stonehenge Guide Book, written by Newall. (The first edition is dated 1953.)   Having read through it, my opinion of the man is considerably diminished!  He defers to HH Thomas on virtually everything concerning the bluestones, and does not deviate by an inch from the official line that the bluestones were all "brought from Wales" by Neolithic tribesmen, possibly utilising some stones -- if not all -- that had previously been used in another stone setting.  It does not occur to him that the dressed bluestones at Stonehenge might well have been used in earlier settings on the same site.  He makes no mention at all of the small igneous stones found in the 1919-24 Hawley digs, and even explains away other "useless fragments" of sandstone and other rocks found in association with the Cursus with these words:  "......when used by the right people in the right way (they) become what may justly be termed historical documents."  Oh dear -- sloppy science and wishful thinking -- and evidence of a man forced by the power of the establishment to follow the party line and sell the agreed marketing message.  Forget the Queen's platinum jubilee --- this is also a celebration of 70 years of Stonehenge propaganda and rigid control of "the message"..........

By the way, in 1959 the admission charge to Stonehenge was one shilling, and sixpence for children.