Numismatics

Hart Gallery

The numismatics collection features medals, paper notes and almost 8000 coins from Britain, Greek and Rome bequeathed to the museum by local rope maker Robert Edward Hart. Other collection highlights include medals and the Tockholes Hoard.

Blackburn rope-maker Robert Edward Hart died in 1946 and left his coin collection to Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery. His family made their fortune by supplying rope to the cotton industry and this money enabled Hart to pursue his interests in collecting from a young age.

Hart spent his life compiling an outstanding collection of coins and books which are now considered to be some of the best collections in the country. His bequest to the museum was made for ‘the people of the town’ and he was keen for his coins to stay in place he called home.

Other collection highlights include a collection of coins from Blackburn industrialist W. H. Hornby, a collection of Sasanian coins acquired in 1988 and the Tockholes Hoard.

A number of medals also sit within this collection, including the three consecutive FA Cup winning medals awarded to Blackburn Rover’s goalkeeper Herbie Arthur and an FA Cup winning medal awarded to Jimmy Costley of Blackburn Olympic football team.

Hart Collection

The coins donated as part of the Hart collection, numbering almost 8000, are a representation of coins from the history of Britain, a history of Rome and the various city-states in Ancient Greece.

Hart’s collection comprises of gold, silver and copper alloy coins from across the periods. The highlight of the collection is the ‘Leges Aureus’, a gold coin from the reign of Octavian (later to become Augustus) of which there are only two in the world.

You can explore more of Hart’s Greek coin collection via the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum project.

R.E. Hart and Coins Collecting

Hart studied engineering at Cambridge and graduated in 1899 with an MA in Mechanical Engineering. He had no training or educational background in history, classics or archaeology but evidently had a deep passion for amateur numismatics and as a result built a strong collection of coins.

He followed his own personal interests and would often read and study books about numismatics which informed his collecting. Amongst his collection are some noticeable themes such as his frequent purchase of duplicate coins and his attempts at collecting coins from the starts of different periods, almost creating a timeline of currency, similar to how he approached his manuscript collection.

Discover more about Hart’s collecting in Collections to think with Collecting, scholarship and belonging in the R. E. Hart collection (Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery) article by J Hase, R Darley (2020) published in the Journal of the History of Collections.

Explore More Collections