He was the great grandson of the famous antiquarian William Cunnington and the fourth generation of his family to work recording and preserving Wiltshire"s past The son of Henry Cunnington, a wine merchant, Benjamin was a journalist before joining his father"s business.
He was also for sixty years also the unpaid honorary curator of Devizes Museum. They had one son, Edward, who was killed in the First World War. The Cunningtons carried out excavations at some of the most important sites in British archaeology.
These included the first known Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Knap Hil, the Iron age village at All Cannings Cross, West Kennet Long Barrow, Woodhenge, (which they named) and The Sanctuary.
This last monument they rediscovered as it had been lost since William Stukeley saw it in the eighteenth century. Woodhenge and The Sanctuary were bought by the Cunningtons and given to the nation.
