He was first cousin to Frank Kingdon-Ward the explorer and botanist and also related to William Kingdon Clifford the mathematician.

He worked for the Egyptian Government Service in 1922 before joining the Egypt Exploration Society expedition to el-Amarna in 1923.

Glanville studied Egyptology under Francis Llewellyn Griffith and was appointed Assistant in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum in 1924.

Sir Flinders Petrie having retired, Glanville was appointed Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London in 1935, holding the chair until 1946.

The Herbert Thompson chair of Egyptology was created in 1946 particularly to cover Demotic and Coptic studies for which SRKG had established an unequalled reputation.

Glanville was the source and inspiration for at least two of Christie's works, the historic mystery Death Comes as the End, and a play, Akhnaton.

and Faulkner, R. O., Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities in The British Museum II: Wooden Model Boats.