Albert Lionel Frederick Rivet

British archaeologist specializing in the Roman empire. Educated at Oriel College, Oxford, his archaeological interests were aroused intellectually by R. G. Collingwood at Oxford and practically by working for Mortimer Wheeler at Maiden Castle in Dorset in the mid 1930s. Briefly working as a schoolmaster, in 1938 Rivet enlisted as a private soldier before service with the Royal Signals where he eventually rose to the rank of major and undertook service in East Africa. After the war he was a bookseller in Cambridge for five years before taking up a post as an archaeological officer with the Ordnance Survey. Working there for thirteen years, he was responsible for producing the third edition of the Map of Roman Britain (1956, Ordnance Survey); it was also during this period that he wrote Town and country in Roman Britain (1958, London: Hutchinson). In 1964 he was appointed to a lectureship in classics at Keele University, and it was from this time that he started publishing on the place-names which led to a magisterial volume written in association with Colin Smith entitled The placenames of Roman Britain (1979, London: Batsford). He was awarded a personal Chair at Keele University in 1974 and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1981. He served on numerous committees and editorial boards for academic societies, and published widely.

[Obit.: The Times, 22 September 1993]