Tour 1: Antiquarians, collectors and dealers

1. Thomas Layton
(1819-1911)

Selected objects from the Layton Collection

Thomas Layton had one of the largest collections of London antiquities ever assembled by one person. In total the collection consists of over 11,000 books, 3,000 prints and maps, 3,000 coins, 900 pottery vessels and 2,600 assorted antiquities ranging from prehistoric to medieval artefacts. A large part of the collection consists of discoveries from the Thames in west London. Most of the archaeological objects from his collection are housed at the Museum of London.

Little is known about Layton's life. Born in 1819 at Strand-on-the-Green, he was the son of a lighter man and coal merchant and was apprenticed to his father in the family business. In 1825 the family moved to 22 Kew Bridge Road, where Layton was to live for the rest of his life. He took an active part in local politics; between 1853 and 1898 he occupied a seat on the local council and was first chairman of Brentford District Council.

Layton probably started collecting some time in the early 1850’s, just prior to his entry into local politics. This may have been a reflection of his interest in his home town and the fashion for collecting amongst Victorian gentlemen. As a man of trade with social and political aspirations, collecting may have helped to elevate him in social circles. He also would have been aware of the large numbers of antiquities dredged from the Thames in west London, many of which were sold onto collectors. His links with the coal trade meant he regularly came into contact with people working on barges and dredgers along the river.

Layton's collecting habits were obsessive; he obtained antiquities not only from the London area but also Europe, South America and Africa. Such was the size of his collection that sheds had to be built in his garden to house it all. Sadly Layton did not catalogue his collection, so the precise origins of some of his acquisitions are unknown. Instead he purchased more and more objects, even though every corner of his house was already packed full of possessions. Fred Turner, a local librarian who catalogued the collection after Layton’s death wrote of ‘…numberless treasures collected in the uncongenial recesses of a house never intended for such a purpose. No words can describe the amazing and distressing state of disorder which existed in so restricted an area.’

Layton died in 1911 and in his will he instructed that his collection should form the basis of a Layton Museum in his home. It was obvious that his collection was too large and the house too small to become a museum, so in 1913 the collection was transferred to Brentford public library. Due to a lack of storage space in the library most of the antiquities in the collection were transferred to the London Museum (predecessor of the Museum of London) in 1963. The books in the collection remain in the care of Brentford public library.

The Layton collection includes some of the finest objects in the Museum of London's early collections. Prehistoric objects are well-represented - particularly bronze weapons, stone tools and flint tools from the Thames. There are also some excellent examples of iron daggers with bronze sheaths. One of the finest objects is a large tankard made from wooden staves bound with bronze sheets from the Thames at Kew. All Layton collection objects have accession numbers with the prefixes N, O or P.

Extracted from Blackmore, L., and Whipp, D., Thomas Layton, F.S.A (1819-1911) 'A misguided Antiquary' in London Archaeologist, Autumn 1977, Vol 3 No 4

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