Alex Keiller

Heir to the famous James Keiller & Son marmalade business, Alex Keiller was born in the family mansion at Binrock in Dundee. His father died when he was an infant, and Alex was subsequently educated at a Surrey boarding school, before going to Eton. His mother died when he was a teenager, however, and he returned to his native Scotland to look after the family business.

In 1910, Keiller was one of the early British exponents of ski jumping and, although he did not have an outstanding skiing or ski jumping career, hewas a fine administrator of the sport. In 1926 he founded the British Ski-jumping Club and was its first president. He was also president of the Ski Club of Great Britain for a while. In 1928 Keiller wrote The Ski-ing Events at the Winter Olympic Games, 1928 which was published by the British Ski-jumping and Langlaud Clubs, and was the first work of its kind in Britain.

Having served with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and then the Royal Naval Air Service, during World War I, Keiller was injured in 1915 and that year obtained his commercial pilot’s license. He later put it to good use because, with his friend “OGS” Crawford, they became aerial photographers and recorded archaeological sites across the Wessex landscape, and in 1924 published a book entitled Wessex from the Air. This interest resulted in Keiller purchasing and excavating Avebury, Wiltshire, one of Britain’s leading prehistoric sites. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the site was restored by Keiller, a self-taught architect who became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (F.S.A.). Many of the Bronze Age artifacts he found can be seen at the Alex Keiller Museum, including a 3,500-year-old monument. He is also known to have discovered the bones of the earliest domesticated dog in England. Keiller eventually sold the site to the National Trust for a nominal fee, and in the 1980s Avebury was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Kieller died in 1955 at Telegraph Cottage, Kingston Hill, Surrey, which was used as a secret HQ of General Eisenhower for a while during World War II.