Decline and Fall

In connection with the publication in Newsletter No. 23 of the pamphlet proposing the establishment of an Excavation Branch it seemed worthwhile to trace the subsequent history of this ambitious but, in the event, ill-starred project.

The idea was first put forward at the 1927 AGM where the President, Sir Martin Conway, asked members "to support the new Grants Fund, the object of which was to enable the Council to make contributions to approved investigations". The pamphlet went out to members with Volume. XL of Arch Cant. and at the AGM on 29th March 1928 Mr. Ellison Erwood explained the objects of the newly-formed Branch and asked for the support of members. However, in the Annual Report for 1929 he had to report that it "had not so far been a complete success. The total contributions from all sources to date amounted to £55 7s., of which sum more than half had been contributed by non-members of the Society. In fact, the contributions from members have been singularly small. By the following year there had been no improvement and Council decided that the Excavation Branch should be discontinued as a separate branch of the Society and that the balance of the funds be amalgamated with those of the Research Fund and be directly controlled by Council.

In spite of this, the Excavation Fund appears in the accounts for 31 December 1931 as a separate item of £51 9s 9d. and this item continues to appear annually for the next 22 years, the amount fluctuating slightly until 31 December 1953 when the balance remaining at that date was shown as £19 4s 3d - a statement entirely at variance with an entry in the minutes of the Council meeting held on 15 July 1953 recording that "the action of the President and Hon. Treasurer in transferring £19 4s 3d from the Excavation Fund to R. F. Jessup towards the excavation of the Roman Barrow at Holborough was ratified" - no-one, least of all the Treasurer, seems to have told the Auditors! Thereafter the Excavation Fund "softly and silently vanished away" with no further mention in the Annual Accounts and this rather sad story reaches its rather baffling conclusion.

A. C. Harrison