**The Friends of the Petrie Museum**
## **Trustees’ Annual Report**
## **for the period**
## **1 January – 31 December 2024**
Charity Registration Number: 1192201
The trustees present their annual report and financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 December 2024. The report has been prepared in accordance with The Charity Commission’s _Statement of Recommended Practice_ including its guidance on the application of the required _Financial Reporting Standard (FRS 102)_ .
1
The Friends of the Petrie Museum
## **1. Objectives and Activities**
## _a. Overview_
The object of The Friends of the Petrie Museum (PMF) is to further public education about, and understanding of, the history, archaeology and culture of the Nile Valley and surrounding regions. This is done through our support for University College London’s Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, specifically:
- contributing to the conservation, safekeeping and display of the collections of the Petrie Museum as a whole and individual objects within it
- supporting and coordinating related research, publication, education, and other charitable work.
The PMF fulfils its charitable purposes for public benefit through a range of activities:
- We allocate grants focused on promoting and supporting the work of the Petrie Museum; the process also offers support to other suitably qualified individuals or organisations working in related areas.
- We offer educational events during the year which present current research on the history, archaeology and culture of the Nile Valley. Most have some link to the work of the archaeologist, Flinders Petrie, and/or the collection of the Petrie Museum. We also work with other organisations with similar interests, for example The Egypt Exploration Society, UCL Institute of Archaeology, and Bloomsbury Summer School.
- We offer support for the care and conservation of the Museum's collections and seek input on work needing to be done from Museum staff, who report regularly to our Board meetings. We raise awareness of significant conservation efforts and Museum-based activity such as loans of artefacts to other bodies.
- We sustain communication with PMF members and other interested persons by means of social media, an electronic or printed annual magazine, and other occasional notes and newsletters. Our social media accounts extend our reach, particularly to scholars in Egypt, and we monitor the level of external access and interaction.
- Occasional visits are organised to Egyptological collections in the UK and beyond, including Egypt. These visits are educational rather than recreational, in nature.
- As a further support to the Petrie Museum we give second-hand books donated to us (usually by PMF members) to the museum shop for sale to visitors.
## _b. Charity Commission Guidance_
The trustees confirm that they have referred to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit when reviewing the Friends’ aims and objectives, planning activities and setting the grant making policy.
## _c. Grant Making Policy_
The trustees invite proposals from individuals and organisations, and these proposals must include a range of information set out in our guidance on applications.
When making decisions on the award of grants, we consider whether the proposed plan:
- fits within our charitable aims
- is based on a clear plan with appropriately defined objectives
- includes a proposed timeline and costings that appear feasible
- offers benefits that are justified by the costs
- has potential for broad impact, and
- is likely to be supported by other funding bodies or individuals in cases requiring co-funding.
We expect each proposed project to be identified as a priority in the strategic plan of the applicant organisation. We are also able to consider support for short-notice interventions, for example to repair damage, or to prepare an item for exhibition, as long as the criteria set out above are met to the greatest degree possible.
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The Friends of the Petrie Museum
## **2. PMF Board**
## _a. New Trustees_
Two new trustees were approved for appointment from 31.07.2024:
**Philip Ellaway B.Sc. MBA** – currently an undergraduate mature student at the Institute of Archaeology, with previous commercial experience in educational publishing and vocational training, and charity trustee experience with the Stationers’ Foundation.
**Dr Lea Rees** – current Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellow in Egyptology at University College and Associate Member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford.
## _b. New Student Representatives_
New student representatives were appointed in 2024 to increase our engagement with those studying in the field who can benefit from the Petrie Museum collections and contribute to the work of the Friends:
**Ewa Szteinduchert** – currently an undergraduate mature student at UCL studying for her BA in the Archaeology of Egypt and Sudan, with previous commercial experience as a maritime insurance lawyer. Ewa was previously a PMF volunteer in 2007–2008.
**Maia Nolan** – currently a Museum Studies Master’s student at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. She completed her BA at Fairfield University in the United States where she studied History and Classical Studies and discovered her passion for collections management, which she intends to pursue as a career.
## **3. Achievements and Performance**
## _a. Public Benefits_
The benefits of the Friends’ activities lie in:
- providing access to current research on the history, archaeology and culture of the Nile Valley and surrounding areas to a broad audience with an interest in these topics, thus adding to individual and collective intellectual development
- offering researchers the opportunity to disseminate their investigations and findings beyond their immediate context to an audience and readership broader than that served by, for example, traditional learned journals, and
- providing grants, mainly to the Petrie Museum, but also to other individuals and organisations working as indicated in our Grant Making Policy (please see section above).
## _b. Lectures and Events_
## _Lectures_
Hybrid lectures have continued to be the dominant mode of delivery. These allow for the more personal contact of an organisation founded on the notion of Friendship (to the Petrie Museum but also between members) while nevertheless continuing to appeal to, and benefit, a broader national and international audience.
We are very grateful to all our lecturers from 2024: Eid Mertah, Dan Potter, Margaret Maitland, Eleanor Dobson, Kristin Thompson and Marsha Hill, Marcel Marée, Wolfram Grajetzki, Paul Nicholson, Gianluca Miniaci, and Amany Abd El Hameed, who presented on wide variety of Egyptological and archaeological topics.
3
The Friends of the Petrie Museum
In 2024 our lecture programme included:
**Why We Need to Understand Egyptian Copper** – Dr Martin Odler told us about his work at Newcastle University on recent developments in our understanding of copper in early Egyptian and Nubian history and the implications these have for our understanding of chronology and society.
**Tut on Tour: Thirty Years of Demand Creation Through Exhibition** – Summer Austin, an archaeologist focusing on cultural heritage crimes, told us how the international blockbuster exhibitions of items from Tutankhamun’s tomb had blurred the line between exhibition and shop and stimulated the market for looted items. She proposed several practical measures to help mitigate this, from liaison with the local authorities in places where looting might increase, to a reduction in the emphasis on the precious element of gold and the (implicit) financial worth of the artefacts.
**Howard Carter and the Case of the Canary: The Tutankhamun Excavations and Cultural Mythmaking** – Dr Eleanor Dobson, Associate Professor in Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Birmingham, told us about her work on the reception of ancient Egypt in nineteenth and early twentieth century literature and the impact of imaginative writing inspired by Howard Carter’s dig. She believes the published version of Carter’s own journal was “amped-up” for entertainment value, almost certainly reflecting the influence of his friend, Percy White, a professor of literature in Cairo University. The illustrations for Carter’s story were themselves by Howard Elcock, whose work in the Victorian era also accompanied Arthur Conan Doyle’s murder stories.
**The ‘Qurna Queen’: reassessing a 17th Dynasty intact royal burial** – Dr Margaret Maitland, Principal Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean at National Museums Scotland, gave a fascinating lecture on the ‘Qurna Queen’ exhibition on display there. The intact burial of the woman and child was found by Egyptians working on excavations directed by Flinders Petrie near Thebes in 1908. Though simple and in a shallow trench, it contained over 100 objects. The burial date has been debated, with object typology leading to a consensus on late 17th Egyptian Dynasty, though Carbon-14 dating suggests a slightly earlier date from between the late 13th to early 17th Dynasties. This will affect the dating of objects from other sites, which was done in relation to the objects from this burial. Whilst we do not yet know who the ‘Qurna Queen’ was, a key finding from the burial is that Thebes and Egypt could not have been as isolated from the rest of the world as is often considered at this time, providing evidence for both mutual influence and shared cultural heritage between the contemporary cultures in what is now Egypt and Sudan.
## _Study Days_
In 2024 we restarted our programme of study days, which provide members with the opportunity to explore a topic in greater depth.
**Rifa Study Day** – In July we were treated to a series of scintillating talks, brought together by our treasurer/membership secretary Paulina Wandowicz and Wolfram Grajetzki.
In 1907 Flinders Petrie and his team excavated several burial grounds at Rifeh in Middle Egypt. They uncovered about 450 burials dating to the Middle Kingdom, Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom. Several thousand objects were found and are now in many collections all around the world. Over the last fifteen years those items have been collected in a UCL project and can now be re-united, at least on paper. The study day included an exclusive preview of the upcoming publication content and we heard directly from the authors who shared their current research on the provincial cemeteries of Rifeh.
4
The Friends of the Petrie Museum
## _c. Grants_
## **PMEA Cartonnage Project**
A grant of £5,548 was awarded to fund the condition checking, treatment and rehousing of cartonnage objects in the Petrie Museum which, due to their condition, had not yet been moved from their old shelving to their new storage cabinets. Each item was to be:
- condition checked
- treated and stabilised where needed
- repacked into conservation-grade packing materials
- stored with the rest of the cartonnage in the Research Room
Object database entries and conservation records are now being updated by the Conservation Laboratory Technician.
The project was completed within budget and on schedule. All objects would have benefitted from treatment, however, to ensure that the above outcomes were met, they were categorised from 1 to 4: category 1 indicated that immediate treatment was required, whilst category 4 denoted that the object could be safely rehoused without intervention. 16 out of the 42 objects were identified as urgently requiring stabilisation treatment before rehousing. The treatment hours for these ranged between 3 to 15 hours each. All objects were then transferred from open or otherwise unsuitable storage into custom-made archival boxes lined with conservation-grade padding. Once the practical elements of the project were complete, treatment photography and documentation was handed over to the Petrie Museum for upload.
This project has significantly improved the storage conditions of the cartonnage collection, with study requests involving previously inaccessible material having already been successfully fulfilled since the project’s conclusion. Another key outcome of the project was the training of the Conservation Laboratory Technician in the assessment, treatment, and rehousing of cartonnage materials, providing professional development opportunities for museum staff and widening the scope of future conservation work on this aspect of the collection.
## **4. Communications**
## _a. Website_
In 2024 our website continued to serve as a hub for upcoming events, supplementary documents (such as the Book Auction list, art catalogues, and lecture handouts), and more general information about the Friends of the Petrie Museum. We are now able to look at the next phase of development, which includes the establishment of an exclusive Members’ Area and digital content archives, with the first stage of this process, ‘PMF Extra’, being digitally launched for its first two online editions.
## _b. Social Media_
The PMF has continued to maintain a high level of activity in social media, with regular updates on Facebook and Twitter (now known as X). Owing to the decline of X in both usage numbers and functionality, by the end of 2024, only important Friends of the Petrie Museum announcements were being made there. During 2025 we will investigate emerging alternatives to X, especially Bluesky, assessing how the academic and archaeological community reacts to changes in social media, and how platforms develop for programming and scheduling options. In the meantime our new Instagram account continues to drive further engagement. Communication is not only with members but also subscribers nationally and internationally. By the end of 2024, the numbers of followers were for Facebook: 31,000; X: 3,725; Instagram: 6, increasing to 211 by May 2025.
5
The Friends of the Petrie Museum
## _c. Magazine_
The annual PMF magazine was published in December 2024. This year most subscribers chose to receive a digital copy rather than a physical magazine, although those who requested a paper copy received theirs, as usual, in the Christmas post. This is the first time most of our magazines have been sent out as digital copies, with a commensurate saving in time and resources. In 2025, we will begin uploading older copies of the magazine to the website and in future, magazines will be uploaded to the website after two years, so that they are available as a digital archive for everyone.
## **5. Financial Review**
- Our financial situation in 2024 remains healthy. The year ended with an overall deficit of £14,160 (2023: surplus of £80,794) with two substantial grants awarded in the year. We remain in a position to offer grant support while continuing to fundraise for a proposed new home for the Petrie Museum.
- In 2024 there were 521 individual members (2023: 587) including 21 new members (2023: 15). Trustees decided not to increase membership subscription rates in 2024 because of the cost-of-living crisis and a planned review of the Charity’s membership management which started in 2024 and will continue until the end of 2025. The Trustees expect to see a continuation in a decline in membership in the next financial year due to challenging economic conditions and as patterns of use of membership benefits change following the end of the global pandemic. The Trustees will continue to work to ensure the Charity is resilient in the long-term and adapts to the changing conditions.
- The generosity of our members should be acknowledged with gratitude, as donations over the year have amounted to £9,293, an increase of 20% on last year.
- A very successful book auction in February 2024 raised £7,074. The next auction will be in February 2025. These auctions are made possible by the generosity of members who donate or bequeath their books to the PMF.
- We are grateful for the generous bequest from Jim Dunn received in 2024.
- The bequest from Lewis Blake requires completion of the sale of his house. This matter has been, and continues to be, pursued by the Trustees.
## _Reserves_
Our assets at the end of 2024 stood at £267,824. The Friends of the Petrie Museum have ongoing commitments to the funding of grants as outlined above and listed below, including a substantial grant to the Petrie Museum for the Excavating the Petrie Museum Archive project. Also, it has long been acknowledged that the Museum’s accommodation does not do justice to the collection or adequately facilitate research and related activity. The major part of the reserves (following grant allocations, £150,000 in 2020; £128,160 in 2021; £137,926 in 2022) is, and will continue to be, retained to support UCL should its own ongoing evaluations and structural reviews result in appropriately ambitious plans to ameliorate provision for the Museum. It has long been the Friends’ intention to sponsor a research space/library within a new Petrie Museum. The remainder of the reserves will support our charitable aims and grants already approved.
|**Projected funding commitment of the reserves**||
|---|---|
|Institute of Archaeology library public access project c/f 2025|£10,000|
|PMF projected operating costs|£15,000|
|Naqada geophysical survey grant c/f 2025|£11,637|
|IL photography and publication grant|£12,000|
|Future museum funding commitments c/f|£219,187|
||**£267,824**|
6
The Friends of the Petrie Museum
## **6. Structure, Governance and Management**
The Friends of the Petrie Museum was registered as a charity, number 1192201, on 6 November 2020 using a Constitution of a Charitable Incorporated Organisation with voting members other than its charity trustees.
The Constitution provides for a minimum of three and a maximum of ten trustees. New trustees are elected by the members, and normally serve for three years, after which they may put themselves forward for re-election. The trustees usually meet four to six times each year. Reasonable travel expenses for attendance are reimbursed if requested.
The trustees seek to follow relevant Charity Commission guidance. They keep the skills and composition of the Board under review. New trustees sign a trustee declaration. A set of key documents required for the induction of new trustees has been developed.
## **7. Reference and Administrative Information**
## **Charity Name**
The Friends of the Petrie Museum
## **Registered Charity Number**
1192201
## **Principal Address**
The Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, Malet Place, London WC1E 6BT
## **Trustees**
Dr Joanne Rowland, Chair of Trustees Dr Kathryn Piquette (from 10 June 2022) (from 30 July 2021) Dr Lea Rees (from 31 July 2024) Max Chesnokov (from 7 June 2023) Neil Robson (from 7 June 2023) Philip Ellaway (from 31 July 2024) Paulina Wandowicz (from 7 June 2023) Janet Johnstone (from 6 November 2020) Dr Chloë Ward (from 6 November 2020) Maiken Mosleth-King (resigned 21 June 2024) Robert Whatmough (resigned 21 June 2024) Dr Hannah Pethen (from 6 November 2020)
## **Bankers**
Royal Bank of Scotland, 171 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 7DL
## **Auditor / Independent Examiner**
Griffin Chartered Accountants, Courtenay House, Pynes Hill, Exeter EX2 5AZ
## **Declarations**
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:
Signature(s) Position: Chair Full name(s) Dr Joanne Mary Rowland Date `05/30/2025`
7
||**Charity Name**
**Friends of the Petrie Museum**|**Charity Name**
**Friends of the Petrie Museum**|**Charity Name**
**Friends of the Petrie Museum**|**Charity Name**
**Friends of the Petrie Museum**|**No (if any)**
**1192201**|**No (if any)**
**1192201**|**No (if any)**
**1192201**|**No (if any)**
**1192201**|**CC16a**|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**For the period**
**from**||Period start date
01-Jan-24|**To**||Period end date
31-Dec-24|||||
||||||||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**|||||||||||
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
~~**12,118**~~
~~**9,293**~~
**1,696**
**7,074**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,181**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,181**
**5,609**
**632**
**2,831**
**-**
**287**
**587**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**5,548**
**28,847**
**44,341**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**44,341**
**-**
**14,160**
**-**
**281,984**
**267,824**||**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
~~**-**~~
~~**-**~~
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
~~**-**~~
~~**-**~~
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
~~**12,118**~~
~~**9,293**~~
**1,696**
**7,074**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,181**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,181**
**5,609**
**632**
**2,831**
**-**
**287**
**587**
**-**
**-**
**5,548**
**28,847**
**44,341**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**44,341**
**-**
**14,160**|||**Last year**
**to the nearest £**||
|Subscriptions||~~**12,118**~~|||||~~**12,118**~~|||~~**13,600**~~|
|~~Donations~~||~~**9,293**~~|||||~~**9,293**~~|||~~**7,761**~~|
|~~Courses / study ~~days||**1,696**|||||**1,696**|||**2,102**|
|Book auction||**7,074**|||||**7,074**|||**5,565**|
|Nubian memoir||**-**|||||**-**|||**40**|
|Interest income||**-**|||||**-**|||**150**|
|Legacy||**-**|||||**-**|||**86,739**|
|||**-**|||||**-**|||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_||**30,181**|||||**30,181**||**115,957**||
||||||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**|||||||||||
|||**-**|||||**-**||||
|||**-**|||||**-**||**-**||
|**_Sub total_**||**-**|||||**-**||**-**||
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**|||||||||||
|||**30,181**|||||**30,181**||**115,957**||
||||||||||||
|
Administrative costs||**5,609**|||||**5,609**||**6,466**||
|Magazine and mailing||**632**|||||**632**||**3,708**||
|Lectures and events||**2,831**|||||**2,831**||**1,201**||
|Studyday/ course costs||**-**|||||**-**||**607**||
|Zoom fees||**287**|||||**287**||**382**||
|Auction costs||**587**|||||**587**||**636**||
|Donation to Manchester Museum||**-**|||||**-**||**300**||
|Petrie Museum Tutankhamun Project||**-**|||||**-**||**11,610**||
|Nubt Project|||||||||**7,253**||
|Amama Project||**-**|||||||**3,000**||
|Cartonnage Project||**5,548**|||||**5,548**||**-**||
|Archives Project||**28,847**|||||**28,847**||**-**||
|**_Sub total_**||**44,341**|||||**44,341**||**35,163**||
||||||||||||
|**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases (see table)**|||||||||||
|**,**||**-**|||||**-**||||
|||**-**|||||**-**||||
|**_Sub total_**||**-**|||||**-**||**-**||
|**_Total payments_**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**_Cash funds this year end_**|||||||||||
|||**44,341**|||||**44,341**||**35,163**||
||||||||||||
||**-**|**14,160**|**-**|**-**||**-**|**14,160**||**80,794**||
|||**-**|**-**|**-**|||**-**||**-**||
||**281,984**||**-**|**-**||**281,984**|||**201,190**||
||**267,824**||**-**|**-**||**267,824**|||**281,984**||
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
28/05/2025
1
|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at**|**the end of the period**||
|---|---|---|---|
|**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B1 Cash funds**|**Details**
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
Bank Balance
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
Signature|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**267,824**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**267,824**
**-**
OK
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
Joanne Rowland|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||Joanne Rowland|`05/30/2025`|
|||||
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
28/05/2025
2
**INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024**
## **THE FRIENDS OF THE PETRIE MUSEUM**
## **INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE FRIENDS OF THE PETRIE MUSEUM**
I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of the charity for the period ended 31 December 2024.
## **RESPONSIBILITIES AND BASIS OF REPORT**
As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ('the Act'). I report in respect of my examination of the charity's accounts carried out under section 145 of the Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
## **INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S STATEMENT**
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
2. the accounts do not accord with those records; or
3. the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair view’ which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Signed: Dated: 06/06/25
Laura Waycott FCA **Griffin Chartered Accountants** Courtenay House Pynes Hill Exeter EX2 5AZ