Coins.
Medals.
They're small.
They're boring.
Right?
WRONG!
My name's Henry Flynn and I'm the project curator for the money and medals network at the British Museum
and welcome to my corner.
The money and medals network is a subject specialist network that exists to provide help
support and advice to people working and volunteering in the UK museum sector
with collections of coins medals and banknotes and associated objects.
We had an exhibition about the the network recently that was on in gallery 69a
here at the British Museum and it was intended to celebrate the work of the
network which had just reached his tenth anniversary this year 2018.
We were very lucky to be able to have six participating members of the network
represented through the loan objects and I have some examples to show you here
and this is a great example to use because these are all from a military museum,
the regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh very kindly lent us these
objects and what was particularly interesting about them is that they all
relate to someone who after serving in the Army worked right here in the British Museum.
Henry Hook was an ordinary working class man who was born in a village called Churcham in Gloucestershire
He was born in 1850. He was an agricultural labourer but what he felt that he needed to do,
like many people like him, was join the army. He became part of the
the B Company 2nd battalion 24th foot.
He found himself slap-bang in the middle of the battle of Rorke's Drift
To sum up very briefly what happened was the former
missionary station and supply camp, Rorke's Drift, which was being defended
by around about 100 British soldiers was attacked by around 4000 Zulu warriors overnight.
And these these hundred men successfully defended the settlement.
Hook was involved in helping patients from a hospital building escape
during this siege he was involved with another soldier by sort of breaking
holes through partition walls to help these injured men escape to safety.
When the battle was all over he was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry.
After that in 1880 he decided to buy himself out of the army and came back to England.
When he was back in England he was looking for work found
himself living in London and he wanted to work right here in the British Museum.
What he wanted to do was become, his job title, was inside duster of the books in
the Iron Library and that's the library that surrounds the Round Reading Room
which actually is just through that door there.
Being a Victoria Cross winner
it seems that that wasn't quite enough for the trustees of the British Museum at the time.
He called in some favours to help him get this job one of the favours
he called him was from his former commanding officer, the commanding
officer of his regiment, Lord Chelmsford and Chelmsford wrote on his behalf to
the principal librarian, we didn't have a director back, then we had a principal librarian.
Chelmsford wrote to as the principal librarian on Hook's behalf
in the interest of just just helping him to get
this job get him started here. And this letter here is a loan object from the
Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh. You can see that this is a handwritten letter
and the handwriting is a little tricky to decipher, with the best will in the world.
Luckily for me, I've got some transcriptions here and
this letter from Chelmsford says 'It has given me great pleasure to be of some
slight service to you by writing you in your favour to the principal librarian
the promise I made to you at Rorke's Drift, I shall always be ready to keep
to the best of my abilities as I can never forget those who made such a stand
and behaved as nobly on that memorable occasion. Believe me always your
well-wisher Chelmsford.'
That's nice isn't it?
So, this letter did help out Hook. Hook got the job
And he started working here right about 1882. He wore his medals to
work which I think is really nice. He would have worn an apron over his
ordinary clothes but there are references to him wearing the medals
underneath an apron that the ribbons could be seen peeking above the apron
So, obviously very proud of having one of these medals.
He was promoted to the position of umbrella attendant and he had a very specific
responsibility in the cloakroom he looked after the umbrellas and the
walking sticks of people who came to use the books in the library. He very much
enjoyed working here but had health problems he had received
a head wound from a spear during the siege of Rorke's Drift, that didn't
trouble him too much when he was a young man in his 20s but by the time he was
getting into his 50s he started to have very painful headaches regularly he'd
had breathing problems when he started working here at the BM which was not
helped by all the dusty work he was doing with dusting the books and in fact
he's developed consumption. He resigned his post here in December 1904 I went
back to Gloucestershire which was at his doctor's suggestion that the
Gloucestershire air might do him some good.
Sadly, he did in fact died in 1905 just a couple of months short of his 55th birthday.
But here we have a very nice photograph of him so this is from the
family archive which has now been donated to the Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh.
and this is hook in his uniform here wearing his Victoria Cross
and South Africa campaign medal. You can see that he has sergeant stripes on here
this doesn't mean that he was a sergeant in the Regular Army because he was only
a private when he bought himself out of the Regular Army but he joined the
volunteers and this is actually him in his Royal Fusiliers uniform where he did
attain the rank of Sergeant.
This photograph has written on the back here
the year 1905, which indicates that perhaps it's one of the very last photographs of him ever taken.
This picture is of Hook's daughters from his second marriage.
This was taken shortly after Hook's death. If you look closely here on the dress of
Hook's eldest daughter this is Victoria Catherine, VC interesting, and she's
wearing two tiny little medals here these are actually Hook's miniatures so
the metal miniatures would have been worn to formal occasions it's not the
actual Victoria Cross it's the medal that he would have worn to formal
dinners for example he'd have had this pin to his dress uniform for formal occasions like that.
So she's wearing the miniatures there.
We very lucky to be able to feature those very miniatures in the exhibition and here they are.
Here's the miniature Victoria Cross and the miniature South Africa campaign medal.
Now I want to just talk to you about the final object here, this is a letter
written to Hook's widow, his second wife Ada after he died in 1905 and it's a
very heartfelt letter from one of his former comrades this is from John Williams VC
another Victoria Cross winner at Rorke's drift and Williams was
in fact one of the people who was with Hook when they were rescuing people from
the burning hospital building and what it says is;
'Madam, it is with deep regret, I learn from this morning's mail of the death of my old comrade-in-arms your
late husband Henry Hook VC. I tender to you my sincere sympathy in this the hour
of your bereavement and trust you will find some solace in the thought your
late beloved husband's memory will be cherished for his worth as a hero and a
man so long as English history is read. I remain, dear madam, yours very truly John Williams VC.'
And there we have it. We chose to display these letters and the
photograph together with the medals as the star object at the bottom of the showcase.
It really helps to bring that person's story to life for a whole new audience.
And having these objects brought to British Museum where this
gentleman worked was a very very nice connection to make I think it was it's a
very very powerful story to tell and illustrative of the fact that although
medals are small they're certainly not boring. so there we are thank you very
So there we are.
Thank you very much indeed for listening if you'd like to find out more about the money metals
Network or indeed more Curator's Corners then please have a look at the links to
my left and don't forget to subscribe to the British Museum YouTube channel.
It's really good.