LAUSR

Brian Smith, former County Archivist of Gloucestershire, Secretary of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, and Chairman of the Society of Archivists, died on 3 November 2018, aged 86. He contributed significantly to the archives profession and will be much missed. Brian was born on 15 May 1932 in Leeds. At the outbreak of war he was sent to boarding school in Malvern, which led to a lifetime’s connection with ‘the Three Counties’. When just eleven, his father died in an accident, on 3 November 1943. Brian died exactly 75 years later in 2018. He gained scholarships to Bloxham School and Keble College, Oxford, where he studied history. Like many other influential archivists of his generation, he trained as an archivist at the Bodleian Library. His first professional post was at Worcestershire Record Office in 1956, followed by a twoyear stint in Essex Record Office from 1958 to 1960. He moved to Gloucestershire in 1960 as deputy to Irvine Gray and was appointed County Archivist in 1968, a post he held until 1979. Meticulous annual reports told of continuous improvement in Gloucester. He navigated the turbulent cross-currents of local government reorganisation with great skill, reporting in 1974: ‘for the first time the historic records of the city, county and diocese are in the same custody, administered, catalogued and available to the public according to a common code of archival practice.’ When an opportunity arose, he acquired a disused school and oversaw its conversion to the new county archives building, a central site which the service still occupies today. In 1979 the newspapers reported Gloucester’s biggest ever removal, with 80 tonnes of records moved to Alvin Street. In the same year he set up the records management service in Shire Hall. Former colleagues commented on his urbanity. He seemed equally at ease with record office staff or when dealing with his fellow Chief Officers in the County Council or with depositors like Lord Bathurst. For record collection jobs he used his rather elderly VW camper van and surprised colleagues by how often new depositors were people he knew socially or had met through other channels. ARCHIVES AND RECORDS 2019, VOL. 40, NO. 3, 331–333 https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2019.1664440