Flaxman Charles John Spurrell

Flaxman Charles John Spurrell (6 September 1842 – 25 February 1915), the archaeologist, geologist and photographer, was born in Mile End, Stepney, London, the eldest son of Dr. Flaxman Spurrell, M.D., F.R.C.S., and Ann Spurrell (who were also first cousins). Shortly after his birth, his father moved to Bexley, Kent; later, Flaxman (junior) lived at The Priory, Picardy Road, Belvedere, now home to the Priory Conservative Club. Spurrell Avenue in Bexley was named after Flaxman (junior).

In the 1860s he began to examine flint implements in and around Crayford in Kent, and over the following decades published a large number of articles for the Kent Archaeological Society (of which his father was a founding member), the Essex Archaeological Society and Royal Archaeological Society, as well as other societies and groups. In 1895 he presented a number of pre-historic remains to the Natural History Museum, and later donated material to the Norwich Castle Museum.

He was a close friend of the egyptologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie, whom he helped to record discoveries made in, for example, Naqada and Tell el-Amarna in Egypt.

Flaxman Spurrell was also interested in photography, and some of his photographs are currently held by English Heritage.

Some years before his death, he retired to Bessingham Manor House in Norfolk, one of the seats of the Spurrell family, and was no longer active in the archaeological world. He died at The Den, Bessingham, in 1915, having married his cousin, Katherine Anne Spurrell, on 27 March 1912.

Flaxman Spurrell was educated at Epsom College; he was a Fellow of Geological Society from 1868 to 1905 and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries from 1899 to 1910.

He was a nephew of Rev. Frederick Spurrell and an uncle of the biologist and author Herbert George Flaxman Spurrell.