Early life: 1913–1949 Merrifield was born on 22 August 1913 in
Temple Fortune, a suburb of north-west London that at the time was yet to be fully developed. His parents had married in 1912, and his father, Albert Merrifield, was a railway clerk, whereas his mother, Margaret, had "excellent qualifications and was experienced as a
primary school teacher". About a year after his birth the family moved to
Southend-on-Sea,
Essex, where his father died aged 36 on 6 May 1916: Merrifield was then three months short of his third birthday. His mother then moved with him to
Brighton, Sussex, on the south coast of England, where they lived with her parents above a shoe shop run by her father. Merrifield's education began at Pelham Street Council School in Brighton, where "a report issued on 29 September 1922, when he was nine years old, [used] the phrase 'top boy' twice in connection with his scholarly progress." He undertook his
secondary education at the
Municipal Secondary School for Boys on York Place in Brighton, and it was while studying there, in 1930, that he became an assistant to
H. S. Toms, curator of
Brighton Museum and former assistant to the archaeologist
Augustus Pitt Rivers. Inspired by the museum's ethnographic collection, which he helped catalogue, Merrifield embarked on a
University of London external degree, which he completed in 1935; although its main focus was on
anthropology, taking the degree also allowed him to take an intermediate course in
botany. It was at this time that he developed a keen interest in the archaeological evidence for religion and
magical practices. In 1940, during the
Second World War, Merrifield was conscripted into the
Royal Air Force, and in 1943 was transferred to its intelligence division, specialising in the interpretation of aerial photographs. He was posted to India and then
Java. In 1945, after the conflict ended, he returned to work at Brighton Museum.
The Guildhall Museum and the National Museum of Ghana: 1950–1974 In 1950 Merrifield took a post as assistant keeper of the
Guildhall Museum in London, a job that he would retain until 1975. At the time the museum lacked premises, and Merrifield assisted its keeper,
Norman Cook, in establishing an exhibit at the
Royal Exchange in 1954. During these post-war years the city's archaeological community was largely preoccupied with salvaging
Roman and
medieval structures damaged in
the Blitz, and by subsequent urban redevelopment. In November 1956 Merrifield was sent to
Accra in Ghana to establish the
National Museum of Ghana. The museum was due to be completed in time for the day of Ghana's independence from Britain in April 1957, displaying exhibits that had previously been at the
University Museum of Ghana. Upon arrival Merrifield found that construction was delayed, but, "by an ingenious co-ordination of processes", he had the museum ready for its official opening by the
Duchess of Kent. Returning to the Guildhall Museum he campaigned for the archaeological excavation of sites prior to their redevelopment, resulting in the establishment of the museum's Department of Urban Archaeology in 1973. In 1962 he published his first important
academic paper, a study of Roman coins found at the bottom of the
River Walbrook. Although not a specialist in any one particular aspect of
Romano-British archaeology, he was able to synthesise a wide range of evidence to develop a picture of life in
Londinium, the Roman settlement located in the
City of London, publishing
The Roman City of London in 1965. The project had been suggested to him two years previously by the publisher
Ernest Benn, and represented the first detailed study of Roman London to be published for 35 years. To produce it, Merrifield catalogued all known Romano-British remains in the city; at the same time he developed ideas for where further remains might be located. The archaeologist
W. F. Grimes described it as "a landmark in the study of Roman London", and the archaeologist Harvey Sheldon called it "a masterful historical synthesis". The book established Merrifield's reputation to a wider audience. He followed this with two works aimed at a general audience,
Roman London (1969), in which he looked at evidence for Romano-British occupation across the wider
Greater London area, and
The Archaeology of London (1975), in which he surveyed the archaeological evidence of the region from the
Palaeolithic through to the Early Middle Ages.
Museum of London and retirement: 1975–1995 In 1975 the Guildhall Museum was amalgamated with the
London Museum to become the
Museum of London, and Merrifield became its senior keeper: he was promoted to the position of deputy director in 1977, and was responsible for designing the museum's first Roman gallery. From 1976 to 1978 he also served as president of the
London and Middlesex Archaeological Society. Merrifield retired in 1978, and a
festschrift, entitled
Collectanea Londiniensia: Studies in London Archaeology and History Presented to Ralph Merrifield, was published in his honour. Recognising his many years of service to the archaeological field, the University of London awarded him an
honorary doctorate. During his retirement he continued to take an active role in researching London's past. In 1983 he published
London: City of the Romans, in which he updated his account of Londinium with information obtained over the previous decade and a half. His book
The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic appeared in 1987, and was written to combat what Merrifield identified as a widespread neglect of ritual aspects in the archaeological record. Concurring with Merrifield's assessment about this neglect, the later archaeologist
Roberta Gilchrist described the book as a "rare contribution" to the discipline. The historian of religion
Hilda Ellis Davidson praised the "cautious and balanced arguments" of Merrifield's work, opining that it should be read by every archaeologist as a corrective to what she thought was their widespread ignorance of folklore. Merrifield was uneasy with the changes made to London's archaeological establishment by
English Heritage during the early 1990s, strongly supporting the creation of the Standing Conference on London Archaeology to monitor English Heritage's actions. He also continued to talk on archaeological subjects, and his final lecture, "Magic Protection of the Home", was given to extramural students in
Northampton in December 1994. ==Personal life and death==