My friend and former colleague Stephen Croad, who has died aged 71, was the head of the architectural record of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England from 1981 until the collection was moved out of London in 1994. He published numerous essays and produced two notable books: London’s Bridges (1983) and Liquid History: The Thames Through Time (2003, republished 2016).
Born in Bridgwater, Somerset, Stephen was the only son of Lionel, a golf club groundsman, and his wife, Dorothy (nee Stephens), a school secretary. He attended Dr Morgan’s grammar school in Bridgwater before taking a BA in history of European art at the Courtauld Institute, London, graduating in 1967.
A year later Stephen joined the architectural section of the National Monuments Record archive. He had been employed for little more than a year before a devastating car accident in 1969, from which he was not expected to survive, left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. That he was able to return to work and to an active, independent life was a tribute both to the care he had received at Lodge Moor hospital in Sheffield and to his own determination and refusal to give way to self-pity.
He continued to work as a researcher and archivist at the record, becoming head in 1981. I met Stephen in 1979 when I joined the RCHM(E), and we became close colleagues and friends. I was his deputy for a period in the 1980s.
In 1994, the collection was moved substantially from Savile Row to Swindon, in Wiltshire, and Stephen became head of the small, surviving London office. He took early retirement in 1996 and returned to Somerset, where he enjoyed a second (voluntary) career, contributing to the Somerset Vernacular Buildings Research Group and to the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society.
He was also, from 1994 until 2011, assistant editor of the journal Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, always preferring the backroom role to the editorship itself, which was offered in vain.
Stephen’s professional achievements were fully recognised – he was one of the first members of the committee of the National Inventory of War Memorials, a member of the council of the London Topographical Society, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Geographical Society. He was appointed MBE in 1997.
Stephen was a man of great fortitude and good humour. He was a dedicated public servant and he transmitted that ethos to a devoted staff to whom he was always generous and encouraging. His was one of the great enabling contributions to English architectural history and public life.
