Prof Maurice Whitehead, who has been awarded an MBE for his services to British heritage in Rome. St Peter's Basilica, Rome, (credit Chiara Minutolo, Pexels).
A Swansea University academic has been awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours list for his services to British heritage in Rome.
Professor Maurice Whitehead, emeritus professor of history, has recently completed ten years as Director of Heritage Collections and Research Fellow at the Venerable English College in Rome.
Founded in 1362 on Rome’s via di Monserrato as a hospice for pilgrims from England and Wales, the College is the oldest British institution outside the UK. Since 1579 it has served as a seminary, preparing men from England and Wales for the Catholic priesthood, and this remains its prime purpose today.
Professor Whitehead was responsible for archives dating from 1280, a 16,000-volume rare book collection, and many works of art, together forming a collection of international significance. He also organized numerous concerts and exhibitions, publishing widely on British heritage in English and Italian.
His prior experience at Swansea University as associate dean for postgraduate research, promoting international links and interdisciplinarity, proved invaluable in Rome: there, he supported hundreds of scholars, from many countries worldwide, researching the College’s rich holdings. This work, including his creation of a specialist research library unique in Italy, has been recognized through his appointment to honorary research fellowships at the universities of Durham and Newcastle and at the British School at Rome.
In collaboration with New College, Oxford, he arranged the export and loan of documents originally belonging to Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–58) for the 2023 landmark exhibition, Reformation Cardinal: Reginald Pole in sixteenth-century Italy and England, held at Lambeth Palace Library.
His work also involved regular liaison with the Anglican Centre in Rome, the British Embassy to the Holy See, and the Italian Ministero della cultura, which enlisted his help for its recent groundbreaking Tolkien exhibitions in Rome, Naples, and Turin.
In 2024, he and Dr Alana Mailes, a Harvard-educated early-career musicologist, together made a major interdisciplinary research breakthrough. Exploring numerous Roman archival sources, they proved that the English Renaissance composer, Richard Dering (c.1580–1630), converted to Catholicism in 1612, also discovering that he became the College’s maestro di cappella, thereby solving centuries-old musicological mysteries revealed in the latest edition of Music & Letters.
Professor Maurice Whitehead said:
“I share this honour with a wonderful group of colleagues in Rome aspiring to open up further the College’s remarkable Heritage Collections within a new historical institute”.
Study history at Swansea University