Early years and first posts Francis was born in
Liverpool, the only child of Frank William Francis, a provision broker, and his wife, Elizabeth
née Chalton. He was educated at the
Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and
Liverpool University, where he took a first class degree in
Classics. From 1923 to 1925, he undertook post-graduate studies at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he specialised in early Greek philosophy. At the museum, Francis was put in charge of Swedish books. He paid several visits to Sweden, studied Swedish and Icelandic and became the museum's leading expert in Scandinavian languages. From 1930 he also took a leading role in the revision of the museum's general catalogue, acquiring a reputation as a bibliographer. From 1948 to 1959 he also held the post of lecturer in bibliography at
University College London. an embarrassing event kept secret from the general public for many years, due to fears that this would affect the British Museum's continued ownership claim given the long controversy regarding the Marbles' removal from
Athens. The museum adopted the practice of importing exhibitions from other museums and galleries. Francis took radical steps to modernise and rationalise the organisation and responsibilities of the museum and other organisations for which it was nominally responsible. He was largely responsible for the contents of the
British Museum Act of 1963, which gave the
Natural History Museum complete independence from the British Museum for the first time, authorised the museum to dispose of duplicate items, and allowed it to store and even display items away from the main building at
Bloomsbury. but he later developed plans for a new library building, which after his retirement came to fruition as the British Library. Roberts later wrote a short biography of Francis for the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In 1966, the new complete British Museum catalogue was completed. Francis had drastically streamlined the production of its 263 volumes by deciding that instead of preparing a new catalogue manually, the working copy of the catalogue in the Reading Room of the museum would be tidied up and then photographed and reproduced with minimal editorial changes. ==Honours and last years==