Albert Arthur Round, B.Sc.

Bert Round was born in Birmingham in 1905 and left school at the age of fifteen. His first job was laboratory assistant at King Edward’s School, Aston, but he immediately began studying at night school for a degree in metallurgy. On reaching the intermediate stage he obtained a professional appointment with the firm of Kynoch and Company and, after more burning of the midnight oil, was awarded a B.Sc. from London University. His horizons were widened but Round chose to remain in the Birmingham area for most of his long life, his subsequent professional career being spent with Dunlop, where he was involved in research on tyre rubber and later worked on the production of Dunlopillo. Round spent the war years as a `boffin’, developing adhesives for the construction of bullet-proof coverings for aeroplane fuel tanks, and was appointed technical manager of the special projects division soon after the war ended. In the early fifties he was promoted to assistant general manager and remained in this capacity until 1965 when he decided to retire early and spend more time on his archaeological activities. From 1960 he had been an active member of the newly established South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society which began as a research group under the aegis of Birmingham University to continue excavations at the Roman town of Letocetum (The Grey Wood), begun in 1956 by Dr Graham Webster, FSA.. The society was successively re-formed as the Lichfield and South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society (1962) and, finally, the South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society (1968). Round served under its various changes of name as an early committee member, a member of the editorial committee, 1964-77, honorary treasurer, 1964-72 , president 1975-7, and vice-president from 1977 until his death. He will be best remembered in archaeological circles for his work at Wall, a site on Watling street about halfway between the Roman Manduessedum and Pennocrucium. He was appointed by the Department of the Environment, which administered the site, todirect operations there in 1966, in succession to Jim Gould, F.S.A. Round excavated the bath house in 1971 followed by the mansio, in 1972, where he uncovered evidence for the existence of a pagan Celtic shrine in the first century A.D. on the site of the Roman settlement, subsequently destroyed by the Romans. His detailed reports were punctually written up and published in the Transactions of the South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society nos. 9 (1969-70), 10 (1973-4), 11 (1979-80 and 12 (1981-82). Round was also a member of the Birmingham Archaeological Society and for some years secretary of the C.B.A. Group 8. After the death of his wife, Round left the Midlands temporarily to live in Corfe Castle but returned to Lichfield in 1991. He had always travelled widely in Europe and America but was obviously glad to be `home’, where,he was immensely popular in music and drama circles as well as with archaeological colleagues. Even in his late 80s and 90s, he managed occasional visits to the South Staffordshire Society meetings and, though not himself professionally qualified, his enthusiasm for the subject was such that, inspired by Round, several members of his team of volunteers became professional archaeologists. He died on 11 March 1998.