Frederick Thomas Baker, O.B.E., M.A., F.M.A.

Tom Baker was born on 3 February 1911 in a house which now forms part of the Museum of Lincolnshire Life - a fitting birthplace for the man who was to spend his long life in the city and become its leading historian of modern times. As a schoolboy he was taken by his architect father to see the excavation of a site in the High Street from which a wealth of Roman remains were uncovered. Although a new branch of Boots the Chemist was subsequently built on the site, and most of the traces of Roman occupation obliterated, Baker's interest in archaeology had been aroused and was to be pursued for more than seventy years. He attended St John's Preparatory School and the Municipal Technical School, now the City School, in Lincoln before starting work at the age of sixteen as junior assistant in the City and County Museum at a wage of ten shillings (50p) a week. In 1929 C. W. Phillips (later FSA), began work in the county and became not only Baker's mentor but life-long friend. Apart from learning archaeology on the job from the museum’s curator and local enthusiasts such as Ethel Rudkin, Baker studied for a formal museum qualification at Nottingham University, being put in charge of the Museum in 1934. He was appointed deputy director of Lincoln Libraries, Museum and Art Gallery in 1948 and succeeded to the directorship in 1962, holding this position until local government reorganization in 1974, when he retired. Baker published one of the first plans of Roman Lincoln in 1938, compiled from the limited records then available. It is included in Roman Lincoln, the text of a lecture he delivered to the Lincoln branch of the Historical Association. Unfortunately, the original drawing of the plan was eaten by mice in 1959 when it was left in the garage with other papers after the family moved house. Although Baker published very little himself, successive post-war archaeologists, including Christopher Hawkes, Sir Ian Richmond, Sir David Wilson and Dr J. N. L. Myres, have expressed their appreciation of the energy and enthusiasm he brought to the activities of the Lincoln Archaeological Research Committee, established in 1945. Baker's painstaking records of chance discoveries provided the raw material for much of their published work on aspects of the prehistoric, Roman and Anglo-Saxon city and its environs. Especially dear to his heart was the work he did on the Roman aqueduct with the late Hugh Thompson. Baker was a founder member of Lincoln Civic Trust and its president at the time of his death; he was dedicated to the work of the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology and Lincolnshire Local History Society and made a useful contribution to many aspects of Lincoln life, including ecology, geology, botany, natural history and architecture. A committed Christian, he became a deacon of Monks Road Baptist church at the age of eighteen and retired as superintendent deacon in 1970. His faith sustained him during the loss of his only son, Professor Peter Baker, F.R.S., at the age of 47 and of his wife a few months later. Baker was a member of the Antiquaries' Council in 1968/9 where his practical approach to its deliberations was often a refreshing antidote to that of its more rarified, academic members. He was a popular after-dinner speaker in Lincoln and his last public appearance, less than a fortnight before his death, was at the Grand Hotel to hear the annual lecture named after him. Baker left his books and notebooks to Bishop Grosseteste College, where they are freely available to all who wish to consult them. He died on 24 January 1998 and his funeral took place on what would have been his 87th birthday.