Professor Maurice Howard in one of the British Galleries rooms that he curated at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Maurice Howard, Professor of Art History at the University of Sussex, has been elected President of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Professor Howard was appointed the Society’s 43^rd President in the presence of the society’s patron, HRH The Duke of Gloucester, and more than 100 Fellows and guests, on Friday, 23^rd April – St George’s Day. Current Fellows include broadcasters Sir David Attenborough and Loyd Grossman and the historian David Starkey.

Professor Howard succeeds former Prime Ministers and colourful figures from the archaeological past, such as Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

As President, Professor Howard will bring the Society and the University of Sussex togetherto foster research and initiatives in heritage exploration and management in wide and diverse ways.

In his acceptance speech, Professor Howard revealed that he first came to the Society as a student to operate the projector for which he earned the grand sum of £3 and 10s. “I have never earned a penny from the Society since,” he joked.

Professor Howard added: “It is a tremendous honour to be elected President. As a full-time teaching and researching art historian I am committed to the interpretation and sharing of our knowledge of the material culture of the past. I have spent my professional life learning from the insights of building archaeologists and working alongside curators displaying beautiful and rare objects in our national collections and in country houses.

“The Society is charged with making its collections and facilities open to as wide an audience as possible. I hope my experience will help the Society’s plans for the future come to fruition.’

Professor Maurice Howard is principally an architectural historian of Early Modern Europe whose researches have encompassed the arts of painting and the applied arts. His work has focused mainly on architecture in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, dealing with issues of patronage and the transmission of continental influences into this country.

Professor Howard has worked closely with the Victoria and Albert Museum on two major projects through the University of Sussex Exchange scheme. He assisted on the preparation of the Gallery of European Ornament and co-authored a book on the subject. Later, he worked for four years as Senior Subject Specialist for the Tudor and Stuart sections of the £30 million British Galleries, which opened to great acclaim in 2001.

Other projects developed by Professor Howard have included University involvement in the 'England's Past for Everyone' Project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and administered by the Victoria County History, University of London.

The Society of Antiquaries, which celebrated its 300^th anniversary in 2007, has a library of 100,000 books and its collections of paintings, drawings and archaeological finds are a significant national resource. It publishes a Journal and works in partnership with other organisations such as English Heritage to publish monographs and reports on important projects in archaeology, art history and material culture.

The Society’s headquarters are at Burlington House, Piccadilly and it also owns and manages Kelmscott Manor, the country house of William Morris, the 19^th-century political and social theorist, artist and designer.

Among its many activities, the Society awards grants for research, for the preservation of the furnishings of historic churches and the for the history of dress.

Before the founding of the UK’s national museums, the Society spearheaded the preservation of the artefacts of the British past. It has long championed the ever-present issue of the conservation and preservation of Stonehenge.

But the Society is now concerned with wider world issues, with a growing overseas Fellowship and a concern to play a key role in current decision-making, supporting and hosting a forum for Societies of similar ambitions that have re-surfaced all over Eastern Europe since 1990, and displaying a significant exhibition on the destruction of cultural property in Iraq.

Future plans include the continuing refurbishment of the Society’s premises, an ongoing Heritage Lottery Fund bid to develop the site of Kelmscott and further exhibitions at home and abroad.

Visit Art History for more information about courses at the University of Sussex.

The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is one of the UK's oldest learned societies, having held its inaugural meeting in 1707. Its aims, then as now, are 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'. The Society's interests embrace all aspects of archaeology, architectural and art history, conservation, heraldry, anthropology, and ecclesiastical, musical and linguistic study. See website.

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