Peter McNiven has just retired as the Society’s general editor, for the second time! He first appeared as general editor in the lists of Council members in 1984, serving for a decade. He took over again in March 2002 and volume number 146 in 2012 is the latest to come out under his guidance, though he will deserve plaudits for his contributions to volumes yet to be published. Dr McNiven’s work on the Society’s behalf extended on occasion beyond the vital oversight of layout, or of printing and binding, the bread and butter tasks of a general editor. The late professor RHC Davis credited Peter with “great scholarly skill” for his arrangement of the documents in our volume 126, published in 1988, The Charters of the Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester, .c.1071-1237, edited by Professor Geoffrey Barraclough who had died in 1984. He certainly went well beyond a general editor’s role to help with the transcription of the texts of the second and third volumes of Henry Prescott’s Diary, work recognised by naming him as joint editor on their title pages. In all, he has overseen some eighteen volumes through to publication. Though three lay in his own specialist academic area of later medieval England, most post-dated medieval times: ‘his’ volumes ranged from the eleventh century to 1929! He achieved an almost equal spread of subject matter between the two counties, a balance in which some subscribers are fiercely interested. I hope Peter’s expertise remains available to Council for a long time to come.

Dr Colin Phillips, Member of Council