Prestigious award for coin expert

Peter Clayton is chairman of the Berkhamsted & District Archaeological Society, vice-chairman of Dacorum Heritage Trust and vice-president of the Hemel Hempstead Local History and Museum Society.

He has been awarded the Jeffrey North Medal for services to British Numismatics by the British Numismatic Society, for outstanding services to British numismatics.

Numismatics is the study of currency, including coins.

Peter is widely known as an archaeologist with particular interests in the coinage of ancient Greece and Rome, and bought his first two Roman coins as a schoolboy.

He was president of the British Association of Numismatic Societies (BANS) from 1987 to 1995 and still serves on its committee. He is a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and an Honorary Member of the Institute of Archaeology, UCL.

For more than 40 years, he has been a guest lecturer on cruise ships in the Mediterranean, and is the author of over a dozen books on archaeology and Ancient Egypt.

He was archaeological editor at Thames & Hudson, then became the founding managing editor at the British Museum. For 10 years, he served on the Treasure Valuation Committee at the British Museum and is now an expert advisor (coins and antiquities) to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.