William Wire qualifies as Colchester's first archaeologist. While previous antiquarians like Stukeley or Morant wrote history largely based on written sources, it was 100 years later that the extraordinary Wire systematically investigated and recorded. Colchester's buried archaeological remains — and quite a lot were being uncovered and destroyed in his day.
William Wire was from an old Colchester family: weavers, freemen of the borough and sturdy Radicals in politics. William was born in Colchester and apprenticed in London as a clockmaker; he returned to Colchester in 1828. Here he became active in the Liberal\Radical cause during a period of unusual political excitement in our history. He organised its poorer supporters into an Independent Radical Club, thereby anticipating the Chartist movement; his Colchester Working Men's Association became a local Chartist Branch.
Wire increasingly withdrew from active politics after 1839 as Chartism became more militant; there was some local persecution of Radicals, and Wire, with poor health, was struggling to raise his large family on the profits of a retail workshop. Despite his difficulties, Wire devoted more and more time to his antiquarian interests. He was both a Latin and Anglo-Saxon scholar and a numismatist of national standing, corresponding with many of the leading antiquarians of his day.
He attended lectures in the town and himself presented a paper to the Society of Antiquaries in London.
Wire's learning was outstanding, but local antiquarians were disposed against him because of his social class. However, 'his shop (in Church Street) was a place of resort for many leading men of science and archaeology' and 'for the next 25 years there passed through his hands the chief bulk of the coins, urns, and Roman remains found in the town...'
He secured re-publication of the rare tract 'Colchester's Teares', which described conditions in the town during the Siege of Colchester in 1648. He wrote regularly to the press and strongly argued for Colchester being Camulodunum, an issue which had not then been resolved.
Above all, from 1842 until his death in 1857, Wire kept a detailed record in diary form of all his archaeological findings in the town, and these constitute essential sources for all subsequent archaeology. Not only did he use archaeological techniques, and scrupulously record the site of any findings, their condition, context and (sometimes) their stratigraphy, but drawings in his diary make clear details which are invaluable for achaeologists today. It has been suggested that similar standards of archaeological recording are not found locally until the 1920s. He had much to record. In 1842/3 the railway arrived in Colchester and Wire, as well as making regular visits to its construction sites (for which the chief engineer gave him a pass), also had a network of contacts who would tell labourers to "take that to Mr Wire". Wire bought and sold antiquities on a semi-regular basis in his shop, as well as adding to his own considerable private collection; his reputation ensured that most local archaeological finds came to his notice. The Trust's ASDA site includes some of the area of Wire's study of the works for North Station and the railway cutting. Wire's discoveries here included the amphora containing six glass vessels.
Wire also made regular records as a new sewer system was installed in Colchester, as new buildings were put up, when a local clergyman (Rev Jenkins) excavated the important Gosbecks temple site in 1842, and when skeletons were found at the sand-pit by Butt Road. The Trust does much of its work in Wire's footsteps and uses his records.
Wire died aged only 52, his last years dogged by disappointment and illness. His great hope was to establish a museum in Colchester based on his own collection; he did this in 1840, but sadly he records in his diary the progressive selling-off of most of his coins and manuscripts to make ends meet. He took on the arduous job of a postman to survive. In April 1857, ill with influenza, Wire nonetheless completed his full round of letter delivery; he died shortly after returning home.
Late in life William Wire was recognised as one of the more remarkable figures in the town despite his humble station. Today his name is better remembered than most of the luminaries of the town in his day, and rightly so — and his work lives on.