Sarah Sophia Banks
Sarah Sophia Banks (28 October 1744 – 27 September 1818) was an English antiquarian collector and the sister and collaborator of botanist Joseph Banks. She collected coins and medals and ephemera which are now historically valuable like broadsheets, newspaper clippings, visiting cards, prints, advertisements and playbills.
Sarah Sophia Banks
Nathaniel Hone the Elder · http: onlinecollection.nationalgallery.ie/objects/6717/sarah-sophia-banks · Public domain
- Born
- 28 October 1744
- Birthplace
- Soho
- Died
- 27 September 1818
- Known for
- Collections in the British Museum, British Library, and the Royal Mint Museum
- Nationality
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Kingdom of Great Britain.
- Occupation
- numismatist, botanist, curator, amanuensis, philatelist and musician.
- Languages
- English.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Sarah Sophia Banks (28 October 1744 – 27 September 1818) was an English antiquarian collector and the sister and collaborator of botanist Joseph Banks. She collected coins and medals and ephemera which are now historically valuable like broadsheets, newspaper clippings, visiting cards, prints, advertisements and playbills.
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wikidata · Q7422791 · wikipedia · Sarah Sophia Banks
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Born — 28 October 1744 • Birthplace — Soho • Died — 27 September 1818 • Known for — Collections in the British Museum, British Library, and the Royal Mint Museum
Biography
Biography
• Illustration — Sarah Sophia Banks by Nathaniel Hone the Elder Banks was born on 28 October 1744 at 30 Argyll Street in Soho, London the daughter of William Banks, the Member of Parliament for Grampound, and his wife Sarah. She "discussed questions of plant biology with her brother..." and "...influenced him greatly." Many "of her ideas made their way into his writings [and she] also provided valuable support by recopying and editing the entire manuscript of Banks' Newfoundland voyage (published 1766)." Sarah and Joseph Banks hosted many gatherings at their house on Soho Square, which with its "vast library" full of books and collections "became a place to meet, eat and talk for those with natural history interests".
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1744
Sarah Sophia Banks born at Soho.
1818
Sarah Sophia Banks died.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
London and Soho Square.
Residences
Soho.
Birth place
Legacy
Banks' varied collections were left to her brother and sister-in-law who presented them to the British Museum and the Royal Mint Museum. Her coin collection is now divided between the British Museum and the Royal Mint, while her prints are housed between the British Museum and British Library. The rediscovery of her scrapbook on the London Monster, a man who attacked dozens of women 1788–90, led directly to Jan Bondeson's book on the subject in 2000.
John Russell, R.A. (1745 - 1806) Portrait of Sarah Sophia Banks (1744-1818) Pastel; signed lower left: J.Russell RA pt 1790 597 x 450 mm. The remarkable collector Sarah Sophia Banks was born on 28th October 1744 at 30 Argyll Street in Soho, the only daughter of William and Sarah Banks. She grew up at Revesby Abbey in Lincolnshire with her elder brother Joseph, later to become the great patron and
John Russell
Sarah Sophia Banks portrait by Angelica Kauffman.
Angelica Kauffmann
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Royal Mint Museum. The Library of Sarah Sophia Banks.
- 2.Gascoigne, John. Banks, Sarah Sophia. 2004. 10.1093/ref:odnb/1301.
- 3.Pincott, Anthony. The Book Tickets of Sarah Sophia Banks. The Bookplate Journal. 2. 1. 3–30. March 2004.
- 4.Eagleton, Catherine. Collecting America: Sarah Sophia Banks and the 'Continental Dollar' of 1776. Numismatic Chronicle. 174. 293–301. 2014.
- 5.Eagleton, Catherine. Collecting African money in Georgian London: Sarah Sophia Banks and her collection of coins. Museum History Journal. 6. 1. 23–38. 2013. 10.1179/1936981612z.0000000002.
- 6.Eagleton, Catherine. The collections of Sarah Sophia Banks. Sir Joseph Banks Society. 2013.
- 7.Leis, Arlene Carol. Sarah Sophia Banks: Femininity, Sociability and the Practice of Collecting in Late Georgian England. University of York. I. 2013.
- 8.Thornbury, Walter. Old and New London: Volume 3. Cassell, Petter & Galpin. 184–196. 1878.
- 9.History of Parliament. BANKS, William (1719-61), of Revesby Abbey, Lincs.
- 10.Lipscomb, Diana. Women in Systematics. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 26. 323–341. 1996. 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.26.1.323.
- 11.Secord, James A. How scientific conversations became shop talk. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 17. 129–156. 2007. 1474-0648.
- 12.BANKS, Joseph (1665-1727), of Revesby Abbey, Lincs. The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 6
- Catherine Eagleton, "Collecting African money in Georgian London: Sarah Sophia Banks and her collection of coins", Museum History Journal, vol. 6, no. 1, 2013, pp. 23–38.
- Catherine Eagleton, "Collecting America: Sarah Sophia Banks and the 'Continental Dollar' of 1776", Numismatic Chronicle, vol. 174, 2014, pp. 293–301.
- Arlene Leis, "Displaying Art and Fashion: Ladies' Pocket-Book Imagery in the Paper Collections of Sarah Sophia Banks", Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, vol. 82, no. 3, 2013, pp. 252–71.
- Arlene Leis, "Ephemeral Histories: Social Commemoration of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in the paper Collections of Sarah Sophia Banks" in Satish Padiyar, Phillip Shaw and Philippa Simpson (eds.) Visual Culture and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Routledge, London and New York, 2017, pp. 183–199.
- Arlene Leis, "A Truly Interesting Collection of Visiting Cards and Co' in Toby Burrows and Cynthia Johnston (eds.) Collecting the Past:British Collectors and Their Collections 18th to the 20th Centuries (Routledge, 2019)
- Anthony Pincott, "The Book Tickets of Sarah Sophia Banks", The Bookplate Journal, vol. 2, no.1, March 2004, pp. 3–30.
References
Citations
References
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Secondary witness
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
Sarah Sophia Banks is recorded as numismatist, botanist, curator, amanuensis and philatelist.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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