From an early age he manifested a tendency to the study of out-of-the-way subjects, and after a brief employment in the Record Office obtained in 1836 an appointment in the antiquities department of the British Museum on account of his knowledge of Chinese. He soon extended his researches to Egyptian, and when the cumbrous department came to be divided he was appointed to the charge of the Egyptian and Assyrian branch.
In the latter language he had assistance, but for many years there was only one other person in the institution in a different department who knew anything of ancient Egyptian, and the entire arrangement of the department devolved upon Birch. He found time nevertheless for Egyptological work of the highest value, including a hieroglyphical grammar and dictionary, translations of The Book of the Dead and papyrus Harris I, and numerous catalogues and guides.
He further wrote what was long a standard history of pottery, investigated the Cypriote syllabary, and proved by various publications that he had not lost his old interest in Chinese. Paradoxical in many of his views on things in general, he was sound and cautious as a philologist; while learned and laborious, he possessed much of the instinctive divination of genius.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica.
Samuel John "Lamorna" Birch, RA, RWS (1869 - 1955) was an artist in oils and watercolours.
Lamorna Birch was born in Egremont in Cheshire, England.
He is thought of as a painter of northern England, but his most important period was when he settled in Lamorna, Cornwall in 1902, and many of his most famous pictures date from this time and the beautiful Lamorna Cove is usually their subject matter.
THOMAS BIRCH (1705-1766), English historian, son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, was born at Clerkenwell on the 23rd of November 1705.
Birch was killed on the 9th of January 1766 by a fall from his horse, and was buried in the church of St Margaret Pattens, London, of which he was then rector.
Birch had an enormous capacity for work and was engaged in a large number of literary undertakings.
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