The Year of the Discovery of the Stannington Diploma

Abstract

The dating of the discovery of the Stannington Roman diploma to 1760 has remained uncontested since the 1870s, despite Joseph Hunter’s earlier assertion in his Hallamshire (1819) that it occurred in April 1761. The antiquarian wrote: "In the month of April 1761, a countryman, one Edward Nichols, ploughing a piece of common land called the Lawns, on the Stannington side of the Riveling, discovered two thin plates of copper about six inches by five, both bearing inscriptions of which the greatest portion was perfectly legible." As is well known, only one of the two tablets has survived and is now housed in the British Museum.2 The museum’s object label and website state that the diploma was ‘found in 1760’, citing RIB (The Roman Inscriptions of Britain) as the source. However, I contend that the RIB’s attribution of the discovery to 1760 lacks firm evidence and that Hunter’s claim of 1761 represents the correct date.