Congress of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, 1939

Abstract

THE first Congress of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies held at St. Albans in 1911 showed that the effect of Queen Victoria's raising the town to the dignity of a city and appointing a bishop had not only resulted in the late Viscount Grimston restoring the Abbey of the Benedictine monastery, erected over the Saxon shrine of the first Christian martyr, to the form it took under its abbots; but also directed attention to the excavation of the sites of the three older cities of Verulamium under the superintendence of Dr. and the late Mrs. Mortimer Wheeler. The second Congress, held this year, during June 6–10, marked a second stage and showed the interest and pride which the present-day citizens, with their enlarged boundaries and modern buildings, take in their long history. The Corporation has built a fine museum specially to house the Verulamium finds which were arranged by Mr. Philip Corder, the curator, and both he and Dr. Mortimer Wheeler were on the spot to explain and interpret the finds. A visit to the excavated amphitheatre, adapted by the Romans as a Greek theatre, is unique in Great Britain, and serves to emphasize the fact that it was the only town given the status of “Municipium”, thus making its inhabitants citizens of Rome and Verulamium the capital of England, with London merely its port twenty miles away.