Cyril Richard Lockett (1873-1950) was the Chairman of William & John Lockett Ltd., shipowners in Liverpool.
He commenced collecting c.1906, focussing on the English series, purchasing heavily in the Rashleigh (1909), Carlyon-Britton (1913-18), Walters (1913), Roth (1917-18), Bruun (1925), Huth (1927), Morrieson (1933), Lord Grantley (1943-45) and other collections.
From the 1920s his numismatic collecting interests expanded to Greek coins and then continental, Roman and Byzantine coins, building one of the largest and most important numismatic collections in the United Kingdom.
His collection of English Milled (Cromwell to Victoria) was sold at Sotheby’s (28 April 1927) and after his death his vast collection was sold by Glendining’s in 14 sales over a seven-year period (1955-1961) to avoid flooding the market.
The British Numismatic Society holds Lockett’s own 58 volume manuscript catalogue of his collection. These volumes provide a unique insight into Lockett as a discerning numismatic connoisseur, while documenting provenances of his purchases and his hand-written observations about the coins in his collection.
Each volume covers a specific period or category of his collection. Within each volume there is an individual paper tag inserted for each coin.
In 2022 and 2023 the BNS will create digital surrogates of Lockett’s manuscript catalogue, with the goal of protecting this fragile item for posterity and making this resource freely available online for study by anyone with an interest in numismatics worldwide. The first two sections have now been uploaded and are available to view here courtesy of librarian Brad Shepherd.
May ’22 Update – All 58 volumes are now online.
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