Birch, SAMUEL

Birch, SAMUEL, Egyptologist, was born in London, 3d November 1813, the son of a city clergyman. Educated at Merchant Taylors', in 1834 he entered the public service under the Commissioners of Public Records; and in 1836 he became assistant in the antiquities department of the British Museum. In this capacity, Birch acquired an extensive acquaintance with archaeology in all its branches. He studied not only Greek and Roman antiquities, including numismatics, but applied himself with untiring zeal to Egyptian hieroglyphics. In process of time, he so distinguished himself in this difficult branch of learning, that Baron Bunsen availed himself of Birch's knowledge in the philological portion of Egypt's Place in Universal History, the last volume of which, after Bunsen's death, was admirably edited by Birch. In 1844 he was appointed assistant-keeper of antiquities; in 1861, keeper of the Egyptian and Oriental antiquities. He received an honorary LL.D. from St Andrews in 1862, and from Cambridge in 1874, in which year he was president of the London Congress of Orientalists. He was a corresponding member of several academies, and was a contributor to various learned journals, to the English Encyclopædia, and to Chambers's Encyclopædia. Besides three works connected with his Chinese studies, he was author of Ancient History from the Monuments of Egypt (1875), Egyptian Texts (1877), &c. He died in London 27th December 1885.