President’s Review of the Year, 2024-2025
In this year’s session we moved our meetings to the Royal Asiatic Society, which is in a convenient location near Euston Station and has technology for hybrid meetings. This is a venue that has been used by the Royal Numismatic Society in the past, and it has enabled us to return to the traditional meeting day of Tuesday. We have had seven meetings here at the Royal Asiatic Society, and two meetings, including our Early Career Lectures, in Zoom. My thanks go to all of the speakers who gave talks: Simon Coupland, Kateryna Sorochan, Thomas Birch, Tim Wright, Marcus Spencer-Brown, Timothy Cheuk Yin Chan, Vivien Bird, Carole Quatrelivre, Svante Fischer, and particularly to our Medallist for 2024, Helen Wang. Matty and the other staff here at the Royal Asiatic Society have been very helpful and supportive.
I am pleased to report that we have organized a symposium on ‘Coinage in Roman Britain: New Perspectives and the Way Forward’ at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, on Saturday 6 September. Booking for this event is now open (RNS 2025 Summer Symposium), and it should be a great day for our Society. Tonight I must thank our two outgoing members of Council, Ian d’Alton and Mafalda Raposo. They have both made a great contribution to the activities of our Society, serving on many sub-committees and advisory groups. Ian has worked on our Funds and the Lhotka and Parkes Weber Prizes, and Mafalda has been involved with the development of the RNS Archives, Communications and Marketing, and the Lhotka Prize.
We welcome two new members of Council. Kelly Clarke-Neish is a post-doctoral researcher working on the Britain’s Last Roman Hoards project at the British Museum. Campbell Orchard administers the Money and Medals Network, which makes a great contribution to the promotion of numismatics at every level, and he is about to take up a post as Digital Curator of Greek and Roman Provincial Coins at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Our Honorary Secretary, Andrew Brown, has made an enormous contribution to the work of the Society throughout the year, and we congratulate him on his appointment as Curator of Roman Coins at the Heberden Coin Room in Oxford. The contributions of our Vice Presidents, Megan Gooch and Matt Ball, have also been considerable. Megan has overseen a comprehensive review of our archives and administration. As a result of this review we have advertised two new freelance posts, as Administrator and Archive Assistant, which will greatly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Society’s work. Matt Ball has continued to edit the Society’s monthly e-newsletter, keeping the Society’s members in touch with our activities. Matt also looks after the Society’s website and he has had a leading role in the organization of our meetings here at the Royal Asiatic Society.
Our Honorary Vice President Joe Cribb has made great progress in developing the award of grants. The Grants sub-committee has awarded grants from its research funds twice, following deadlines in August 2024 and February 2025. A total of £31,264 was awarded to twenty recipients from the UK, Netherland, Italy, Sweden, the USA, Canada, China, India, Tajikistan and Egypt, for a wide range of research projects. These included the first three recipients of the new Katherina and William Barrett Fund for Asian Numismatic Research. During the year the Society has given £10,000 to the Money and Medals Network and £8,044 to the FINA (Fontes Inediti Numismaticae Antiquae) project of the Austrian Academy.
The Grants sub-committee and others from the Council have formed a working party to look into future ways of utilising recent donations to the Society to promote numismatic research and practice in the UK. The very generous bequest of Dr Malcolm Lyne included provision for an annual prize for publications on the late Roman coinage of the Western Empire after the currency reforms of Aurelian. It gave me great pleasure to make a joint award of inaugural Malcolm Lyne Prizes at the Britannia Nummaria conference in York in July 2024, to Recent Discoveries of Tetrarchic Hoards from Roman Britain and their Wider Context, edited by Eleanor Ghey, and to the second edition of The London Mint of Constantius and Constantine by Hubert Cloke and Lee Toone. The Malcolm Lyne Prize for 2025 has been awarded to Sam Moorhead for Roman Imperial Coinage Volume V Part 5 Carausius and Allectus. This year’s Gilljam Prize for Third-Century Numismatics is a joint award to Jerome Mairat for Roman Imperial Coinage Volume IV The Gallic Empire, and to Sam Moorhead and Graham Barker for The Rebel Emperors of Britannia, Carausius and Allectus. The Lhotka Prize for introductory books on numismatics goes to Tim Wright’s British Celtic Coins: Art or Imitation? Finally, the Parkes Weber Prize has been awarded to James Hua for an essay on ‘The Coins of Expelled Populations in Classical Greece: Reconsidering Helike (373) and Mantinea (370)’.
We have just heard from our Treasurer Paul Hill about our financial position. 2024 has seen substantial gains in the Society’s funds, due mainly to the legacy of Dr Malcolm Lyne, as well as a bequest from the estate of Audrey Chapman. As such, our total funds have increased by more than £300,000 as of 31 December 2024, compared with the same date at the end of 2023. Our spending on the awarding grants increased in 2024. Our investments have remained stable throughout the year and, although we haven’t seen substantial gains, due to fluctuations in various markets as a result of world events, the overall picture is certainly more positive than at this point last year. The investments continue to be looked after by Evelyn Partners, and we are most grateful to Tristan Hillgarth and to Stefano Mazzola (who also acts as our independent examiner of the accounts) for their generous advice and assistance in financial matters.
Brad Shepherd, the Honorary Librarian of the Royal and British Numismatic Societies, has continued to do great work on the development of the two societies’ Numismatic Library at the Warburg Institute. Following the recent refurbishment of the Warburg Institute the Library now has a permanent new home in the open stacks of the Warburg’s basement. It is now accessible to members six days a week. Throughout the year we have significantly enhanced our collection of books, periodicals and auction catalogues through an active acquisition program. Brad has now catalogued all 37,000 items in the Library, and these catalogues are now online on the Society’s website. Our Library is one of the most important and accessible numismatic research libraries in the UK. I would encourage all members to visit the Library, to explore our extensive collection, conduct research, and experience the new facilities.
The Society’s publications, and in particular the Numismatic Chronicle, are the most important benefit of membership for many of our members, especially those from overseas. Our publications are in the safe hands of our Senior Editor, Clare Rowan, Simon Glenn as Reviews Editor, Murray Andrews as Production Editor and adviser on papers on medieval and modern numismatics, and Shailendra Bhandare as adviser on Asian numismatics. They have produced another superb volume of the Chronicle, maintaining its reputation as one of the most important periodicals in our subject.
Several new Special Publications are at an advanced stage of preparation. We are now working on Laurent Bricault and Cristian Mondello’s Isis Moneta, The ‘Vota Publica’ tokens from late antique Rome and Metallurgy in Numismatics 7, edited by Matthew Ponting, as well as a volume on the coinage of Ptolemaic Lycia by Omar Tatar. Other Special Publications are also planned.
I am pleased to say that the very worthy winner of the Society’s Medal for 2025 is Dr Vesta Curtis. Vesta has had a distinguished career at the British Museum as Curator of Middle Eastern Coins. Her work focuses on Middle Eastern numismatics, particularly relating to the Parthians and Sasanians in early Iran, and she was a Secretary of our Society from 2005 to 2010.
We have elected Professor Gul Rahim Khan as an Honorary Fellow. Gul Rahim Khan is Pakistan’s leading numismatic scholar. A practicing archaeologist, notably leading excavations of an ancient metalworking site in Peshawar, he also teaches archaeology and numismatics at the University of Peshawar. He has worked closely with the British Museum over the last twenty-five years, readily sharing his data and research and collaborating on research projects.
I am very sad to report the death of five of our members during the year: Nicholas Mayhew, Keith Rutter, David MacDowall, Tony Holmes, and Gary Oddie. Nick Mayhew was one of the leading scholars of medieval numismatics in Britain. He had a notable career at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, starting as an Assistant Keeper in 1971 and serving as the Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room from 1999 to 2005, and then as Deputy Director of Collections, with a key role in the redevelopment of the Ashmolean between 2005 and 2009. He was the President of our Society from 2009 and 2013, and also served as editor of the Numismatic Chronicle. He received our Society’s Medal in 2002. Keith Rutter made enormous contributions to Greek numismatics and to our Society. His work on the coins of Magna Graecia stemmed from his PhD on Campanian coinages, published in 1979, and this was followed by many other notable publications on Greek coinage. He was the sole editor of the Society’s publications for seven years from 1985 to 1992: not just the Numismatic Chronicle, but also the Society’s Special Publications. He was awarded the Society’s Medal in 2020.David MacDowall began his academic career with an Oxford doctorate on the coinage of the Roman emperor Nero, and became the Assistant Keeper of Oriental Coins at the British Museum. Here he turned his attention to the coinages of ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan. His career at the British Museum was cut short when the close work on coins was beginning to damage his eyesight. He subsequently held a succession of posts in the Ministry of Education and higher education. Throughout his career in education, David did not neglect his interest in numismatics and continued to work on the coinages of ancient Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. He was a council member of our Society and became its Treasurer from 1966 to 1973. Anthony Holmes, known to everyone as Tony, became a Fellow of our Society in 1975 and he was the Librarian of the Royal and British Numismatic Societies from 1995 to 2006. Gary Oddie was a research scientist in his professional life and he made good use of his scientific training and dedicated approach to work to make a great contribution to the study of tokens and many other aspects of our subject. He had leading roles in the activities of the Token Corresponding Society and the British Numismatic Society.
It has been a great pleasure and an honour to continue to serve as President of the Society this year. The Society is going from strength to strength, and we have much to look forward to in the new session.
Martin Allen, RNS President