CLAUDE BLAIR, as his name indicates, was by paternal descent a Scot, but he was born and brought up near Manchester, was at school and university there, and it was south Lancashire and Cheshire that left the most formative impression on him. After service in the Artillery during the Second World War, he went to the University of Manchester where the history department, under T.F. Tout, had long ago earned a distinguished reputation for the study of English medieval history. His course also included some art history, which was rare at that time. One of his most persistent enthu­siasms was for the study of effigies and tombs and he was still only an undergraduate when he published in the Trans­actions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society the first part of a study of the Pre-Reformation effigies in Cheshire. His masterly knowledge of medieval costume and armour, on which he was so profoundly learned an authority, began and continued with this never-flagging interest in English effigies and brasses, studies that he not only pursued himself but encouraged others to pursue until the end of his life. He helped to found the Arms and Armour Society, whose journal he edited for many years to rigorous standards, and also the Church Monuments Society, and the Medieval Dress and Textile Society. It is a matter for regret that in the field of medieval costume he published no manual like his remarkable standard work European Armour (1958; 2nd ed. 1972) in which so much information is so skilfully presented in a style of incomparable precision.

That book, like Blair’s European and American Arms (1962) and Pistols of the World (1968), reflected the museum world that was his from 1951, when he joined what were then known as the Tower of London Armouries. Difficulties with its Director, James Mann, caused him to move in 1956 to the Metalwork Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but also created a permanent bond with the V. & A.’s Director, Trenchard Cox. Blair retained a deep affection for what later became the Royal Armouries, but the Museum’s collection naturally directed him to other interests as well. It should be said at once that he had an inborn affinity with all the arts of metalworking, taking pains to understand as he did their techniques, of which he had a notably clear historical grasp, and their range, from monumental cast and hammered work to the delicacy of chiselled finish. When he came to the Museum, Romanesque and Renaissance art were in fashion, and Blair’s affection for the Gothic style was exceptional and seemed rather old-fashioned. After his first visit to Rome, he told the present writer what a relief it had been to get away to the Gothic churches of Naples. It is easy to smile, but sensibilities to art can be quite easily lost to the prejudices of fashion, and Blair’s appreciation of works of all styles and kinds steadily broadened and deepened as time passed.

The precision of which his fellow-scholars were always aware had two other consequences in Blair’s work. One was his painstaking research for documentation – manuscript and printed: interesting clauses seemed to write themselves into any will he consulted. He felt, surely correctly, that the exact identification of objects represented in paintings was essential. This care for accuracy will help to ensure the continued value of the very considerable volume of publication he achieved in reviews, for instance in this Magazine, and in articles. In this context, it would be wrong not to mention the apple of his eye, the study on the Emperor Maximilian’s gift of armour to Henry VIII in the Tower, which he published in Archeologia in 1965. Henry and his inventories were to remain a constant source of interest and enquiry to him.

As Keeper of Metalwork he was loved, like his predecessor Basil Robinson, and admired in the museum world, and his memory will always be cherished by the many younger people who experienced the warmth and encouragement of a great scholar dedicated to his subjects, and always generous in sharing his knowledge. A colleague once called him Mr Valiant for Truth, and he had indeed a combative detestation of deceit, pomposity, pretence and humbug of all kinds. Yet he made many friends and few enemies: his work for Anglican churches and their treasuries and for English antiquities was recognised – he served on the Fabric Advisory Panel of Westminster Abbey (1979–98) and on the Churches Conservation Trust (1992–97). He was a liveryman of the Cutlers’ Company, of the Armourers’ and Braziers’ Company and the Goldsmiths’ Company. Elected to the Society of Antiquaries in 1956, he was a Vice-President from 1900 to 1993 and awarded its Gold Medal in 1998. For his work on the monumental Crown Jewels (1998) he was awarded a CVO, an additional honour to the OBE he was given in 1994, and he was granted an honorary doctorate by Manchester University. His final publication, with Marian Campbell, Marcy, appeared last year and was the triumphant culmination of years of patient research by both scholars into the complex and mysterious life and work of a master agent in forgery.