John Rumsby obituary

My friend John Rumsby, a museum curator, who has died from cancer aged 75, brought an appreciation of social history to the community where he lived and worked. Collections manager at Kirklees Museums, West Yorkshire, before his retirement on health grounds in 2007, he continued to publish meticulously researched articles and books on military history, local history and numismatics.

Born in Plaistow, east London, John was one of the three sons of Eva (nee Harvey), and Ken, a solicitor’s clerk. He attended Stratford grammar school and, from an early age, dragged his family to castles, churches and other places that interested him.

John studied archaeology and geography at Southampton University (1968-71). His first job was as museum assistant at the Durham Light Infantry Museum. In 1976 he became keeper of archaeology for Hull City Museums, where his work included the development of a new gallery of Roman life, centred on the Horkstow mosaic, transferred from the British Museum. He also created an exhibition of decorative tiles that toured Yorkshire museums, and was a founder of the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society in 1981.

In Hull he met Barbara Smith, a computer scientist. They married in 1978, moving to Huddersfield in 1981, where John became curator of the Tolson Memorial Museum, which displays the history of Huddersfield, including archaeology, textiles, transport and natural history. He instituted a programme to update the galleries. The coin and token collections in the Hull and Huddersfield museums made him realise their role in local history, leading to several published articles.

He studied part-time for a PhD at Leeds University, focusing on the 16th Lancers in India, which led to a book, Discipline, System and Style: The Sixteenth Lancers and British Soldiering in India 1822-1846, published in 2016. Above all, John was interested in ordinary soldiers, editing the letters and memoirs of several for publication. His many articles included an examination of suicide in the 19th-century army. The involvement of “Waterloo men” at Peterloo led John to look at the civil power’s use of cavalry.

John was one of the “civic community” who give a cultural dimension to every town. He was a popular speaker with local societies, on diverse subjects including chariot racing, cemeteries and a local man’s letters to his sweetheart in the first world war.

Barbara survives him, as does their daughter, Susie, and his brother Paul.