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DOWNING COLLEGE ASSOCIATIONWorking successively in East Sussex and Cheshire he witnessed, and contributedto, the development of the robust system of local authority provision for archivesthat exists today.Born at Blagdon, near Bristol, in 1925, into a family supported by his father’sgrocery and drapery business Brian was educated locally at Blagdon and atQueen’s College Taunton. He left Queen’s College in 1943 during the SecondWorld War and, influenced by the actions of his father, a pacifist who spentthe First World War in Dartmoor prison, Brian chose action as an Engineer inthe Navy, rather than a fighting role. He served in the Fleet Air Arm untilOctober 1946. That same month he matriculated at Downing to study theHistorical Tripos, assisted by an annual Exhibition of £40.Brian began his professional career in the East Sussex Record Office in 1950.During his time there he became Secretary of the British Records Association(BRA), a post that he held for eight years, surrendering it in 1964.Brian was appointed County Archivist of Cheshire in 1962. Here he spentthe rest of his professional career, turning an old-style establishment into amodern Record Office open to all with an interest in local and family history.While at Cheshire Brian was deeply involved with local history organisationsand activities, devoting time and energy to the Lancashire and Cheshire RecordSociety, Cheshire Local History Committee and Chester Archaeological Society.In the mid-1960s he was one of the prime movers in setting up the then NorthWest and North Wales group of the Society of Archivists, and was at the forefrontof negotiations for providing funds, staffing and accommodation for the CheshireVictoria County History which began its work in Cheshire in 1972.In retirement Brian was no less active. He retired in 1984 and was one ofthe founding members of the Friends of the Herefordshire Record Office in1985–6, serving as Secretary until 2003 and was sometime Chairman. He wasa prime mover in founding the Weobley Local History Society, of which he wasChairman and, for four years, President. In addition he became one of theTrustees for the Trust for the Herefordshire Victoria County History in 1996.It was while working in Lewes that Brian met Barbara Geddes, a botanist,whom he married in 1953 and with whom he had three children Penny, Helenand Stephen. Music was his passion, playing both the violin and the piano: inCheshire he and Barbara were members of the Chester Orchestral Society.It was said of him that “As a person Brian was kind, witty, and intellectual,with a tendency to the absent-mindedness which sometimes accompanies thatquality. Stories of his driving off in his trade-mark van leaving his briefcase inthe car park of a Cheshire town hall, or of ringing his Secretary to ask ‘I am onthe way to Liverpool – where should I be?’ are still fondly recalled.”Alec David Richards (1940) has died. He read Engineering.74