The egyptologist's father, also Samuel Birch (1780?-1848), matriculated from St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1798. He graduated B.A. as tenth senior optime in the mathematical tripos in 1802, gained the second member's prize for a Latin essay, and was elected a fellow of his college. He proceeded M.A. in 1800, and D.D. in 1828. He was for a time professor of geometry in Gresham College, London. He became rector of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch-Haw in 1808, a prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral (occupying the Twyford stall) in 1819, and in 1834 vicar of Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire, where he died on 24 June 1848. He published many sermons preached before distinguished people.
Samuel, the eldest son, was born in London on 3 Nov. 1813. He was sent to preparatory schools at Greenwich and Blackheath, and he entered on 3 July 1826 the Merchant Taylors' School, where he studied for five years, leaving in 1831. For one year he and (Sir) Edward Augustus Bond [q. v. Suppl.], afterwards principal librarian of the British Museum, were fellow-pupils. Before Birch left school he had, at the suggestion of an acquaintance of his grandfather who was in the British diplomatic service in China, begun the study of Chinese under a capable teacher. He made good progress in the difficult language. In 1833 he was promised an appointment in China, and, although the promise was not fulfilled, he continued his study of Chinese. In 1834 he entered the service of the commissioners of public records, and, on the recommendation of William Henry Black [q. v.], assistant-keeper of the public record office, aided the keeper, (Sir) Thomas Duffus Hardy [q. v.] For seventeen months he worked side by side with Bond. His salary was then 40l. a year (Report from Select Committee on Record Commission. London, 1836, p. 340, No. 3848). On 18 Jan. 1836 he became assistant in the department of antiquities at the British Museum, where his first duty was to arrange and catalogue Chinese coins. Soon after his appointment there (he used to tell the story with great glee) his grandfather called to see him, and, in answer to a question as to what he was about, on being told that he was cataloguing coins, exclaimed, 'Good God, Sammy! has the family come to that?' At an early period in his Chinese studies he began to examine carefully the writings of Champollion on the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but it was not until he entered the British Museum that he threw himself heart and soul into the study of egyptology. For a short time, in 1832 and 1833, he had hesitated about accepting Champollion's system of the decipherment of Egyptian in its entirety ; but when he had read and considered the mixture of learning and nonsense which Champollion's critics, Klaproth and Seyftarth, had written on the subject, he rejected once and for all the views which they and the other enemies of Champollion enunciated with such boldness. To Lepsius in Germany and to Birch in England belongs the credit of having first recognised the true value of Champollion's system [cf. arts, Wilkinson, Sir John Gardner; Young, Thomas, 1773-1829]. They were so firmly persuaded of its importance that Lepsius abandoned the brilliant career of a classical scholar to follow the new science, and Birch finally relinquished the idea of a career in China, to the great regret of his grandfather, to be able better to pursue his Egyptian studies in the service of the trustees of the British Museum. Birch's earliest known paper ('On the Taou, or Knife Coin of the Chinese') appeared in 1837, and it was a year later that his first writing on Egyptian matters saw the light. From this time onwards he continued to write short papers on numismatics, to translate Chinese texts, and to edit papyri for the trustees of the British Museum. Besides this work he found time to write lengthy explanatory notes for works like Perring's 'Pyramids of Gizeh' (3 pts. 1839-42), and frequently to supply whole chapters of descriptive text to books of travellers and others. In 1844, the year which saw the publication of the third part of his 'Select Papyri in the Hieratic Character,' he was made assistant keeper in the department of antiquities at the British Museum, which appointment beheld until 1861. In 1846 he was sent by the trustees to Italy to report on the famous Anastasi collection of Egyptian antiquities, which was subsequently purchased by them ; and ten years later he was again sent to Italy to report, in connection with Sir Charles T. Newton [q. v. Suppl.], on the Campana collection of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman vases, coins, &c. In 1861 the trustees of the British Museum divided the department of antiquitieii into three sections ; William Sidney Vaux [q. v.] became keeper of the coins and medals, Newton keeper of the Greek and Roman antiquities, and Birch keeper of the oriental, British, and mediaeval antiquities. In 1866 a further subdivision was made, and the British and mediaeval antiquities were placed under the keepership of (Sir) Arthur Wollaston Franks [q. v. Suppl.] ; Birch was thus enabled to devote his whole official time to the study of the Egyptian and Assyrian
