Dossier RAS BHA/1/3/10 - Letter from Richard D. Barnett to C.F. Beckingham

Richard David Barnett, CBE, FBA was the Keeper, Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum.

He was born on 23 January 1909, the son of Lionel David Barnett, who was the Keeper of Oriental Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum from 1908 to 1936. He attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was a student of British School of Archaeology at Athens from 1930 to 1932.

In 1932, Barnett was appointed an Assistant Keeper in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum. He remained in that office until 1939, when he moved to the Admiralty for war service; after spells there and at the Foreign Office, he served in the RAF from 1942 to 1946. On demobilisation, he returned to his post at the British Museum in 1946 and was promoted to Deputy Keeper in 1953.
In 1955, he became Keeper of the department, serving until 1974.[1] He then spent the 1974-75 year as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Barnett was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1962 and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974. He served as president of the Jewish Historical Society of England from 1959 to 1961 and chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society between 1968 and 1986.

He died on 29 July 1986.

The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke on the 15th March 1823. It received its Royal Charter from King George IV on the 11th August 1824 'for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia'. It continues as a forum for those who are interested in the languages, cultures and history of Asia to meet and exchange ideas.