About The Ephemera Society

Established in 1975, the Ephemera Society is today internationally recognised as the authority in the field, counting among its members libraries, museums, colleges and universities, as well as ephemera dealers and private individuals in twenty or more countries.

The emblem of the Society represents Samuel Pepys (1633 - 1703), Secretary to the Admiralty and celebrated diarist. Described by the society’s founder, Maurice Rickards, as “the first general ephemerist”, Pepys collection embraced trade cards, board games and labels as well as ballads and other street literature.

A lesser known fact about the great diarist is that in 1698 Pepys designed a bookplate for his convivial friend Arthur Charlett, master of University College, Oxford. Shown here, it is the first in a style which became immensely popular known as bookpile ex-libris.

Samuel Pepys in his diary does not mention the acquisition of ephemera but it was clearly of considerable interest to him. Surviving in two large albums at Magdalene College, Cambridge, are over one thousand items he kept to illustrate his daily life in London.

Samuel Pepys

“A man whose free and generous spirit appeared in his pen, and his ingenious fancy at his finger's end”

Members of Council

President Lord Briggs
Chairman Valerie Jackson-Harris
Secretary Graham Hudson
Treasurer John Hall
Bazaars Secretary Valerie Jackson-Harris
Ephemerist Editor Robert Banham

Council members without designated office

John Martin, Michael Twyman, Malcolm Warrington, Brian Love,
Ray Tye, Maurice Collins, John Scott, Sally de Beaumont (ex-officio), Patrick Hickman-Robertson OBE (ex-officio).