'I am an archaeologist and part-time PhD student based at the University of Southampton. I am currently in the process of completing my doctoral thesis, which is, in a nutshell, an examination of the current problems in 'commercial' (ie. the work that developers pay for) archaeology.

As you would expect, sections of my thesis deal with the historical background to the current situation. Largely this is limited to 20th Century developments, but I have also become something of a fan of Stephen and John Parker of Heytesbury. It's quite likely that you have heard little or nothing of them before now, but they were the labourers hired by William Cunnington for his and Colt Hoare's archaeological work in the area around the turn of the 19th Century.

They are almost always dismissed as 'mere labourers' in archaeological historiographies, but in actual fact Cunnington trained these two men and they worked on all of his projects - often unsupervised - for several years until his death in 1810. In actual fact, they were also responsible for hiring and supervising extra labourers as and when required, and a friend of Colt Hoare even asked if he could hire them for a barrow excavation in 1807 because his "Hampshire men have disgraced themselves by their exorbitant demands; and [he was] confident the expenses of [the Parker's] journey will be amply repaid by their superior skill and alacrity".

The two Parkers were something of a phenomenon, but have sadly been almost forgotten. I believe that they are the first 'diggers' in a recognisably modern sense and am on something of a crusade to ensure that they are properly credited for their work. Although I am currently busy with my thesis I hope to be able to undertake more research on the Parkers in the future - particularly trawling through the letters in Devizes to pick out all the references to them so that their story can be properly told. This plan, of course, is dependant on the vain hope of getting funding from somewhere, but I thought that, at the very least, you might be interested to hear about the two men that even Colt Hoare referred to as his "Heytesbury Pioneers".

If, by any chance you do have any information on the Parkers beyond what appears in Cunnington's 1975 book on his ancestor and Woodbridge's 1970 book on Colt Hoare I would be very interested to see it.'

PAUL EVERILL MA AIFA

PhD Candidate, Department of Archaeology, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON