Remembering Ralph Jackson

Dr Ralph Jackson (1950-2024)

 

Very sadly my friend and former colleague at the British Museum, Ralph Jackson, passed away on 16 September 2024. 

I first met Ralph in February 1991, when I began volunteering in the Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities at the BM. I was still at school at that time, studying for my GCSEs, and Ralph was one of the most welcoming members of the Department. I still remember him looking up and giving me a warm, friendly smile when I inadvertently ventured into his small corner of the Students Room. I was nosily looking around the place, exploring the labyrinthine byways of this large, communal room which was overly-stuffed with furniture, typewriters, microscopes, light-boxes, desk-mounted magnifying glasses, photo-stands, card indexes, padded baskets and trays for safely handling and examining artefacts. It was crammed with all manner of bookishly curious and intriguing things. There seemed to be tall cupboards, filing cabinets and plans chests everywhere, behind which were hidden desks and tables, all heaped with books, maps, papers and pot plants, and, squirreled away amongst it all were quietly studious people, all busily working away. The walls surrounding the room were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves chockful of books behind sliding glass doors. It was a deeply scholarly space, perched high upon the roof, hidden behind the Museum’s pediment, overlooking the green dome of the Round Reading Room. I apologised for disturbing him, but Ralph sat back in his chair, having first reached for his cup of coffee (which I noted stood next to a small cafetiere on his desk – this seemed to me to be the height of scholarly sophistication!). He told me I wasn’t intruding at all and asked me how I was getting on. Pleased to find him so open and affable, I remember I asked him: “So what do you do?”

 

Ralph was primarily an archaeologist of Roman Britain, but he was also a curator who specialised in the study of Greco-Roman medicine, becoming an expert in bronze medical instruments and also cosmetic grinders, the latter in particular was an area of small finds analysis (or material culture studies, as it’s called nowadays) which he largely pioneered. Many of the ancient surgical implements he studied are surprisingly similar to those used in hospitals today. He used to speak with fluid ease and eloquence about the writings of Galen and other Roman writers with a familiarity which made it seem like he’d actually known these ancient writers personally. Similarly, he could talk in forensic detail (with a quietly-knowing, showman-like glint in his eye) about some of the unanaesthetised medical practices and surgical procedures used by ancient doctors with a steady and unflinching sense of immediacy which was decidedly not for the squeamish or faint of heart!

Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (1988)

During his long and distinguished career at the BM, Ralph co-directed a number of archaeological excavations, most notably at Stonea in Cambridgeshire and at Ashwell in Hertfordshire. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to dig with Ralph, although I did help with some of the final post-excavation work on Stonea after I joined the Department as a full-time member of staff having graduated from university with my first degree. Most of my work with Ralph during that time centred on creating museum displays at the BM. I first worked closely with him (and a huge cross-departmental team of people) on a totally new suite of permanent exhibition galleries dedicated to telling the history of Roman Britain which opened in 1997. These displays, which remain largely unchanged to this day, are hugely popular – especially with visiting parties of school children. 

Soon after the Roman Britain gallery opened, Ralph and I worked together on a special temporary display of the recently excavated grave of a Romano-British doctor found near Colchester, at Stanway in Essex. The complete assemblage of objects from this grave, comprised a bronze skillet and a number of ceramic vessels, including an amphora, along with a set of surgical implements and a number of glass gaming pieces which had clearly been set out – in positions ready to commence playing – upon a wooden gaming board, which had long since decomposed and disappeared in the soil. Ralph described the significance of this ‘healer’s’ grave (dated circa AD 50-60) in his most recent book, noting the find as: ‘The earliest surviving firm evidence of instrumentation for surgical practice in Britain – and, indeed, one of the earliest dated kits from the Roman Empire.’ (Jackson, Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum (2023), p. 20; see also Figure 22a-d, p. 22). At the time I’d read about the discovery of this grave in a local newspaper article which had been saved for me by a relative who lived nearby, so it was quite a treat to get to work with these objects and put them on show for the visiting public in the new Roman Britain gallery. It also meant I got a chance to explore Colchester Museum with Ralph when we later returned the grave goods at the end of the loan; the foundations of the building – which is a Norman Castle – are actually the vaults of a Roman temple to the deified Emperor Claudius that date from the period when Colchester was the capital of the Roman province of Britannia.

Installing the Stanway Doctor's Grave display with Ralph, c.1997 (photo by Catherine Johns).

 

A few years later, I worked with Ralph on an exhibition, entitled Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome, which had previously been on show at two museums in Germany. It was the first large special exhibition which I had properly worked on and it happened to coincide with the release of Ridley Scott’s famous film, Gladiator (2000). We had a clip from the film which showed the fighting in the Colosseum, along with another clip of the chariot race from Ben-Hur (1959), both of which played on a loop at the centre of the exhibition. There was even talk of inviting Russell Crowe to open the exhibition. It was opened though by no less of a Hollywood luminary than Mark Rylance, who was then most famous for his work at The Globe Theatre in London, particularly in staging and acting in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar. I was lucky enough to meet Mark Rylance at the exhibition opening, although oddly enough Rylance never actually saw my face because I had been persuaded (by Ralph, among others) to dress up in a full-scale replica set of gladiatorial armour! – I’m not sure I’d have been so readily persuaded to do this for anyone else on the staff other than Ralph, who was always such a genial and supportive soul that it was impossible to say no.

Gladiators and Caesars (2000)

Ralph was a genuinely warm and supportive colleague. He instantly picked up the phone and called the Personnel Department to see if the Museum was still part of a Civil Service accommodation assistance scheme that he knew about when I was having trouble finding somewhere to live. Unfortunately, the Museum wasn’t part of the scheme any longer, but the gesture spoke volumes about Ralph’s capacity for empathy and his desire to help. It was nice to be able to re-pay small favours such as these, especially when during the course of the Gladiators and Caesars exhibition I was contacted by Roy Friendship-Taylor, the director of a dig on a Roman Villa site in Northamptonshire which I’d been a member of for many years, where a bronze and iron folding knife depicting a gladiator had just been unearthed. I went up to Northampton and took a look at it, identifying it as showing a type of gladiator known as a Secutor – the ‘chaser,’ who was usually pitted against the Retiarius, or ‘net fighter.’ Returning to London, Ralph and I were then absolutely thrilled that we managed to get the knife conserved and included in the exhibition. It is now on long-term loan to the BM and can be seen on display in the Roman Britain gallery (Room 49).

Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum (2023)

After I left the Prehistory and Roman Britain Department, Ralph and I remained in touch. He used to tell me about the projects he was working on and often invited me to the launch of his publications, such that it felt like that question I’d first asked him in February 1991 had continued to echo and be answered down the years. The last time I bumped into him, after he had retired – not all that long ago, we had a long chat, and he briefly mentioned that he’d been ill, but he didn’t go into details as he usually did concerning medical matters when they related to ancient Romans. It was a shock later on to find out just how unwell he was. But I’m glad – having known Ralph for such a long time – that I was able, in company with a number of my former colleagues, to pass on a message of love and support to Ralph shortly before he died. And it’s a curious thing, because, just at the time that he passed away, I had a very vivid memory of Ralph, which popped into my mind unprompted while I slept, in which Ralph appeared and asked me in his characteristic way: “How are you getting on? – Everything OK?”

Warm, witty, kind, inquisitive, and reassuring – Ralph was a true gentleman with a generous heart and a great soul. He will be greatly missed by all those who were fortunate enough to have known him.

Ralph Jackson talking about Roman surgical instruments, c.2001.

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Ralph Jackson - Obituary, by Richard Hobbs (The Guardian)