The Times/1914/Obituary/Arthur William Kaye Miller

The Death at the British Museum

Notable Bookman

An inquest was held at Holborn on Saturday on the body of Mr. Arthur William Kaye Miller, who last February retired from the position of Keeper of Printed Books after 44 years service at the British Museum, and who died suddenly in the Museum last Thursday.

Mr. Miller, who was in good health, was present at the opening by the King of the King Edward VII Galleries of the Museum. After the ceremony he returned home and took his daughter, Miss Miller, to see the building, in which he took great interest. While in the gallery of the new wing, Mr. Miller suddenly fell to the floor and died.

Medical evidence stated that death was due to an attack of angina pectoris, or heat disease.

We have received from an old colleague of Mr. Miller the following tribute:—

Mr. Miller was not very widely known outside the Museum, although he ended his official career as Keeper of Printed Books> he gave all the best of his life to the improvement of the great general catalogue of the Museum library, a work too great for any one man's name to be attached to it, but on which he exeered so pre-eminent an linfluence that all that is best in it may be be called his.

Born in February 1849, he was educated at the North London Collegiate School and University College, London, of which he became a Fellow. He graduated with great distinction both in classics and modern languages at London University, taking his M.A. in 1872, by which time he had already been tow years in the British Museum At the Museum his wide reading, especially in French, German and Italian, made him an exceptionally useful man from the start; but it was when the printing of the General Catalogue began in 1880 that he found his real work. Employed on recasting one important heading after another, his influence constantly increased, and from 1890 until his retirement last February he had the catalogue completely under his control.

It was his great achievement that he humanized it, never departing from the spirit of Panizzi's famous "Ninety-one Rules," but so developing them as to allow of everything that a man had written and everything that had been written about him being displayed in orderly sequence. To attainhis ideal Mr. Miller extended his official hours and worked at proofs again in the evening. A proof-sheet, indeed had as great an attraction from him as for Bishop Stubbs, and he brought to the task of correction a highly specialized memory, which at times appeared miraculous. Chance delayed his accession to the Keepership of Printed Books until his appointment became rather a compliment rather than an opportunity, but few men have exercised a great influence on the work and policy of the natural library.

As his contribution to the many "unusual languages" needed at the Museum, Mr. Miller took up Welsh and Irish, and he was for many years a member of the Cymmrodion Society. He served also on the Council of University College, and was a vice-president of the Bibliographical Society.