After Sutton Hoo
During the war Basil Brown performed a few archaeological tasks for the Museum, but was principally engaged in other forms of War work in Suffolk. Afterwards he was again employed by the Museum, nominally as an 'attendant', but with archaeological, external duties. Until the 1960s he steadily continued the systematic study of archaeological remains in Suffolk, cycling everywhere, and preparing an extremely copious (if sometimes indecipherable) record of information pertaining to it. Out of this was developed the County Sites and Monuments Record of Suffolk, the basis of the record as it exists today. He encouraged groups of children to work on his sites, and introduced a whole generation of youngsters to the processes of archaeology and the fascination of what lay under the ploughed fields of the county.
Much has been said or written of the collision of social classes which took place at Sutton Hoo in 1939, and their impact on the relationships of the excavators. Mr Brown was descended from a long line of yeoman farmers of Suffolk. The recipient of a country education, and self-taught in astronomy and in several European languages, although he possessed a broad East Anglian accent, his powers of observation and deduction, and his good sense and wise conduct, generally earned him the respect of discerning authorities.
Basil Brown made an immense contribution to the development of Suffolk archaeology, and was deservedly proud of the wonderful discovery of 1939 which he had been lucky enough to make.
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