Tour 1: Antiquarians, collectors and dealers

3. Worthington George Smith
(1835–1917)

Objects collected by Worthington Smith

George Worthington Smith was a pioneering archaeologist known for the discovery of hundreds early flint tools across northeast London and Bedfordshire. Like archaeologists today he accurately recorded where many of his finds were made and published his discoveries. The Museum of London has a few of his finds, marked with his characteristic ‘WGS’ monogram.

Worthington Smith trained as an architect, but in his mid-twenties turned to earning his living by illustrating books and magazines, especially The Builder and The Gardener's Chronicle. He had wide ranging interests, which included antiquities and botany. He was fascinated by fungi and often experimented on himself to discover how poisonous they might be.

Worthington Smith lived in Highbury and later at Kyverdale Road, Stoke Newington. In later life he moved out into the countryside at Dunstable because he suffered from heart trouble. He was a man of great energy and enthusiasm for his various interests. Even at the age of 72 would happily walk 30 miles a day, searching for flint tools and botanical specimens, wearing a distinctive long cloak and wide-brimmed hat. He would regularly visit gravel pits, building sites and road excavations in northeast London, recording the archaeology and geology destroyed as farms, commons and meadows gave way to the urban sprawl of London.

One of Worthington Smith’s most important discoveries was a so-called ‘Palaeolithic floor’ or buried land surface in Stoke Newington. This ‘floor’ consisted of flint tools and flint-working debris produced by our distant ancestors. It was observed by Worthington Smith on building sites and excavations for drains and roads stretching from Stamford Hill to Highbury. The fact that these tools are thought to have been found close to where they were last used was (and still is) an unusual discovery, particularly for tools thought to date back 300,000 years. Few tools of this age are found exactly where they were left due to changes in the course and level of the ancient Thames.

Modern archaeologists have attempted to relocate the ‘Palaeolithic floor’ in Stoke Newington, but as of yet no site has been found with flint tools in situ. This search has been hampered by the fact that most of the area is covered with housing and opportunities for excavation rarely occur. Despite these problems, the accuracy of many of Worthington Smith’s geological observations have been confirmed by the work that has taken place.

Like archaeologists today Worthington Smith recorded precisely where his finds were made, drawing sections and commissioning photographs of geological features. He collected every fragment of worked flint he could find, rather than saving just the best pieces. He even tried to rejoin anciently struck flakes and illustrated his finds with a skill and precision rarely matched today. His book, Man the Primeval Savage, published in 1894, tried to reconstruct many aspects of the life of our distant ancestors and even contained a number of imaginative reconstructions.

Today Worthington Smith’s collections are quite dispersed, since he gave away his material quite freely, but large quantities are housed in the British Museum and Luton Museum. The Museum of London’s objects were donated by Worthington Smith’s son, A. E. Smith.

Extracted from Roe, D. A., 1981, ‘The Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Periods in Britain’ and Wymer, J., 1968, ‘Lower Palaeolithic Archaeology in Britain’