Claude Blair, CVO, OBE, FSA (30 November 1922 – 21 February 2010) was a British museum curator and scholar, who specialised in European arms and armour.
[1] Having undertaken officer training in 1942,[4] he was commissioned into the Royal Regiment of Artillery as a second lieutenant on 24 April 1943.
[6] This ended his active service but he remained in the army as part of the team that tested new small arms.
[3] In 1956, Blair moved to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) after being appointed Assistant Keeper of Metalwork by its director, Sir Trenchard Cox.
[2] These were varied works, from those related to his main interest of armour, articles about monuments and even the Crown Jewels.
[3] As such, he would give lectures that were accessible to children during the Easter holidays,[3] and wrote a number books aimed at the general public.
[2] Together they had one son, John Blair (born 1955),[1] who became an academic at Oxford University specialising in the history and archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England.
[8] In the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours, Blair was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to Church Conservation".