William Ransom

William Ransom (1826-1914) of Hitchin was a Quaker philanthropist and founder of a pharmaceutical company who became an amateur archaeologist, collector and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, overseeing excavations at Pegsdon in 1879 and Great Wymondley in 1882¹. One of the two Ransoms, probably William, bought Cypriot items at the Lawrence-Cesnola sale of 12-14 March 1888; exactly what was purchased is unknown¹. A later volume on the Nicholson Museum's Hellenistic lagynoi also says that Ransom was known to have bought items at the 1888 Lawrence-Cesnola auctions².

His son Frank Ransom continued the firm and the collection, and presented it in 1923 to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, with 250 pounds for cases. The Cambridge University Reporter of 3 June 1924 described nearly 1,500 objects (23.116-1203), including a series obtained from tombs in Cyprus, Hellenistic and Roman glass, gold jewellery with a Mycenaean-type diadem, pottery and votive statuettes¹. In 1947 part of the collection went on loan from Cambridge to the Nicholson Museum in Sydney. Items there marked "R.C. 23" followed by a number are treated by Barker and Merrillees as certainly from the Lawrence-Cesnola collection, and at least 28 are Cypriot¹.