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The name of Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) is well known in scientific and exploration circles – he is undeservedly much less well known as an antiquary. This study considers his roles in relation to the premier antiquarian society of the time, the Society of Antiquaries of London. Using the Society’s records, Sir Joseph Banks is considered as an ordinary Fellow, as a member of Council, as an auditor of the finances and as a scrutator at elections. The relations between the Royal and Antiquarian Societies on first moving into Somerset House and the contemporary question of whether they might have merged is also examined. Joseph Banks’s role in the circumstances of the three contested presidential elections of 1785, 1799 and 1812 is especially considered, and these are seen not just to represent internal squabbling amongst the Fellows, but to reflect the wider social and political strains of the time. In producing the narrative of these elections, significant past mistakes are corrected. Lastly the relationship between George iii and the Society of Antiquaries is touched upon.

The major excavations at Cadbury Castle, Somerset, which took place in the 1960s, owed their inspiration in part to the identification of the site as ‘Camelot’, thus forging an association with ‘King Arthur’. John Leland, the sixteenth-century antiquary, was the author of this identification and this paper considers how he might have arrived at this conclusion. Factors identified include the role in Tudor politics of ‘King Arthur’ and of the owners of the site – the Hastings family. Consideration of the evidence of later writers on the site, both national and local, shows their almost total dependence on Leland's original description, but the evidence of the Hereford Mappa Mundi suggests a new dimension. It is suggested that the interpretation of the archaeology of the site would benefit from a clearer understanding of John Leland's description and of Tudor and Stuart activity at the site.

The genesis of this paper lay in the 2007 Tercentenary celebrations of the Society of Antiquaries and the challenge of compiling a tour of the premises used by the Society for its meetings prior to the Society’s move into a permanent home at Somerset House in 1780. The first part of the paper deals with the competing claims of the Bear in the Strand and the Young Devil taverns as the location for the foundation meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in 1707. The second part examines the evidence for the precise locations of these two taverns, a subject curiously neglected by antiquaries, together with an attempt to determine the character of the taverns. The paper then considers the demise of the 1707 Society and examines the evidence for the claim that 1707 marks the foundation year of the present Society of Antiquaries. Reference is also made to the other known meeting places of the Society up to 1718.