Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Head, Barclay Vincent
HEAD, BARCLAY VINCENT (1844–1914), Greek numismatist, the second son of John Head, of Ipswich, of a quaker family descended from the quaker apologist, Robert Barclay [q.v.], by his wife, Elizabeth Bailey, was born at Ipswich 2 January 1844. Educated at the local grammar school under Hubert Holden [q.v.], he left it at the age of seventeen, and entered the department of coins at the British Museum 12 February 1864. In 1869 he married Mary Harley (died 1911), daughter of John Frazer Corkran, of Dublin, author and journalist, by whom he had one daughter. In 1893 he succeeded Reginald Stuart Poole [q.v.] as keeper of his department, a post which he held until 30 June 1906. His first contributions to numismatic literature were on Anglo-Saxon coins, but by 1868 he had settled down to his life's task. The department of coins began about 1870 to work on the great series of Greek catalogues; with Poole and Percy Gardner he produced the first volume, Italy, in 1873; he was to write two more volumes in collaboration, and eight alone. To these official publications must be added his useful illustrated Guide to the Coins of the Ancients (1881), which it has been found unnecessary to modify through six editions. Meanwhile his unofficial activity included the part editorship of the Numismatic Chronicle (1869–1910) and a number of remarkable monographs. As early as 1874 his History of the Coinage of Syracuse laid the foundations of the modern historical method in Greek numismatics. All further advance on the historical side of that subject has been upon the main lines which he there laid down. But the work by which he will be generally remembered is the Historia Numorum (1887), a system of Greek numismatics, which at once became the leading work of reference; a second edition appeared in 1911. Recognition of Head's work, not too ample in this country—though he received degrees from Durham in 1887 and Oxford in 1905—was ungrudging abroad, where Heidelberg University and both French and Prussian Academies, and numerous specialist societies, honoured him. The finest tribute, however, to a gentle and amiable scholar was the dedication to him, on his retirement, of Corolla Numismatica, written by thirty scholars of six nations. He died in London 12 June 1914. The Barclay Head prize for numismatics at Oxford commemorates him. Head's work should rank as classic in the annals of numismatics; severely as he limited his scope, he was no narrow specialist, and his judgement, though deliberate, was yet instinctively so sound that even his few mistakes are illuminating.
[The Athenæum, 20 June 1914; Numismatic Chronicle, 1914, pp. 249–55; private information; personal knowledge.]