Concordia

Concordia Winter 2021

13

Excavation of a subterranean tomb (almost certainly royal) of the fourth century A.D. at Aksum, marked by a monolithic stela.

own contacts: initially at the British Museum as noted above, but after the school’s move to more rural surroundings at Sandy Lodge, links were made with local archaeological interests, and fieldwork, including excavation, was undertaken. Sites with which the Society’s members were involved included a Roman villa and Mesolithic artefact-scatters on Moor Park Golf Course, a Romano-British settlement at Hamper Mill on the edge of the Merchant Taylors’ grounds in the Colne Valley, and the site of the fifteenth/sixteenth-century Manor of the More in Rickmansworth. It has been disappointing to learn that the Archaeological Society no longer exists and that the Museum’s very significant collections, catalogued in the 1980s, are no longer on display, although some at least have been preserved and the intention is to display them again. Perhaps this will inspire the re-formation of the Archaeological Society. In my own case, I have been struck by the way in which my own career has followed that of Eiddon: from the school Archaeological Society to Gonville & Caius College (but without the Hebrew or the scholarships!) and on to a focus on Africa and an interest in museums and the links between linguistic

flourished for many years both at Charterhouse Square and at Sandy Lodge. Merchant Taylors’ has, over the years, been able to succour a number of men who have made their name in Archaeology and related disciplines, among them Eiddon himself, Lawrence Barfield, Martin Biddle, Desmond Collins, Robin Derricourt, Henry Hall*+, Martin Henig, Roger Jacobi*, Alan Millard, John Onians, Harry Smith*+ and Arnold Taylor+. This makes no pretence at being a complete list, but is a remarkable concentration which must, to some extent and in many cases, be due to the school’s Archaeological Society and its Museum. As a Hebrew scholar, Eiddon was a strong candidate for several endowed funds at Cambridge: Merchant Taylors’ Hebrew master, Francis Padfield, to whom Eiddon acknowledged a lasting debt, had himself learned that language at Gonville & Caius College in Cambridge, whither he was in due course followed by his pupil. The Archaeological Society was a remarkable institution. It was run almost exclusively by the boys. Although some masters took an interest in its activities, members made their