Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Hooley, Reginald Walter

5 September 1865 – 5 May 1923

Reginald Hooley was a wine merchant from Winchester with a passion for fossil collecting.  He was born in Southampton and began his paleontological career by searching out specimens on the Isle of Wight, eventually discovering a new species of dinosaur.  

He was one of the founding members of the Isle of Wight Natural History & Archaeological Society and was elected to the Hampshire Field Club & Archaeological Society in 1890.  In 1912 he moved to Winchester. The following year he was elected a member of the City Council and took a particular interest in libraries and museums, eventually taking on the role of Hon Curator.His role at the museum brought him into contact with the more recent past and one of his key discoveries was on Worthy Down, where the chance finding of Iron Age currency bars led to the excavation of ditches and other features, part of a later prehistoric settlement.

Sources

Hampshire Cultural Trust

HFC Proceedings - see below.

Portrait

Contribution to county’s history

Hon Curator at the Winchester City Museum from 1918 to 1923. 

Relevant published works

• Hooley, R W (1927) Hallstatt Pottery from Winchester, Proc Hants Field Club 10, 63-8

• Hooley, R W (ed Tildesley, M L) (1929) Excavation of an early Iron Age village on Worthy Down, Winchester, Proc Hants Field Club 10, 178-95

• Hooley,  R W (1934) Note on a hoard of iron currency bars found on Worthy Down, Proc Hants Field Club 12, 236-40 [publication of a paper read to the Society of Antiquaries in 1921]

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Contributor

Dave Allen – November 2021

Key Words

Fossils, paleontology, Isle of Wight Natural History & Archaeological Society, Worthy Down, Winchester City Museum

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