Antti Matikkala FSA, historian of heraldry and honours, died in January. An appreciation appears in Fellows Remembered below.
 
The section also contains further notices on the late Cathy Oakes FSA and the late Kerry Downes FSA.
 
*

The Heritage Alliance publishes a new report on 17 September. Inspiring Creativity, Heritage & The Creative Industries, written by Hannah Shimko, focuses on the importance of heritage organisations, buildings and places in underpinning the creative industries. The report showcases collaborations, demonstrating the significance of heritage and creativity ‘to cultural identity and place-shaping in the UK, particularly in the face of Brexit uncertainty.’ Peter Ainsworth, Chair of the Heritage Alliance, said in a statement, ‘Historic places or objects are not just a decorative incidental backdrop to contemporary creative work, in each case they are integral to the whole enterprise.’ ‘There is no Downton without Highclere and no Poldark without the Mines,’ said Lizzie Glithero-West FSA, the Alliance’s Chief Executive. ‘Heritage is our great national asset and an integral part of “Brand Britain” … the bedrock – the muse, the backdrop and the arenas of such activity.’ The photo shows a Poldark set at the Elizabethan Chavenage House in Tetbury, Wiltshire, used in the BBC drama as Trenwith, the Poldark family home in Cornwall.
 
Neil MacGregor FSA has presented a second series of As Others See Us on BBC Radio 4, broadcast between 5 and 9 September, in which he talks ‘to opinion formers from five countries with strong historic links to Britain’ – in this case, Singapore, the USA, Spain, Australia and Poland. His first series troubled Clive Davis in the Times (4 January), who wished MacGregor had found someone to talk to who wasn’t ‘overwhelmingly baffled and dismayed’ by Brexit, though conceding that ‘the opening programme on Germany was MacGregor at his best. The discussion was nuanced and multifaceted.’ It’s unlikely Davis would have been any more satisfied with the second series.
 
MacGregor himself was writing in the Times on 14 September, continuing his radio theme that ‘Other nations are perplexed by our mythologised history but embrace all things British from James Bond to Harry Potter.’ Again and again,’ he says, reflecting on the experience of ‘speaking to opinion formers … to try to find out how Britain, as it prepares to leave the European Union and go it alone, is now seen around the world,’ ‘the highly selective story that we tell ourselves of the Second World War came up as a central issue – above all the idea that Britain on its own had not just survived in 1940 but prevailed. And even the friendliest commentators felt that this misreading of history makes it hard for us to grasp the limits of what we can achieve on our own in the world today.’ The day before, the Times reported how MacGregor had spoken at the Financial Times Weekend festival at Kenwood House on the issue of restitution claims. The construction of national identities, he said, had now embraced ‘objects that were taken away … I don’t quite understand it but it lies at the bottom of the restitution debate.’ Museums were becoming ‘theatres of atonement for past wrongs’. Or, in the words of a Times headline writer, ‘Beware colonial guilt’, a view endorsed in a leader.

The Fellowship Program at the
W F Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem describes itself as one of the best opportunities for students and scholars of the ancient Near East, from prehistory to the Islamic period. The Albright annually provides up to $200,000 in Fellowships and awards to about 25 recipients. In addition, 50 Associate Fellows receive funding from other sources. The current deadline for applications for Fellowships of one to six months, with a stipend and room/board at the Albright, is 15 October 15 2019. More information online. • The Palestine Exploration Fund/Albright Institute has announced a new Fellowship of £3,000 to support research that requires access to the PEF archives and collection, and time spent in residence at the Albright. The Fellowship requires at least 10 working days at the PEF in Greenwich, London, and one month in Jerusalem, and is open to all doctoral and post-doctoral researchers who are UK citizens or hold the right to remain in the UK for its duration. This Fellowship would be taken between 1 September 2020 and 31 May 2021. PEF queries should be sent to chair.pef@gmail.com, and AIAR to scohen@aiar.org.
 
Joel T Rosenthal and Caroline M Barron FSA have edited Thomas Frederick Tout (1855–1929): Refashioning History for the Twentieth Century, ‘the first full assessment of Tout’s life and work’. Tout, says the blurb, was ‘arguably the most prolific English medieval historian of the early 20th century. The son of an unsuccessful publican, he was described at his Oxford scholarship exam as “uncouth and untidy”; however he went on to publish hundreds of books throughout his distinguished career with a legacy that extended well beyond the academy, [pioneering] the use of archival research [and welcoming] women into academia’. There are chapters by, among others, Dorothy J Clayton FSA, William Gibson FSA, Seymour Phillips FSA and Henry Summerson FSA.
 
Thames Mudlarking featured in the last two Salons, and now Channel 4 has explored the concept on a wider canvas in a third series of Britain at Low Tide. In three films presenter Tori Herridge (on right in photo) visits archaeologists working on coastal intertidal sites, highlighting the work of CITiZAN (of which Gustav Milne FSA is Project Leader, left in photo), the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network, and other professional and community-led groups including SCHARP (Scotland’s Coastal Heritage at Risk Project) led by Tom Dawson. Among archaeologists appearing in the first film in Kent are Andrew Richardson FSA at a First World War depot at Port Richborough, and Mark Harrison FSA talking about a long shingle bar at Whitstable known as the Street. The second programme visits the River Forth (21 September) and the third the Solway Firth on both English and Scottish coasts (28 September).

Roger Bowdler FSA has written what he calls ‘a couple of v small books: the one on war memorials is imminent, the one on churchyards with the designer’. ‘War memorials were erected in their thousands after 1918,’ says the blurb on the first: ‘bronze Tommies and stone wayside crosses became commonplace, and can attain high levels of artistic refinement. Britain’s great cities raised magnificent monuments, as did regiments, railway companies, schools and private families. Among them are truly outstanding works of monumental art. Their range and variety are huge, and their number is uncountable: no agreed tally exists.’ Churchyards is due in November. They ‘are everywhere,’ says the blurb, ‘numbered in their thousands. This sheer ubiquity might explain why they have received so little attention. Compared with Scotland and the United States, where exhaustive research has taken place, England’s graveyards are largely overlooked. There is so much awaiting discovery … beneath the grass lie untold generations of past parishioners, lying in the shadow of the church until the Day of Judgment.’

‘I have been privileged to have been part of the tremendous changes in the field of Maya studies,’ writes Jeremy Sabloff FSA in the Annual Review of Anthropology 48 (2019), in ‘an autobiographical perspective’ on Maya archaeology. ‘Moreover, I am delighted to have contributed to the replacement of the traditional model with a model that is sensitive to the entire range of ancient Maya society and to have seen scholars’ work exceeding and carrying forward my own research. I feel confident that Gordon Willey would be … optimistic, as I am, that the field continues to rapidly progress and will build newer and stronger understandings of pre-Columbian Maya peoples.’ Bob Holmes at Knowable Magazine interviewed Sabloff on the subject in July, where he talks about ‘the 50-plus years of his career’ studying ‘the common folk of the Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America, mapping and excavating entire cities to study who lived where, and how.’


On 10 September the BBC launched a new archive website. It currently hosts some 1,700 newly published videos, which is part of what is described as ‘more than 10 million hours of content that currently sit in the BBC’s archive’. Importantly, it has good search facilities. Programmes, for example, can be searched by word or by looking at listings from individual editions of Radio Times back to 1923 (the Genome Project). You can learn about the BBC Written Archives Centre in Caversham, Reading: it has 250,000 correspondence files, 21,000 reels of microfilm, BBC publications, plans, posters and other records, and seven reading seats. There’s a British Library link which describes its collection of 200,000 hours of radio recordings (‘assembled by selective off-air recording since 1963, … augmented by acquisitions from radio stations, producers, performers, musicians, researchers, radio enthusiasts and collectors’). The British Film Institute has a TV archive. And so on. All of it invaluable to anyone researching broadcasting and what it created.

The Government has pledged £95 million towards restoring and re-using historic buildings on English high streets – ‘the biggest ever single investment by Government in the UK’s built heritage'. The funding will be used for repair works, to stimulate commercial investment, to develop education projects and events, and to help address a skills shortage of heritage professionals in fields like stonemasonry and conservation. Duncan Wilson FSA, Chief Executive of Historic England, said in a statement that high streets, ‘the beating hearts of our communities [with] roots that go back hundreds of years, … face an uncertain future … It is a challenge, but with our experience and track record, as well as the knowledge and passion of local councils, businesses and community groups our historic high streets can be thriving social hubs once more.’ The money will be managed through HE’s High Streets Heritage Action Zones launched in May.

Bruno Werz FSA draws our attention to his project to find the wreck of the Dutch East India Company ship, (Nieuw) Haarlem, which sank in Table Bay, South Africa in 1647. In August the African Institute for Marine & Underwater Research, Exploration & Education, of which Werz is CEO, announced that it had succeeded – or in its words, ‘Based on the combined results of [archival, cartographic, geological and geophysical] research approaches, there is a chance of 95% that the location of the wreck of Haarlem has been found. The ultimate proof will be the discovery of 19 iron cannon and four iron anchors, as it has been recorded that these items were left behind when the wreck was abandoned. Only future excavation can tell.’ The 62 men who were left to salvage the cargo reported favourably back to the Dutch Republic, and the place became a ship stopover which in time developed into the City of Cape Town. ‘No shipping disaster world-wide,’ says Werz, ‘had ever such an impact on the history of an entire nation.’ He can be seen talking about the project on YouTube.
 
Many Fellows have been busy over the years reading and recording Roman inscriptions found in Britain, among them R G Collingwood FSA and R P Wright FSA, who compiled the first volume of The Roman Inscriptions of Britain (1965) and Roger Tomlin FSA and Mark Hassall FSA, who co-edited the second RIB stone inscriptions monograph with Wright (2009). Tomlin has also worked on the wooden writing tablets from Vindolanda and London Bloomberg, and compiles an annual catalogue of new finds in the journal in Britannia. Such sources were brought together on a website, part of LatinNow, an interdisciplinary research and educational project led by Scott Vanderbilt at the University of Nottingham and funded by the European Research Council. The Roman Inscriptions of Britain Online website was relaunched in an expanded version on 11 September with support from the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford.

Two books by Neil Jackson FSA have recently been published. In Pierre Koenig: A View from the Archive, he presents ‘a vibrant profile’ of the Los Angeles architect, ‘who Time magazine said lived long enough to become “cool twice.” From the influences of Koenig’s youth in San Francisco and his military service during World War II to the Case Study Houses and his later award-laden years, Jackson’s study plots the evolution of Koenig’s oeuvre against the backdrop of Los Angeles. The book is anchored by Jackson’s exciting discoveries in Koenig’s archive at the Getty Research Institute.’

Japan and the West: An Architectural Dialogue was published in June to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration, which marked the start of the architectural dialogue between Japan and the West. Jackson's is the ‘first comprehensive history of the architectural interchange between Japan and the West over the past 150 years. It includes insightful analysis of the Japanese influence on Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Le Corbusier, the Smithsons, Archigram and Carlo Scarpa, as well as the Western influence on Maekawa Kunio, Itō Toyoo, Isozaki Arata and Maki Fumihiko, amongst many others.’
 
 

 
Antti Matikkala FSA died on 14 January aged 39. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in December 2009; he was also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Tuukka Talvio FSA, former curator at the Finnish National Board of Antiquities, has kindly written this tribute for Salon:
 
‘The Finnish historian Antti Matikkala FSA died in Helsinki aged only 39 years. He was born in the north Finnish city of Oulu in November 1979, but through his father, who was a member of the Finnish Parliament, he also came to know Helsinki. After finishing school he started studying history at the University of Helsinki, and after completing his master’s degree he and his newly wed wife Mira moved in 2004 to Cambridge to study for their doctorates.
 
‘At an early age Matikkala had become passionately interested in orders of chivalry and their history. His doctoral thesis in Cambridge was named The Orders of the Garter, the Thistle, and the Bath and the Formation of the British Honours System, 1660–1770. A revised version was published as The Orders of Knighthood and the Formation of the British Honours System, 1660–1760 (2008), described as ‘the first comprehensive study to set the British orders of knighthood properly into the context of the honours system – by analysing their political, social and cultural functions from the Restoration of the monarchy to the end of George II's reign’. The work earned him the Prix Dr Walburga von Habsburg Douglas. While in Cambridge Matikkala was elected Chairman of the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the Finnish Heraldry Society.
 
‘After returning to Helsinki Matikkala worked as a post-doctoral researcher and edited, together with Professor Staffan Rośen of Stockholm University, an impressive volume of symposium papers named Perspectives on the Honours Systems (2015). The centenary of the Finnish national orders was now nearing. A history of the Order of Liberty (est. 1918) had already been published, and it was hardly surprising that Matikkala was invited to write the history of the two other Finnish Orders, the White Rose of Finland (est. 1919) and the Order of the Lion of Finland (est. 1942). The book was published in 2017 (Suomen Valkoisen Ruusun ja Suomen Leijonan), soon after his previous book on the bestowals of the highest Finnish orders to foreigners in 1914–44. Both volumes had over 500 pages.
 
‘Antti’s dedication and capacity for work were exceptional, but unfortunately he burned the candle at both ends. His influence on the study of heraldry and honours systems in Finland is, however, likely to be lasting.’
 
Photo University of Helsinki
 
*

The Guardian published obituaries on the same day, 9 September, of two Fellows who died in August.
 
Cathy Oakes FSA was born in Leeds, writes her friend Georgina Ferry, ‘the youngest of three children of Geoffrey Oakes, an insurance adviser, and his wife, Megan (nee Newman), a part-time administrator for an optician. She attended Lawnswood school, Leeds, and won a place at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, to study history in 1974. A keen actor, she appeared in an implausible number of student drama productions.'
 
She joined the V&A as a museum assistant in 1978. From 1994 to 2002 she taught art history in Bristol, before moving to Oxford.
 
‘Outside work she acted in and directed amateur theatre productions, ran a poetry group, and was an indefatigable walker whatever the weather. Her family was central to her life. After her first marriage ended in divorce, in 2006 she married the musician Michael Copley, who had been a schoolfriend.’
 
John McNeill FSA responds to the tribute in the last Salon:
 
‘Cathy's death came as a great shock to her friends and colleagues. She was staying at her house in Cluny – a place she loved – where she contracted sepsis. Just three weeks previously she had given a paper on the alabaster carvings at St Mary's, Shrewsbury at the British Archaeological Association's annual conference. Medieval English alabasters was one of several subjects on which she published, but was particularly close to her heart. Indeed she counted persuading Francis Cheetham to complete his catalogue of the V&A's alabaster collection among her prouder achievements.
 
‘It is, perhaps, for her teaching that she would most wish to be remembered – for the many students on the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education art history courses she enthused, and for her pioneering development of online courses within the department.’

*

In the same edition of the Guardian was a long obituary for Kerry Downes FSA, by Edward Chaney FSA, headlined ‘Architectural historian who wrote definitive books on Hawksmoor, Wren and Vanbrugh.’

Hawksmoor (1959) and English Baroque Architecture (1966), writes Chaney, were both ‘groundbreaking’ books, to be followed, among others, by Vanbrugh (1977), Rubens (1980), Sir John Vanbrugh: A Biography (1987), The Architecture of Wren (1982) and Borromini’s Book: The “Full Relation of the Building” of the Roman Oratory by Francesco Borromini and Virgilio Spada of the Oratory (2009).
 
Downes was the son of Ralph Downes, an organist and Bach specialist, and Agnes (nee Rix). In 1936 Ralph became organist at the Brompton Oratory, London, where he remained until 1977. Kerry gained a BA at the Courtauld Institute in 1951, and was awarded his PhD on Hawksmoor in 1960, the year after the publication of his book. In the meantime he was a librarian at the Courtauld (1954–58) and then at the Barber Institute, Birmingham University. In 1966 he took up the post of Lecturer at Reading, becoming professor in 1978.'
 
‘As well as campaigning for Hawksmoor,’ says Chaney, ‘Kerry took an expert interest in modernist architecture, and supported the Mansion House Square office block in the City of London that Mies van der Rohe designed in the 1960s. Richard Rogers described it as “the culmination of a master architect’s life work” and Prince Charles as “a giant glass stump”: in the event, James Stirling’s No 1 Poultry was built on the site.’

 


I said in the last Salon I’d compile a list of memorials to Fellows that have appeared in this newsletter. Here it is, at least back to the first edition I edited in June 2015 (345). They can be found in the archive at www.sal.org.uk/salon.
 
Edmund Tyrell Artis FSA (1789–1847) 347, 413
Revd George Ashby FSA (1724–1808) 390
 
Thomas Bateman FSA (1821–61) 347, 348
Edward Milligen Beloe FSA (1871–1932) 349
Tony Brewster FSA (1918–84) 415, 426
John Collingwood Bruce FSA (1805–92) 393
John Burton FSA (1710–71) 417
 
George Somers Clarke FSA (1841–1926) 398
Tubby Clayton FSA (1885–1972) 352
Henry Corbould FSA (1787–1844) 349
 
Francis Drake FSA (1696–1771) 365, 431
 
Sir Arthur Evans FSA (1851–1941) 382
Sir John Evans FSA (1823–1908) 382, 387, 388
 
Sir Cyril Fox FSA (1882–1967) 426
 
Rupert Forbes Gunnis FSA (1899–1965) 401
John Gutch FSA (1746–1831) 423
 
Louis Arthur Hamand FSA (1873–1955) 395
John Harley FSA (1880–1915) 353
Wilfrid Hemp FSA (1882–1962) 396
Thomas Brand Hollis FSA (1719–1804) 427
John Humphreys FSA (1850–1937) 433
 
John James FSA (1810–67) 404
 
Edward Knocker FSA (1804–84) 393
 
Sir John Lefroy FSA (1817–90) 394
Julian Litten FSA (1947–) 409
Frederick Corbin Lukis FSA (1788–1871) 430
George Lynn the Younger FSA (1706/7–58) 423
 
Canon Nicholas Hugh MacMichael FSA (1933–85) 393, 394
James Mingay FSA (1752–1812) 352
 
Reverend William Luke Nichols FSA (1802–89) 432
Thomas North FSA (1830–84) 345
 
Arthur Edwin Preston FSA (1852–1942) 428
 
Gordon McNeil Rushforth FSA (1862–1938) 395
 
Edward Solly FSA (1729–92) 385
George Stephens FSA (1831–95) 347
Mill Stephenson FSA (1857–1937) 404
William Stevenson FSA (1741–1821) 351
Charles Alfred Stothard FSA (1786–1821) 346
 
John Evan Thomas FSA (1810–73) 408
 
Emery Walker FSA (1851–1933) 412
Charles Warne FSA (1801–87) 434
 
*
 
And here is the worthy new addition to the list, Charles Warne FSA, whose grave can be found ‘the London Necropolis’ in Brookwood, Surrey. ‘It is rather fun,’ writes Roger Bowdler FSA. ‘There are wonderful things at Brookwood Cemetery, but this is one of the more peculiar, a megalith in miniature set within a pocket henge [see photo at top] to one of the early champions of monument protection. Very rare of a cemetery memorial (which were generally pretty conventional) to reflect a man’s personal interests so closely.’
 
The Antiquary published an obituary of Warne in 1887, describing him as ‘the well-known antiquary’ who ‘accomplished for Dorset what Sir Richard Colt Hoare FSA had previously done for Wiltshire’. Born in Dorset and ‘imbued with strong antiquarian tastes, he devoted himself to exploring the ancient history of his county, and in this congenial work he spared neither time nor labour.’ He excavated many of Dorset’s barrows, traced its Roman roads, and investigated ‘the footprints of its earliest inhabitants. In the course of these labours he formed a fine collection of early British, Saxon, and other antiquities, peculiarly rich in sepulchral urns; and these all have found their proper resting-place in the county museum at Dorchester.’
 
He lobbied Brunel to have the proposed course of his Great Western Railway moved so that it would avoid the Roman amphitheatre, then ‘on the outskirts’ of Dorchester. The Society of Antiquaries ‘passed a special vote of thanks to Mr Warne’. The achievement was later shown to be the more significant, when Harold St George Gray FSA excavated at the monument and revealed its origins in a Neolithic henge.
 
Warne published his researches in Dorsetshire: Its Vestiges, Celtic, Roman, Saxon, and Danish (1865), The Celtic Tumuli of Dorset (1860) and Ancient Dorset (1872). He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1856.
 

‘As a loyal reader of Salon,’ says Catherine Phillips, ‘I am writing to you to see if it might be possible to put out a call for assistance.'
 
‘The Hermitage Museum has a rather unusual “portrait” of Mary Queen of Scots [above], the iconography of which derives from the so-called “Sheffield Portraits” but showing Mary seated, and which was repainted at some later point with a head that relates more to a different portrait type. It came from the collection of Prince Labanov-Rostovsky in 1864. In his Notes on the Authentic Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots (1903) Lionel Cust stated that there had been a copy of this work in the collection of Joshua Butterworth of Kensington. Joshua W Butterworth FSA was a Fellow in the 1880s, but Cust may well have been referring to his son. I am looking for the portrait formerly in the UK. Curators at the National Portrait Gallery could not provide any information.’
 
Can any Fellows help?

*

‘Nothing important,’ claims Catherine Johns FSA, ‘just an appreciative comment to say how much I enjoyed reading Peter Clayton FSA’s account of Thames mudlarking long ago. I was never involved myself, though of course I knew some of the colleagues Peter mentions. These reminiscences are valuable.’
 
‘I’ve just seen the latest Salon!!!’ writes an excited Clayton, having discovered that the Pathé film in which he featured can be seen on YouTube. ‘That is truly amazing – I had no idea that the film I mentioned could still be found – I haven’t seen it for about 56 years, that really is archaeological film excavation – memories, memories, especially seeing Janet in the film – thank you so much for that.
 
‘Now I really realise why I am a Life Fellow, I’m really hanging in there!’
 
*
 
‘In your comments about Gillian Darley FSA's book Excellent Essex’, writes Nigel Brown FSA, ‘you quote Catherine Slessor as saying Pevsner “was not a fan of Essex”. Reading Susie Harries' biography, Pevsner does seem to have struggled to deal with Essex and didn't seem to warm to it. Even so his comments about the county are perceptive. To quote from his introduction, he says Essex is the eighth largest county in England, 'ranking behind Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Devon, Norfolk, Northumberland, Lancashire, and Somerset. In variety of character it must be given precedence over most of them.'

*
 
In Salon 432 I noted a fragment from a glass fish found at Chedworth villa, which the late Jenny Price FSA had identified as one of very few similar examples from the Roman world. Norman Hammond FSA draws attention to other glass fishes, of different types, two of which are illustrated (left) in the new edition of The Archaeology of Afghanistan which he edited with the late Raymond Allchin FSA and Warwick Ball FSA. These are in the Musée Guimet, Paris, he writes, allocated to the French excavators at partage. ‘Others remain in the Kabul Museum, and were saved from Taliban destruction by the heroic efforts of the Afghan curators, who hid the Begram Treasure until after the American invasion, when it was safe to produce it again.’ In a letter to the Times on the subject (26 July), he said that Sir Mortimer Wheeler FSA proclaimed in Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers that “the spectacle [of Begram] is one that stirs the imagination”: he would be delighted at the Chedworth fish.’

*

Robin Simon FSA wrote in the last Salon about the problems facing academics and other researchers of being asked to pay reproduction fees for images of out of copyright works. N A M Rodger FSA says he has ‘met this reaction from time to time when seeking reproductions of engravings and the like, long out of copyright, from museums and galleries. I have always found a courteous reference to the wording of the Copyright Act has a very salutary effect. The officials concerned are well aware that a day in court would cause the banquet to vanish immediately, and are extremely anxious to avoid publicity. Some of them are my friends and former colleagues, and I understand why they need the revenue, but I do not think that justifies practices which are clearly illegal and dishonest. They are bound to come to light sooner or later, and damage the reputations of all concerned.’

*

‘Recent discussions about archaeology and politics make me recall two personal experiences,’ writes Andrew Fleming FSA. ‘At the World Archaeological Conference in 1986, I was talking over drinks to a Czech archaeologist. Indulging in a little political fishing, I asked him whether there were some back home who would have liked to come, but weren’t able to. “Yes, about 17 million,” he instantly replied. The other story relates to a former mature student of mine who was in military intelligence, and was posted to Afghanistan. On discovering that he was an archaeologist, they said to him, “Well, perhaps you can investigate the disappearance of something like one hundred archaeologists under the rule of the Taliban.”
 
‘However “infamous” the first WAC conference in Southampton in 1986 may have been in some people’s eyes, the atmosphere there was absolutely inspirational. In my view, academic freedom is often subsumed, and facilitated, by political freedom. Fix the latter, and you have probably fixed the former. Which is why boycotts etc, however regrettable, may occasionally be worth trying. Perhaps every little helps; apartheid didn’t last very long after 1986…’
 
‘I very much enjoy reading Salon,’ writes Jeremy Sabloff FSA, adding, ‘and you shouldn't have to apologise about covering Fellows, who happen to be politicians!’
 
*

There are more Westminster politicians among our Fellowship than I had appreciated, as Norman Hammond FSA, Robert Harding FSA, Philip Venning FSA and Jean Wilson FSA were quick to correct me. What I now believe to be the complete list, with apologies to those I omitted earlier (and even more to anyone I might yet have missed), is as follows:
 
In the Commons: John Howell MP FSA, Tim Loughton MP FSA and Chris Skidmore MP FSA.
 
In the Lords: The Rt Hon the Lord (Peter) Brooke of Sutton Mandeville FSA, Lord (Patrick) Cormack FSA, Lord (James) Crathorne FSA, Lord (Richard) Inglewood FSA, Lord (Rupert) Redesdale FSA, Lord (Colin) Renfrew of Kaimsthorn FSA and The Rt Hon the Lord Waldegrave of North Hill.
 
Lord Redesdale is a Liberal Democrat, Lord Inglewood is unaffiliated, and the others, including all three Members of Parliament, are Conservative.
 
‘Lord Cormack,’ writes Jean Wilson, ‘has, apart from other achievements, been doing sterling work in trying to protect our cultural heritage from the damage inflicted by the unthinking privileging of nature over culture by those who promulgate the protection of bat colonies in churches (to the extent of preventing congregations from worshipping, which contravenes the UN Declaration of Human Rights). These do, as you and many other Fellows know, cause irreversible damage to monumental brasses, including almost all of the early important examples in England, and numerous other cultural artefacts, including sculpture, murals, painted screens and textiles.’
 
The photo shows Lord Cormack receiving the degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Hull in 2011.

Meanwhile Peter Saunders FSA is not enamoured with noble ranks. ‘Theresa May’s election manifesto in 2017’, he wrote to the Times after news of the former Prime Minister’s resignation honours (11 September), ‘promised a review of the honours system, suggesting that at least reform, if not abolition, was in sight. Yet Mrs May has now been as profligate with peerages as her predecessor … her decision to reward failure and overlook convictions brings further disrepute to an already tarnished process. The time for abolition has surely come.’

*

Martin Henig FSA saw the Boxford mosaic which I wrote about in the last Salon, as, he says, ‘did many other Fellows on the open day. It is of undoubted importance, as perhaps providing a clue as to the reading of, and most probably the deluxe books owned by the elite of fourth-century Roman Britain, which by this date might have been codices rather than scrolls. The Low Ham mosaic [found in 1938 and now in The Museum of Somerset, Taunton] is highly suggestive of a personal copy of The Aeneid on the lines of the Virgilius Romanus in the Vatican; others of Ovid (and there is a clue here in the metre of the couplet at Lullingstone, as well as the mosaic depicting Europa and the Bull to which it refers); at Boxford, the source is probably Hyginus' Fabulae, a retelling of Greek myths in Latin. Romans of the landowning class would have been familiar with these, amongst other works, from their schooling.
 
‘All of this renders the most careful study of the Boxford mosaic vital, and it is quite something that Anthony Beeson has been deputed by the local society to study it. In my opinion the great Mosaic Corpus [established by Stephen Cosh FSA and David Neal FSA] is one of the proudest publishing achievements of our Society ever, and the meticulous coloured drawings add very considerably to any available photographs. Such a record of this mosaic would enhance a future supplement very considerably.’ 

Beeson is kneeling in the centre of the floor in my photo, below.