Curating empire: Museums and the British imperial experience 9781526118288

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Museums and the British imperial experience

Edited by Sarah Longair a n d J o h n M c Al e e r

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general editor editor John John M. M. MacKenzie MacKenzie general founded more than twenty-five years ago,ago, emphasis was When the the ‘Studies ‘Studiesin inImperialism’ Imperialism’series serieswas was founded more than twenty-five years emphasis was laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect an on effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. seventy books published, the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. With moreWith than more ninetythan books published, this remains this remains the prime concern the series. Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the prime concern of the series. of Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the full specthe full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers trum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and scienceelse. andMoreover, the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much much the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and else. Moreover, the series always wished to present comparative work in onthese European American imperialism, andhas particularly welcomes the submission of books areas.and TheAmerifascican imperialism, and particularly the submission of booksand in these areas.will Thecontinue fascination nation with imperialism, in all itswelcomes aspects, shows no sign of abating, this series to withthe imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating, andinthis continue to lead the lead way in encouraging the widest possible range of studies theseries field. will ‘Studies in Imperialism’ is fully organic in itsthe development, always seeking to be in at the field. cutting edge, responding to theislatest way in encouraging widest possible range of studies ‘Studies in Imperialism’ fully interests and thealways needs seeking of this ever-expanding areaedge, of scholarship. organic inofitsscholars development, to be at the cutting responding to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this ever-expanding area of scholarship.

Ending British rule in Africa Curating empire

SELECTED TITLES AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES Conquering nature in Spain and its empire, 1750–1850 Helen Cowie

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Silk and empire Brenda King Museums and empire: Natural history, human cultures and colonial identities John M. MacKenzie The Scots in South Africa: Ethnicity, identity, gender and race, 1772–1914 John M. MacKenzie with Nigel R. Dalziel Imperial spaces: Placing the Irish and Scots in colonial Australia Lindsay Proudfoot and Dianne Hall

Curating empire

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Museums and the British imperial ­experience

edited by Sarah Longair and John McAleer

Manchester University Press Manchester and New York

distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2012 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher.

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Published by MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER M13 9NR, UK and ROOM 400, 175 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 175 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC PRESS, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, 2029 WEST MALL, VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN  978 0 7190 8507 9 hardback First published 2012 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not ­guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Trump Medieval by Special Edition Pre-Press Services www.special-edition.co.uk

Contents

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List of illustrations—vii General editor’s introduction—ix Notes on contributors—xii Acknowledgements—xiv

Introduction—Curating empire: museums and the British imperial experience Sarah Longair and John McAleer 1

1 The case of Thomas Baines, curator-explorer extraordinaire, and the display of Africa in nineteenth-century Norfolk John McAleer 17 2 Visiting the empire at the provincial museum, 1900–50 Claire Wintle 37 3 Carving out a place in the better Britain of the South Pacific: Ma¯ori in New Zealand museums and exhibitions Conal McCarthy 56 4 Curiosities or science in the National Museum of Victoria: procurement networks and the purpose of a museum Gareth Knapman

82

5 Narrative as history, image as memory: exhibiting the Great War in Australia, 1917–41 Jennifer Wellington 104 6 The experience of a lady curator’: negotiating curatorial challenges in the Zanzibar Museum Sarah Longair 122 7 A museum for Sierra Leone? Amateur enthusiasms and colonial museum policy in British West Africa Paul Basu 145

contents

8 Edgar Thurston at the Madras Museum (1885–1909): the multiple careers of a colonial museum curator Savithri Preetha Nair 168

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9 Sir William Gregory and the origins and foundation of the Colombo Museum Philip McEvansoneya 188 10 Tipu’s Tiger and images of India, 1799–2009 Sadiah Qureshi

207

Afterword—Objects, empire and museums Sarah Longair and John McAleer 225 Index—232

[ vi ]

List of illustrations 2.1  Postcard of the Archaeological Room at Brighton Museum, c. 1912, showing series of comparative displays.

page 42

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Private collection.

2.2  Miss Mavis Bennett as Minnehaha, Mr Joseph Farrington as Hiawatha and ‘Chief Os-ke-non-ton’ as the Medicine Man.

47

From ‘“Hiawatha” as Spectacle, Impressive Scenes in the Dome, Music, Colour and Action’, Herald, 2 December 1933, p. 14. Courtesy of the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove.

3.1  The ‘Maori Hall’ of the Dominion (formerly Colonial) Museum in Wellington about 1907, where director Augustus Hamilton displayed the growing collections of Ma¯ori art.

67

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, reference C.1048; photo­grapher, Augustus Hamilton.

3.2  Makereti (Maggie Papakura) photographed c. 1910 inside her house at Whakarewrewa near Rotorua.

69

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, reference 1/1–003054–G; photographer, W. H. T. Partington.

3.3  King George V, Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales visiting the carved meeting house Mataatua at the Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924.

72

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, reference N–P 1235–43, Auckland Weekly News (8 May 1935).

5.1  Interior view of the Australian War Memorial, c. 1925–35, part of the temporary War Museum, Sydney, New South Wales

110

Author’s collection.

5.2  Mont St Quentin (diorama detail) by Louis McCubbin, 1920–23, Australian War Memorial,Canberra (AWM ART41018).

112

Author’s collection.

5.3  Pozières (diorama detail) by Louis McCubbin and Frank 114 Lynch, 1928–29, Australian War Memorial, Canberra (AWM ART41019). Author’s collection.

6.1  Muslim school girls visiting the Zanzibar Museum. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives, CN 3/24.

[ vii ]

124

6.2  Ailsa Nicol Smith teaching a women’s group in the Zanzibar Museum.

133

Reproduced with permission of the National Archives, CN 3/24.

7.1  Freetown’s Cotton Tree and the bungalow housing the Sierra Leone Museum, c. 1958.

146

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© Sierra Leone National Museum.

7.2  Dr McCormack Easmon delivering a speech at the opening of the Sierra Leone Museum on 10 December 1957.

160

© Sierra Leone National Museum.

7.3  The Sierra Leone Museum at the time of its opening in 1957.

161

© Sierra Leone National Museum.

9.1  The original building of the Colombo Museum, with Joseph Boehm’s statue of Sir William Gregory.

189

Photograph by courtesy of Serendib Magazine, BT Options, Colombo.

9.2  Galleries and exhibits in the Colombo Museum, c. 1907.

198–9

From Arnold Wright (ed.), Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon (London: Lloyd’s Greater Britain Publishing Co., 1907). © British Library.

10.1  Tipu’s Tiger displaying its internal musical mechanism.

208

Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

10.2  Tipu’s Tiger in the East India House in the mid- nineteenth century.

210

From Charles Knight, London Pictorially Illustrated, 6 vols (London: Charles Knight, 1841–44), vol. 5, p. 63.

10.3  Display case at V&A Museum showing Tipu’s Tiger in his current home in the Nehru Gallery of Indian Art.

220

Author’s collection.

11.1  Figurehead of HMS Seringapatam. 227 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

11.2 Yoruba sculpture of Queen Victoria. © Trustees of the British Museum.

[ viii ]

229

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General Editor’s Introduction It has been the central tenet of the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series that empires can be understood as much by the study of their cultural mani­ festations as by their political and military phenomena. That was the motivation for my researching and writing Propaganda and Empire in the early 1980s. Then the series was founded in 1985 in the belief that this was an expanding and important field, a proposition that has been well borne out over the subsequent three decades. The point is that the cultural expressions of imperialism have the capacity to illuminate the social, economic, scientific and environmental aspects of the imperial condition as well as, crucially, relationships with indigenous peoples. In the process, the more commonly studied dimensions of the history of the British and other empires are themselves rendered more fully rounded since the cultural is of course deeply embedded in its political, administrative, social and economic contexts. Moreover, recent cultural studies have demonstrated the weakness of some of the fashionable theoretical positions adopted by scholars of imperialism in recent times. Far too much emphasis has been laid upon the allegedly all-embracing hegemonic relationships of empire, upon a notion of a monolithic imperialism which, in a sense, carries all before it, dominating ‘others’ to the extent of even rendering them sup­ posedly speechless. Of course, the fact that empires operated within conditions of extremes of unequal power relationships cannot be gainsaid. ­Imperialism was a powerfully transforming force in all sorts of ways. But the rule of empires was always in some senses limited. Extensive legal provisions, for example over environmental matters and activities such as hunting, looked intimidating on paper, but were seldom fully effective, or even minimally so, in many areas of colonies. Nevertheless, the lives of indigenous peoples were modified in all sorts of ways. Dispossession, violent destruction and death were central to the imperial experience in too many places, but some peoples managed to keep aspects of their lives intact and many moved into highly perceptive and astute modes of negotiation with the new conditions under which they laboured. While Europeans were often seized by the dominant ideologies of imperialism, still they were a diverse lot, adopting many different cultural and intellectual positions in relation to the multi­faceted cultural expressions of empire. Of course this is not to say that we leave the mosaic of empire broken into a myriad of scattered tesserae. As Lambert and Lester have argued, the challenge remains to link the ‘local and particular’ to the ‘general and universal’. [ ix ]

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general editor’s introduction

This book constitutes another contribution to a new revisionist approach, rejecting as many of its contributions do both a simplistic binary approach to the imperial experience and the notion that empires were overwhelming expressions of European technological superi­ ority. It offers more evidence for the contention of recent studies of the British Empire that an emphasis must be laid upon its multifarious character. While it is possible to chart extraordinarily similar developments across the empire (for example, in the founding of institutions such as museums), and indeed in other European empires as well, still this is a parallelism which should not be allowed to conceal the highly pluralist character of these cultural productions. Such pluralism is one of the themes of the book. The essays range across many issues and interpretations of museums in Australia and New Zealand, West and East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, and also in Britain itself. In all of these the connections between ‘metropole’ and ‘periphery’ are emphasised, but the analyses demonstrate that older diffusionist notions have to be replaced by much more interactive and multilateral connections among the various components of empire. We hear of the activities of travellers and collectors; of indigenous contributions and reactions as they negotiated their way through the dangers and opportunities of the museum environment; of the relationship between memory and the historical record, not least in the commemoration of war; of the mixture of reluctance and enthusiasm on the part of governors as they resisted expenditure on what they regarded as unproductive museums or set about creating a means (as they saw it) of saving the artefacts, historic sculptures and aesthetic values of local peoples; of the significance of museums as centres of scientific research; of the importance of individual curators, male and female, as they struggled with the limitations of their colonial contexts, demonstrating in the process their abilities and predilections; and even of the connections between museum foundation and development and the processes of d ­ ecolonisation. The London conference on which this collection is based was an exceptionally stimulating occasion, and it is therefore highly satisfying to introduce this resulting publication and congratulate the editors on bringing it together so expeditiously. As with many such collections, this can be seen as a start, albeit a highly effective one, to the pursuit of studies in this field. There are of course many more museums that are worthy of study and also further themes to be explored. My list, which is by no means comprehensive, would include: •  the manner in which museums were inseparably bound up with the extension of the bourgeois public sphere across empires, reflecting the transition from aristocratic to middle-class rule as well as the [ x ]

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general editor’s introduction

ways in which such classes proceeded to organise themselves and disseminate their values; •  the role of missionaries in collecting and donating to museums, exhibiting their particular concerns in the process; •  the connections between museums and education (here touched on in one or two of the chapters) as well as the relationship with universities which, in the twentieth century, largely took over their scientific role as many sciences shifted their prime location from fieldwork to laboratories; •  the development of professionalisation in the staffing of museums and its spread across the British Empire and Commonwealth, often detracting from the former international character of the networks and appointments of museum personnel; •  the importance of museums in gender relations as well as in their emergence as a locus of female employment and scientific activity, starting in the late nineteenth century and developing greatly in the twentieth (as in Zanzibar); •  the significance of museum architecture as an expression of intellectual power and of aspects of imperial, colonial and local identities. Others will inevitably have additional interests and concerns, which only serves to show what a rich and fascinating field is constituted by the study of museums as well as of other related institutions such as art galleries, libraries, zoos, botanic gardens, and scientific and literary societies. In the meantime, this book is an exceptionally welcome addition to the literature, which will contribute to the historic dimensions of museum studies and to reflections upon colonialism and ‘others’, as well as to imperial historiography more generally. Above all, like all the best books, it should stimulate the development of further work in the field. John M. MacKenzie

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Notes on contributors

Paul Basu is Reader in Material Culture and Museum Studies at University College London. He is the author of Highland Home­ ­ comings: Genealogy and Heritage Tourism in the Scottish Diaspora (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), co-editor (with Sharon Macdonald) of Exhibition Experiments (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), and currently managing editor of the Journal of Material Culture. In recent years his research and museum practice has engaged with landscape, memory and cultural heritage in Sierra Leone. Gareth Knapman is a Research Fellow at Monash University, Melbourne. His chapter is based on research undertaken during a Thomas Ramsay Science and Humanities Fellowship at Museum Victoria. He has also published on the anthropology collections held by Museum Victoria. Sarah Longair has recently completed a PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London, and is an education officer at the British ­ Museum. In 2010–11, she led a research project to examine the needs of museum professionals in East Africa for the British Museum Africa Programme. John McAleer is Curator of Imperial and Maritime History at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. He is the author of Rep­ resenting Africa: Landscape, Exploration and Empire in Southern Africa, 1780–1870 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010) and (with H. V. Bowen and Robert J. Blyth) Monsoon Traders: The Mar­ itime World of the East India Company (London: Scala, 2011). Conal McCarthy is Director of the Museum and Heritage Studies programme at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the author of Exhibiting Ma¯ori: A History of Colonial Cultures of Display (Oxford: Berg, 2007). His latest book is Museums and Maori: Heritage Professionals, Indigenous Collections, Current Practice (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2011). Philip McEvansoneya is a Lecturer in the Department of History of Art at Trinity College, Dublin.

notes on contributors

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Savithri Preetha Nair is an independent scholar who has published on collecting, museums and the shaping of the sciences in India. Her recent publications include: Science and the Changing Environment in India, 1780–1920 (with Richard Axelby) and Raja Serfoji II: Science, Medicine an Enlightenment in Tanjore (2010 and 2012 respectively). She is currently working on a biography of the Indian (female) cytobotanist E. K. Janaki Ammal. Sadiah Qureshi is a Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Birmingham and the author of Peoples on Parade: Exhibitions, Empire and Anthropology in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011). Jennifer Wellington is a PhD candidate at Yale University. Claire Wintle is a Lecturer in the History of Art and Design at the ­University of Brighton. She has worked in collections and public programmes at National Museums Liverpool and the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove. Her first book, Colonial Collecting and Display: Encounters through Material Culture in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, will be published by Berghahn Books.

[ xiii ]

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acknowledgements This collection of essays is derived from a two-day conference, ‘Museums, material culture and the British Empire’, which was held in London at the British Museum and the National Maritime Museum in October 2009. We would like to thank all the speakers and delegates for their individual and collective contribution to the success of the event: the speakers for contributing a range of perspectives and e­ xamples and the delegates for partaking so enthusiastically and knowledgeably in the debates, discussions and deliberations. In particular, the conference was fortunate enough to have Pro­ fessor John M. MacKenzie present. As well as delivering the keynote address of the conference, Professor MacKenzie was typically generous and enthusiastic in sharing his knowledge and expertise with all those present. His book, Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities, provided the basis for many of the discussions and debates at the conference. We are particularly grateful for his continued support and encouragement in the preparation of this volume. We would also like to thank friends and colleagues at the British Museum and the National Maritime Museum for their help and support. In particular, we are grateful to Dr JD Hill, Director of Research at the British Museum, and Dr Nigel Rigby, Head of Research at the National Maritime Museum, without whose support the conference could not have taken place. Birkbeck College, London, also contributed funding towards the conference, for which we are grateful. We especially wish to acknowledge the contributions of Helen Cowie, Katrina Guliver and Chris Wingfield, who gave stimulating papers at the conference and contributed to the lively intellectual atmosphere of the event. We would also like to thank Sally Archer, Robert Blyth, Richard Dunn, Katie Eagleton, Rebekah Higgitt, Rosanna Kwok, Janet Norton, Laura Phillips and Claire Warrior for their invaluable assistance before and during the conference. Finally, we would like to thank all of the contributors to this volume and the entire team at Manchester University Press.

Introduction

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Curating empire: museums and the British imperial experience Sarah Longair and John McAleer

Sir William Flower, writing at the end of the nineteenth century, declared that the status and popularity of museums was inevitably and inextricably linked to their curators: ‘What a museum really depends upon for its success and usefulness is not its building, not its cases, not even its specimens, but its curator. He and his staff are the life and soul of the institution, upon whom its value depends.’1 For Flower, the relationship between institution and individual was of fundamental importance in ensuring the reputation and standing of a museum among both academics and members of the general public alike. The collection, display and interpretation of material culture and zoological specimens came to be regarded as one of the primary functions of museums. Many of the people explored in the chapters that follow were the products of such thinking. While they worked in a diverse range of museum settings, they are connected by the way in which their careers intersected with the forces that shaped the British Empire. ‘Curatorship’ and public museums, as understood and described by Flower, were relatively recent phenomena. Many cultures across the world had sophisticated traditions of collecting and display. But the transformation of these activities into the creation of museums developed in a European context and set the scene for the institutions, individuals and practices discussed in these essays. Objects, and their collection and display, formed part of an imperial nexus. The acquisition of objects, and their presentation in radically different contexts from their original usage, was one of the results of European exploration and commercial expansion in the early modern period. The first documented European collecting of African material, for example, dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.2 Collecting and displaying [ 1 ]

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c u r at i n g e m p i r e

were never neutral activities. Knowledge, its acquisition, presentation and dissemination – key impulses driving the establishment of museums – became intertwined with the promotion of commerce and, consequently, the development of empire. The passion for collecting transcended national distinctions.3 But nowhere was the relationship between collecting and empire more evident that in the British Empire and the vast swathes of territory it came to control by the end of the nineteenth century. As early as the seventeenth century, the historian of the Royal Society recognised that ‘there w[ould] be scarce a ship come up the Thames, that d[id] not make some return of experiments [objects], as well as merchandise’.4 When Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, an official of upper-class Persian descent at the courts of Muslim rulers in Oudh and Bengal, travelled to Britain in the late eighteenth century, he remarked: ‘the English are fond of making large collections of every thing that is rare or curious. The place where these articles are deposited is called a Museum.’ In his view, ‘all Nature ha[d] been ransacked to procure’ these collections.5 At the same time, Warren Hastings, the sometime governor-general of Bengal and one of the most powerful men in India, supported the foundation of a museum for the display of objects acquired by East India Company officials in the subcontinent. He believed that it was likely to enhance British prestige: A desire to add the acquisition of knowledge (and wonderful will be the stores which the projected institution under such auspices will lay open to them) to the power, the riches, and the glory which its acts have already so largely contributed to the British Empire and Name.6

The British Empire yielded much material for British museums, particularly in terms of ethnographic collections.7 In Liverpool for example, William Brown was ‘aware that ships trading out of Liverpool would provide opportunities to add much that [wa]s valuable’ to his nascent museum in the city.8 In assessing the impact of the British imperial experiences on museums and their collections, Tim Barringer has argued that ‘the acquisition of objects from areas of the world in which Britain had a colonial or proto-colonial political and military interests, and the ordering and displaying of them by a museum’ formed what amounted to a three-dimensional archive.9 From the acquisition of ‘Powhatan’s mantle’, the deerskin cloak believed to have belonged to the Native American chief and still part of the Tradescant collection at the Ashmolean Museum, British museums have consistently relied on British maritime and imperial endeavours for the acquisition of objects relating to different cultures from around the world.10

[ 2 ]

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introduction

As the nineteenth century progressed, the work of museums of natural history and botany was particularly facilitated by Britain’s expanding empire.11 Public exhibitions and collections of natural his­ tory, botanical specimens and material culture were increasingly used to illustrate the peoples, places and landscapes encountered by British travellers, officers and administrators.12 More transiently, but no less powerfully, the Great Exhibition of 1851 and various sub­ sequent world’s fairs, brought together objects, artefacts and products from across the world and displayed them at the heart of the empire.13 James Ryan has noted that these phenomena represent ‘a thriving popular culture of exhibitions in the mid-nineteenth century [whose] display was a central element in the imperial project to capture the world “under one roof” and to transform colonial spaces into exhibition-like landscapes’.14 As these examples indicate, the collecting of objects, and their subsequent public display, has long been recognised as one of the foremost ways in which Europeans explored non-European spaces and learned about their people. Nevertheless, the establishment and development of institutions in which to house and display this material has received less consideration from historians of empire. Museums, as they developed in Britain and throughout its burgeoning empire, were inextricably bound up with the nature and practices of imperialism. Particularly at the coalface of colonial expansion, as John ­MacKenzie has remarked, the museum became one of the ‘tools of empire’.15 Recently, scholars across a wide range of disciplines have begun to pay more attention to some of the processes described by Robert Aguirre in relation to Central America, an area outside the formal political boundaries of the British Empire. For him, collections from this region, on display in mid-nineteenth-century British museums, ‘demonstrated the nation’s reach and grasp, bringing the exotic world home, reducing it to size, placing it in new structures of knowledge, and absorbing it into the national imaginary’.16 In general, however, little work has been done on how the diverse range of museums established throughout the British Empire relate to the empire’s policies and practices. Some outstanding exceptions to this include Colonialism and the Object, a collection edited by Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn, though its analysis is drawn primarily from European examples, and Susan Sheets-Pyenson’s work on colonial natural history museums.17 Contributions to Barringer and Flynn’s volume assessed the ‘historical role of museums, collections, art exhibitions and temporary displays in the promotion and presentation of the colonial project, revealing them as potent mechanisms in

[ 3 ]

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c u r at i n g e m p i r e

the construction and visualisation of power relations between coloniser and colonised’.18 Susan Sheets-Pyenson drew attention to the critical role played by individuals in mediating this.19 More recently, Amiria Henare has demonstrated how the collection of artefacts and their formal study, both in museums and in the field, have been central anthropological strategies over the past two centuries.20 John MacKenzie’s Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities is the first study to examine in detail how a range of museums related to the political dynamics of empire, through their personalities, collections and display strategies. His work provides important and innovative insights into what MacKenzie calls the ‘visual encyclopædias of knowledge about empire’.21 This collection of essays builds on this growing scholarly interest in the subject of museums and their various conflicted and shifting relationships with the British Empire. The essays are derived from papers presented at a symposium, jointly organised by the British Museum and the National Maritime Museum in October 2009, which explored the theme ‘Museums, material culture and the British Empire’. A range of speakers addressed themes such as the connections between museums, as repositories for objects and cultural institutions for conveying knowledge, and the politics of culture and the formation of identities in British colonies. The symposium also explored the historical display and interpretation of empire in the United Kingdom, and how the resulting legacies impact on contemporary museum practice. An important comparative paper by Helen Cowie on museums in the Spanish Empire highlighted the potential offered by this approach and the creative possibilities for further cross-imperial comparative work.22 By considering the history of museums and cultural institutions throughout the British Empire, significant questions about the concept of the museum itself and its role in mediating objects, material culture and cultural history were also addressed. It became clear during the course of the conference that one way of accessing these histories was through the act of curating. As the work of MacKenzie has shown, and as the chapters that follow corroborate, museums responded to their locations, perceived audiences and the agency of individual collectors in order to mediate an engagement with non-European spaces, peoples and cultures. Through the in-depth studies in this book, the museological landscape laid out by MacKenzie is populated by specific examples in a wide range of imperial contexts. Museums do not exist in a social, cultural or political vacuum. They cannot stand outside time or removed from historical processes. Those explored through case studies in this volume were similarly dependent on the social and political circumstances from which they arose. [ 4 ]

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introduction

One of the key points to emerge from the collection is the need to see individual museums in their specific historical contexts and to avoid overarching pronouncements about the role of ‘the museum’ in buttressing perceived ideologies of empire. Emerging from many of the chapters is the need to move beyond the interpretation of museums as part of some overarching imperial project.23 Though they often became ‘tools’ of empire, enabling knowledge about colonies to be acquired and providing institutions in which to display it, their creation was not promoted by the Foreign or Colonial Offices and was almost always the result of ‘peripheral’ projects. Their failure was often as a result of a lack of funds from the British government or the departure of key individuals. Rather than being bastions of insurmountable imperial control, then, many of the museums discussed in this volume were vulnerable and fragile institutions. They were susceptible to insecure and fluctuating governmental support, in both financial and political terms; physically, they were often housed in inappropriate buildings; and frequently they were unable to acquire the objects necessary to present a monolithic, unproblematic imperial story, even if this had been their objective in the first place. Moreover, as many of authors stress, museums in the empire were staffed and managed by individuals with cosmopolitan experiences and viewpoints, as well as an eclectic range of beliefs in the usage and utility of museums. Sir William Gregory, Sir Frederick McCoy and Ailsa Nicol Smith, to take just three examples from these chapters, brought their experiences of working with and in museums elsewhere to Colombo, Melbourne and Zanzibar respectively. In his chapter on the place of Ma¯ori in New Zealand museums and exhibitions, Conal McCarthy argues that, in assessing museums throughout the empire, there is often ‘a predilection for theory over history … which presents museums as synonymous with empire’.24 With the rise of academic interest in museums, however, scholars have increasingly sought to consider museums within the broader historical contexts of which they were a part rather than assessing them according to present-day standards and values. The essays in this collection, therefore, build upon the approach taken by John MacKenzie. His wide-ranging survey of museums across the empire promoted a more historical approach, based on the examination of archival evidence. By investigating and analysing museums and their development within their original contexts, examining display approaches and collections development through close reference to archival material, and focusing on the impact of individual curators and interpreters in the museum, a much more sophisticated understanding of museums in the British Empire emerges. [ 5 ]

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Museums in the empire Museums were established throughout the territory of the expanding British Empire from the eighteenth century onwards. Many were private collections, such as those of Thomas Jefferson and his ‘Indian Hall’.25 But there were also efforts, particularly in the thirteen mainland colonies of North America, to follow the lead set in Britain and establish museums for the general public.26 This trend continued in the nineteenth century. Museums were founded in the so-called ‘settler colonies’ such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, but also in South Asia and, during the twentieth century, in East and West Africa. Rather than providing spaces to bring together and showcase objects from around the world, these ‘colonial’ museums primarily displayed local raw materials and natural history specimens, as well as ethnographic collections. In addition to this role as places for the display of indigenous and settler material culture, these museums acted as ‘beacons of civilisation’ for British settlers in the region. They provided comforting ideas about the availability of cultural and educational resources in far-flung places, and were crucial elements in the emergence of new colonial identities at the beginning of the twentieth century. The essays in this collection provide case studies of museums in many of these locations, exploring the particular circumstances of their foundation and development. They address how museums formed part of the story of both colonisation and decolonisation. Museums in the Indian subcontinent in the nineteenth century are the focus of chapters by Savithri Preetha Nair and Philip McEvansoneya. The work of Conal McCarthy, Gareth Knapman and Jennifer Wellington explores the multiple ways in which museums reflect the changing relationship between Britain and its territories in Oceania from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day. Jennifer Wellington’s chapter also draws attention to the fact that, by the early twentieth century, there were a range of motivations for the establishment and maintenance of museums. Her examination of the Australian War Memorial demonstrates how memorialisation impelled certain museums as strongly as collection display and interpretation. Museums were also developed in conjunction with other political imperatives. The chapters of Paul Basu and Sarah Longair, focusing on museums in twentieth-century West and East Africa respectively, forcefully illustrate how museums were part of wider political contexts. Colonial policy, or often the lack of it, informs their case studies. Basu’s chapter also introduces a new element to the discussion of museums and the British Empire: the story of decolonisation, and how museums in former British colonies are shaped by this relationship. The chapters by Claire Wintle, John [ 6 ]

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McAleer and Sadiah Qureshi provide cases studies which explore how imperial experiences were presented and perceived in Britain, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Partially as a result of museums and their curators, the empire came to be understood by people across Britain less as something ‘out there’; instead, it came to have a palpable presence in Europe. The collection widens the geographical and chronological scope of museums analysed by MacKenzie. By drawing together examples of museums and displays in Freetown, Christchurch and Colombo with those in King’s Lynn and Brighton, common experiences of curating for imperial subjects emerge. Across the British Empire, curators and museum staff attempted to build collections, carry out research and respond to the needs of their visitors. The chapters by Wintle and McAleer, discussing the imperial experiences presented to the museumand exhibition-visiting public of Brighton and King’s Lynn respectively, highlight the heterogeneous nature of museums in Britain itself, at the political centre of the empire. The large, well-resourced museums based in London were only one facet of the British engagement with empire in museums. Rather than reinforcing the traditional dichotomy between ‘colonial periphery’ and ‘metropolitan Britain’, this collection seeks to redefine that relationship. By exploring the geographical diversity of the empire’s museums, it aims to recast the traditional and often overdetermined relationship between metropolitan ‘centre’ and distant ‘periphery’, responding to the call by Frederick Cooper and Ann Stoler to bring the metropole and the colony into one analy­ tical field.27 The evidence of this collection suggests that museums h­elped to create a situation whereby empire was ‘not a singular space, but a set of geographical and cultural spaces’.28 Although considered the principal locus of scientific and academic expertise, the London museums were not necessarily always the hub of museum networks in the empire. As Savithri Preetha Nair points out in her chapter, Edgar Thurston envisaged the Madras Museum developing into an important scientific research centre. Sarah Longair, in her discussion of the Zanzibar Museum, shows that the existence of a museum connoted the city in which it was located as a ‘local metropole’ and the museum as a cultural centre. The picture of the British Empire that emerges from many of the essays collected here is one in which multiple metropoles may be identified. Similarly, the autonomy of so-called peripheries and the ability of those curators working there to forge contacts and sustain networks is a common thread running through many of the analyses here. As the example of Frederick McCoy illustrates, curators across the empire often engaged in correspondence with colleagues, both within and [ 7 ]

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outside the political boundaries of the British Empire. A complex web of networks was forged as curators sought to explain ‘the puzzling new world’ to their visitors, be they British, Indian or Australian.29 Specimens and artefacts circulated between regions, as objects were exchanged, purchased or sent for identification. Knowledge also circulated through these networks, as information and expertise was shared. Through the movement and exchange of objects, and the networks of contacts nurtured by their respective curators, museums were connected with sites, spaces and people across Britain’s worldwide empire. As many of the contributions to this volume highlight, the meanings of objects were inflected, and even reinvented, by the context in which they were displayed. As Barringer has noted, the removal of objects from the periphery to imperial centre, for example, profoundly affected and altered the ways in which they were understood.30 Retaining objects in a museum close to their place of origin also repurposed them, however.31 Jennifer Wellington’s chapter in this volume reveals the subtle changes, within one exhibit, which represent multiple meanings in Australia’s relationship with its own war-time history. The exchange of expertise, information and advice, as well as the cre­ation of multiple museological metropoles, often far removed from the political centre of the empire, contributed to this effect. The transformative power of museums and collections was often enhanced by the imperial context in which they were situated and by which they defined themselves.

Curators as individuals in the empire One of the strongest themes to emerge from the symposium papers and the discussion they inspired was the role of curators and the agency of individuals in shaping the relationship between museums and empire. The term ‘curator’ was not fixed, but subject to mis­interpretation and misunderstanding.32 The figures explored here ranged from museum progenitors and long-term curators to superintendents and directors. In the case of Thomas Baines, whose role as a curator is explored by John McAleer, this was a very brief interlude interrupting his more celebrated career as an artist and explorer in southern Africa. Understanding the various impulses, aims and objectives of these individuals is central to appreciating the early history of these institutions. ­Recognising the roles played by people like Thomas Baines in King’s Lynn, Edgar Thurston in Madras, or Frederick McCoy in Melbourne, is crucial to understanding how museums around the globe related to each other, and responded to academic and museological developments. As Anthony Kirk-Greene has noted, ‘one cannot expect to grasp what i­ mperialism was until one [ 8 ]

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first understands who the imperialists were’.33 In the absence of a centralised government-­ sponsored ‘museum project’, agenda and fields of study were subject to the interests and enthusiasm of individual curators. A number of recent works have developed a prosopographical approach to the history of the British Empire.34 The collection of essays edited by David Lambert and Alan Lester provides an important parallel to the approach taken in this volume. Their collection explores those with ‘imperial careers’ who constructed lives for themselves in several locations across the nineteenth-century empire. Lambert and Lester place these individuals’ experiences at the heart of their examination of the spatiality of empire.35 Many of the curators explored here, in the chapters that follow, led similarly trans-imperial lives, taking their enthusiasm for culture, science and education with them. Several of those discussed were involved in multiple scientific, cultural and archaeological projects across the empire, despite the fact that British colonial service never offered museum work as an official career. Despite their importance, surprisingly little consideration has been given to the people who worked in museums generally in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this regard, Samuel Alberti has drawn attention to the work that remains to be done ‘examining the careers, roles and practices of museum staff – especially in smaller institutions, in which individual curators wielded considerable influence’.36 This dearth is mirrored and magnified in relation to museums, collections and curators involved in presenting the British Empire. By offering various case studies of those people charged with collecting and presenting objects, and their institutions, this collection provides an insight into the imperial experiences of these individuals and their respective audiences. It focuses on the personalities, political contexts and unique local conditions that had crucial impacts on the ways in which museums dotted across the British Empire evolved. It also highlights the formative nature of their work in realising ‘empire’ for museum audiences. The processes of imperial engagement, exchange and expansion were rarely dealt with overtly in the displays analysed in the following essays. Yet, through the investigation and analysis of collecting and exhibiting natural history specimens, ethnographic objects and applied art, the sense of Britain’s global reach becomes apparent. As central figures in mediating objects and narratives to museum visitors, the curator had a significant impact on the ways in which Britain’s imperial involvements, overseas colonial settlements, and far-flung territorial possessions were understood by the public at large. Perhaps because of their diverse responsibilities and the multiple functions they perform, the role of the ‘curator’ is notoriously amorphous. Some of the people discussed in the essays that follow could [ 9 ]

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be described as professional curators with academic qualifications and long years of museum experience; others took on curatorial duties in their spare time, and were driven by a commitment to furthering social, cultural or educational agenda.37 Often the role of the curator was self-defined and multifarious – ranging from active collecting and the subsequent public presentation of material to a more strategic role in directing museum activities and policy. Often the roles were so personal that they were not always replaced when a curator departed or died. In the context of this collection of essays, it represents the people and processes that facilitated the display of Britain’s imperial experience to others. In discussing the curator of the Madras Museum, Edgar Thurston, Savithri Preetha Nair reports Thurston’s sentiments: ‘I’m leading a busy life, but with of necessity, too many irons in the fire. I am utilized as a reference on all kinds of subjects.’38 This might just as easily apply to a number of the figures explored in the chapters below. The range of tasks expected of them as curators was eclectic and virtually impossible to maintain concurrently, if pressed to research in the field as well as manage staff, accounts and education in the institution itself. Though the historical and geographical context in which they worked varies, the range of people examined in this collection all share similar characteristics of dedication to their respective institutions, an insatiable curiosity for knowledge, and a desire to take this know­ ledge beyond the academic sphere. And their roles had profound links to Britain’s imperial activities. As Barbara Black remarks, ‘most curators of the [Victorian] age readily acknowledged that it was Britain’s ­imperial obligation to collect in order to exhibit’.39

Tensions in museum policy and purpose For those working in Africa or India, curators might not be posted to a single location long enough to make any permanent changes or longlasting impact on the institution in which they were based. Others, such as Sir William Gregory, were able to spend a significant period of time building up collections, training staff and putting the museum on a solid footing. Nevertheless, even if a curator’s tenure was of long duration, government staff changed regularly and their interest in, and support of, the museum could have significant ramifications, as seen in the case of the Zanzibar Museum. Curators were seldom independent, autonomous agents. As the chapters in this volume attest, they were rarely able to control the museums in which they worked as their personal empires. Some had greater success in this regard than others – the notably maverick Frederick McCoy in Melbourne being a case in point, whose museum policies are explored and reassessed by Gareth [ 10 ]

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Knapman in his contribution to this volume. But, in fact, the experiences of curators throughout the empire bear testimony to constant struggles, negotiations and concessions. That they often failed or compromised in their work as cultural mediators is far more revealing of imperial experiences than the image of museums and their curators as monolithic, unproblematic symbols of empire. As many of the examples explored in this collection highlight, curatorial priorities and local governmental strategies often combined to determine the purpose of individual museums. There have always been tensions over the ultimate purpose of museums and their raisons d’être. Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was one with a very clear idea about the role of museum. He wrote in his Annual Report of 1870: There is scarcely any subject connected with science and education to which more attention is given at the present day than that of collections of objects of nature and art, known under the general denomination of museums. This arises from their growing importance as aids to scientific investigation and instruction.40

Similarly, for George Brown Goode, the assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, ‘the museum of the future may be one of the chief agencies of the higher civilization’.41 But rarely were the competing needs of entertaining and educating audiences satisfactorily resolved. The chapters by Savithri Preetha Nair, Gareth Knapman, Sarah Longair and Paul Basu all indicate the challenges involved in striking a seemingly elusive balance between the museum as a repository for objects, a research institute, a centre for instruction and an entertainment venue. Rarely did any curator feel that their museum fulfilled all these roles entirely successfully. Limited staff and access to funds meant that concentration on any one area left another bereft of the requisite attention.

Audiences Collections of objects and scientific and historical research only form part of the story of museums and the British Empire. Examining how visitors used these museums can offer a more nuanced understanding of the nature of imperial relationships between authorities and subjects, of educational practice and modes of propaganda. Museums, then as now, had to appeal to a broad range of visitors. Some museums, for example, were established simply to house a collection and had little thought for their use as public institutions. In these instances, curators were often less concerned with the experience of visitors than [ 11 ]

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with researching collections and building up institutional and personal academic reputations. As Nair shows, for example, Thurston spent much of his time in this pursuit, opening up new fields of research such as marine biology. Other museums, however, were founded with the ­specific intention of educating particular communities, as in Zanzibar, or imparting certain messages to the public, as took place in the Australian War Memorial. The museums and exhibitions in Britain examined in this volume provided an experience of the British Empire to those who were never likely to visit its vast array of colonies and territories. Museums located in the empire also varied. Those in the dominion territories anticipated that their audiences would be made up of European settler communities. Meanwhile, museums in other territories encountered the challenges of attracting non-European audiences, for whom the whole concept of the museum was an alien one. Furthermore, and critically, they were not simply involved as visitors invited only to absorb imperial messages. These museums faced the challenge that the people represented in ethnographic displays also formed the audience. But, as Conal McCarthy shows, far greater agency on the part of the Ma¯ori community visiting museums in New Zealand took place than has previously been appreciated. The relationship between museums and their real, or supposed, audiences is a complex one. Analysing the reactions of audiences is profoundly challenging and fraught with a raft of methodological difficulties. Today’s institutions have entire departments devoted to researching the impact of museums on their visitors and the quality of the experience they provide. Discerning and understanding the complex intentions, expectations and experiences of visitors to museums in the past is notoriously elusive.42 Nevertheless, and notwithstanding lacunæ in the evidence, important work still needs to be done on this critical aspect of these museums’ histories. As Kate Hill has pointed out: The visitors are the great unknowns of Victorian museums. Despite the great weight of speculation, assumptions and pedagogy targeted at them by museum staff, there is very little indeed to tell us how they experienced the space, objects and ideas contained within the institutions.43

In relation to provincial museums in Britain, Samuel Alberti has pointed out that historians need to ‘ascertain who actually visited these collections’; ‘the genuine visitor needs to be studied, their voices recovered’.44 As Claire Wintle shows in her essay on Brighton Museum in this volume, it is difficult to ascertain precisely what visitors thought about objects, collections and their display. She has studied alternative recreational activities to discover how far knowledge of the world was [ 12 ]

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engendered through the museum or other sources. Wellington shows how the Australian public’s relationship with a particular set of objects changed over the century. Yet, the relationship between museums and their audiences is an area where more research is required. Published annual reports might give the number of visitors but rarely anything else. The historian must therefore seek this information elsewhere, such as newspaper reports, personal correspondence, education department records and funding applications.

Conclusion The essays in this collection are interdisciplinary and informed by the exchange of ideas across an array of subjects. The chapters are arranged geographically, moving from the British provincial museums to Oceania, Africa and South Asia. The final chapter follows the journey of a single object, Tipu’s Tiger, from India back to London. They are linked and informed by the themes of the British Empire and its history. Authors range across the academic fields of anthropology, archae­ ology, ethnography, history, museum studies, and the histories of art, design and material culture in order to offer insights into curators as mediators of empire. To build up these detailed historical studies, the authors have drawn on a wide variety of primary sources from across the world. Taken together, a picture of the various ways in which the British Empire has been ‘curated’ in the past emerges, as well as how historians today might further investigate these. In addition to official documentation, government and private correspondence feature heavily within the chapters, as authors probe ‘behind the display case’ to discover how and why these displays came into being. Many also place material culture and museum spaces at the heart of their analysis. Less traditional sources are also explored, indicating fruitful new directions for the themes explored here. So, for example, oral history and newspaper reports feature in Claire Wintle’s chapter, allowing us to get closer to the heart of visitor experiences and responses. In the final chapter, by Sadiah Qureshi, the example of a single object is used to tell a compelling narrative of varied and varying reactions to ­Britain’s imperial history. The linking of objects, curatorial practices and public perceptions brings us back to the central relationship in studying the history of museums. In the light of the contexts explored here, the study of the history of museums provides fresh perspectives on the dynamics at the core of the British Empire. This collection foregrounds the fundamental role played by museums in moulding and adapting colonial identities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Present-day interest in this [ 13 ]

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process has been given a fillip recently by a new academic focus on how information and knowledge can be conveyed and constructed through the display and interpretation of objects. But many issues presented in museum discourse today were also present in the nineteenth century: do museums entertain or teach? Are they primarily for scientists or for the general public? Is it better to present a fossil sitting on a shelf or as part of a reconstructed skeleton? Is it more realistic to display stuffed animals standing calmly in boxes, or jumping about in an illusionistic diorama? This is the first collection of essays that explores the historical dimensions and debates surrounding the ‘curation’ or presentation of empire to a diverse range of audiences. The essays reflect the complexity and diversity of the British imperial experience. Museums are compelling sources which enrich our understanding both of the culture of the British Empire and the meaning of culture in the empire. At the heart of the histories of these institutions are curators, directors and museum audiences. It is hoped that Curating Empire will open up new pathways for future research. The connection and relationship between these colonial museums, their collections and their curators, and the history of the British Empire, is an area ripe for future investigation.

Notes  1 William Henry Flower, Essays on Museums and Other Subjects Connected with Natural History (London: MacMillan and Co., 1898), p. 12.  2 See Ezio Bassani and Malcolm McLeod, ‘African material in early collections’, in Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor (eds), The Origin of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe (London: House of Stratus, 1985), pp. 337–44.  3 See, for example, Paula de Vos, ‘The rare, the singular, and the extraordinary: Natural history and the collection of curiosities in the Spanish Empire’, in Daniela Bleichmar, Paula de Vos, Kristin Huffine and Kevin Sheehan (eds), Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1500–1800 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 271–89. See also Daniela Bleichmar and Peter C. Mancall (eds), Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).  4 Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge (London: John Martyn, 1667), p. 86.  5 Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan in Asia, Africa, and Europe, During the Years 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1803, trans. Charles Steward, 3 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1814), vol. 1, p. 263.  6 British Library (BL), India Office Records (IOR), E/1/101/236, Warren Hastings to Stephen Lushington, 15 November 1799; quoted in Ray Desmond, The India Museum, 1801–1879 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 13.  7 Arthur MacGregor, Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth century (London: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 29–30; see also, P. J. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams, The Great Map of Mankind: British Perceptions of the World in the Age of Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 58–61; Anthony A. Shelton, ‘Museum ethnography: An imperial science’, in Elizabeth Hallam and Brian Street (eds), Cultural

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Encounters: Representing ‘Otherness’ (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 155–93.  8 Quoted in Clemency Fisher (ed.), A Passion for Natural History: The Life and Legacy of the 13th Earl of Derby (Liverpool: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 2002), p. 11.  9 Tim Barringer, ‘The South Kensington Museum and the colonial project’, in Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (eds), Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material ­ Culture and the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 11–27, p. 11. 10 Jennifer Potter, Strange Blooms: The Curious Lives and Adventures of the John ­Tradescants (London: Atlantic Books, 2006), p. 102. 11 See Lucile Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (London: Academic Press, 1979); Ray Desmond, The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London: Royal Botanic Gardens, 2007); Richard Drayton, Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain and the ‘Improvement’ of the World (London: Yale University Press, 2000); Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan (eds), Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce and Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005); John Ricketts Betts, ‘P. T. Barnum and the popularization of natural history’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 20 (1959), 353–68. 12 See Harriet Guest, Empire, Barbarism, and Civilisation: James Cook, William Hodges, and the Return to the Pacific (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 49–50, 209, n. 4. 13 See Paul Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas: A History of the Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988); Jeffrey A. Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display (London: Yale University Press, 1999). 14 James R. Ryan, ‘“Hunting with the camera”: Photography, wildlife and colonialism in Africa’, in Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert (eds), Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies of Human–Animal Relations (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 205–22, p. 206. 15 John M. MacKenzie, Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), p. 7. 16 Robert D. Aguirre, Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), p. xxvi. 17 Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (eds), Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998); Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathe­ drals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century (Kingston, ON, and Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988). 18 Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn, ‘Introduction’, in Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (eds), Colonialism and the Object, pp. 1–8, p. 5. 19 See Susan Sheets-Pyenson, ‘How to “grow” a natural history museum: The building of colonial collections, 1850–1900’, Archives of Natural History, 15:2 (1988), 121–47. 20 Amiria Henare, Museums, Anthropology and Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge ­University Press, 2005). 21 MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, p. 2. 22 See Helen Cowie, Conquering Nature in Spain and its Empire, c. 1750–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011). 23 Nicholas Dirks, ‘Foreword’, in Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Know­ ledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. ix–xvii, p. ix. 24 See pp. 57–8. 25 Joyce Henri Robinson, ‘An American cabinet of curiosities: Thomas Jefferson’s “Indian Hall” at Monticello’, in Leah Dilworth (ed.), Acts of Possession: Collecting in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 16–41. 26 See Joel J. Orosz, Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740– 1870 (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 1990). 27 Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, ‘Between metropole and colony: Rethinking a research agenda’, in Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (eds), Tensions of

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Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley, CA: Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 1–56, p. 15. 28 Antoinette Burton, ‘Rules of thumb: British history and “imperial culture” in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain’, Women’s History Review, 3:4 (1994), 483–501, p. 486. 29 Ailsa Nicol Smith, ‘The Peace Memorial Museum, Zanzibar’, Oversea Education, 12:2 (January 1941), 105–6, p. 106. 30 Barringer, ‘The South Kensington Museum’, p. 12. 31 Chris Gosden and Yvonne Marshall, ‘The cultural biography of objects’, World Archaeology, 31:2 (October 1999), 169–78; Sarah Longair, ‘Recovering and redisplaying the regalia of the Mwinyi Mkuu in colonial Zanzibar’, Museum History Journal, 3:2 (2010), 149–70. 32 For a discussion of the changing status of the curator in the nineteenth century, see Samuel J. M. M. Alberti, ‘The status of museums: Authority, identity, and ­material culture’, in David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers (eds), Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011), pp. 51–72, pp. 54–60. 33 Anthony Kirk Greene, ‘Foreword’, in Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators: The British Indian and Colonial Education Service, 1858–1983 (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2003), p. ix. 34 See, for example, Felix Driver and Lowri Jones, Hidden Histories of Exploration (London: Royal Holloway, 2009); Jocelyn Hackforth-Jones, David Bindman, Romita Ray and Stephanie Pratt, Between Worlds: Voyagers to Britain, 1700–1850 (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2007). 35 David Lambert and Alan Lester, ‘Introduction: Imperial spaces, imperial subjects’, in David Lambert and Alan Lester (eds), Colonial Lives Across the British Empire: Imperial Careering in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 1–31, p. 3. 36 Samuel J. M. M. Alberti, ‘Placing nature: Natural history collections and their owners in nineteenth-century provincial England’, British Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2002), 291–311, p. 310. 37 Gaynor Kavanagh has attempted to discern when the ‘profession’ of curatorship became a meaningful term. She argues that though the Museums Association was established in 1889, the 1930s were the genuinely instrumental years in the formation of the museum profession, when training programmes commenced and the second generation of curators began to analyse their work more profoundly and professionally. Gaynor Kavanagh, ‘The museums profession and the articulation of professional self-consciousness’, in Gaynor Kavanagh (ed.), The Museums Profession: Internal and External Relations (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991), p. 47. See also Gaynor Kavanagh, History Curatorship (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990); Geoffrey Lewis, For Instruction and Recreation: Centenary History of the Museums Association (London: Quiller Press, 1989). 38 See p. 169. 39 Barbara J. Black, On Exhibit: Victorians and their Museums (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2000), p. 12. 40 Orosz, Curators and Culture, p. 211. 41 Ibid., p. 241. 42 Samuel J. M. M. Alberti, ‘Objects and the museum’, Isis, 96 (2005), 559–71, pp. 569–70. 43 Kate Hill, Culture and Class in English Public Museums, 1850–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), p. 125. 44 Alberti, ‘Placing nature’, p. 311.

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Chapter one

The case of Thomas Baines, curatorexplorer extraordinaire, and the display of Africa in nineteenth-century Norfolk John McAleer

In W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, The Explorer, first published in 1908, the eponymous hero finds himself struggling to explain his line of work to his sweetheart. In an attempt to retain her affections, and perhaps even impress her a little, Alec MacKenzie brings Lucy ­Allerton to a place where he can explain exploration to her. Standing in the Natural History Museum, ‘his conversation, in face of the furred and feathered things from Africa, made the whole country vivid to her’.1 On MacKenzie’s return from another intrepid and successful expedition, ‘publishers telegraphed offers for the book which they surmised he would write; newspaper correspondents came to him for a preliminary account of his travels’.2 Exploration, it seemed, was as much about the public presentation and dissemination of its results as it was about sourcing interminable rivers or crossing desert wastelands. This was also the case in the career of Thomas Baines, whose life as an artist, explorer, and curator is at least as interesting as that of Maugham’s character. Baines was a man of many talents, with a varied and eclectic career reflecting the breadth of his interests and aptitudes. He was born in the Norfolk town of King’s Lynn on 27 November 1820. At the age of sixteen, he was apprenticed to William Carr, an ‘ornamental painter’ in the town. In 1842, Baines set sail for South Africa, where he spent three years working for a carriage painter in Cape Town. On the advice of a friend who knew his work, he set up as a professional artist, trying his luck as a ‘marine and portrait painter’. He relied on selling the ‘never-failing “Cape Town with Table Bay and Mountain”’ to the constant stream of sailors, soldiers and merchants who passed this tavern of the seas.3 Baines was not just an artist, [ 17 ]

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however. Throughout his life, drawing on the experience of his extensive travels, he contributed to the steadily increasing store of European knowledge about Africa and Australia. From 1855 to 1857, he acted as official artist and storekeeper on Augustus Gregory’s expedition across northern Australia, which was sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society.4 In Africa, he was part of David Livingstone’s expedition to the Zambezi River, subsequently visited the Victoria Falls, and eventually ended up gaining mining concessions for British companies in the territories of the Matabele king, Lobengula.5 His contributions to an array of sciences, from astronomy to zoology, through his indefatigable desire for further exploration and his talent as an artist, have also been the subject of much scholarly discussion.6 This chapter examines one of the lesser-known aspects of Baines’s career – that of curator. The impact of individuals on the display of material culture in museums is varied and multifaceted. The term ‘curatorship’ is, in a practical sense, all-encompassing and ill-defined. This discussion of Baines’s career, however, adopts a wide-ranging and eclectic understanding of the word, the tasks associated with it, and the perceived role fulfilled by a curator. By considering his work as a curator in these terms, it suggests that Thomas Baines was deeply engaged with the public presentation, display and interpretation of material culture, and the dissemination of knowledge and information about those places in which he travelled so extensively. Within the shifting contexts of display, the example of Baines presents a snapshot of how perceptions of Africa were moulded, shaped and distorted by museums, exhibitions and curatorial interventions in mid-nineteenthcentury provincial Britain. In 1854, the Athenæum in King’s Lynn was inaugurated with a special exhibition, with Baines acting as guest curator of the African and botanical sections, as well as contributing paintings, objects and expertise to other sections. He was charged with the practical tasks of the procurement, selection and display of objects. But, he also had to take intellectual care of this material. Here and elsewhere in his career, Baines engaged with, and helped to shape, the public perception and understanding of his African travels, and the visual representations and collections of material culture that he derived from them. Even in the field, Baines collected and visualised with a view to influencing public understanding. He regularly sent specimens to Europe for analysis and, when he returned to Britain, he was always busy lecturing and speaking about his experiences. Most spectacularly of all, his art – the basis of his professional livelihood – was pressed into service to convey the beauty, grandeur and diversity of Africa as he found it. Through his art, his travels and their translation in his curatorial practice then, [ 18 ]

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Baines brought ‘views’ of Africa (sometimes literally) to Britain. Baines was certainly not the first artist to become involved in collecting objects and organising museum displays. The natural-history artist Mark Catesby made extensive collections in the British colonies in America in the early eighteenth century.7 One of the most famous artist-curators is Charles Willson Peale, who opened the Philadelphia Museum in 1786.8 Indeed, Baines was not even the first African explorer to turn curator. In March 1779, when Carl Thunberg returned to Sweden from his travels around the world, he found all of the specimens he had sent to Europe waiting for him. He subsequently presented everything to the University of Uppsala in July 1785, where he was put in charge of the museum of natural history there.9 Baines’s experiences, by contrast, must be set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Britain. The growing interest in museums and exhibitions, and the increased acceptance of the importance and educational benefit to be derived from them, were key features of Victorian society. In the context of Baines’s travels, this needs to be seen in tandem with the burgeoning British Empire and the opportunities and challenges this presented for the exhibition of material. All of these factors combined in the career of Thomas Baines to produce a stimulating example of the interaction between museums, exhibitions and empire.

Displays at the Cape of Good Hope and Britain Even before his curatorial career took off at King’s Lynn, Baines would have been familiar with the display of African objects in South Africa. There was a long tradition of European display of African material there, dating almost from the first European settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.10 Jan Hartog, the Dutch East India Company’s mastergardener at the Cape, had displayed skins and stuffed animals on the upper floor of his residence, charging a small entrance fee. Daniel Beeckman described the museum in 1718 when he visited the botanical gardens. It was located in a house which was, he wrote, ‘built for that purpose, wherein are kept a collection of the skins of a multitude of strange beasts which Africa is famous for, so artificially and nicely stuffed that at first you would be surprized at them, and would believe them to be real live creatures’.11 In nineteenth-century Cape Town, the Museum for Natural History of the South African Literary and Scientific Institution displayed specimens and stuffed animals brought from the interior by travellers. In the private sphere, C. M. Villett traded bird skins, insects and other curiosities from his premises in Long Street, and maintained a menagerie with lions, ostriches and other animals at Green Point.12 [ 19 ]

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Baines might not have seen these specific examples, but he would certainly have had an opportunity to see some material on display in Cape Town. He experienced other displays and exhibitions, after a fashion, in Africa. For example, after visiting Tom Ayres at Potchefstroom in 1869, Baines described Ayres’s cottage as ‘The Ark’. He remarked that Ayres had ‘spent much time collecting and preserving birds and insects and specimens of mineralogy; indeed his house seemed quite a museum’.13 As John MacKenzie has reminded us, museums in the colonies have a long history of providing cultural crutches for European migrants, as well as crucibles in which colonial identities are forged.14 The display and interpretive techniques used would have presented interesting examples to Baines. Following his return from an expedition to the interior in the mid-1830s, Andrew Smith displayed material in Cape Town. Smith, an army medical officer, naturalist and zoologist, was appointed the first superintendent of the South African Museum of Natural History in 1825. Zoological specimens were to be seen at the museum in Looyer’s Plein, while drawings were displayed around the corner at No. 2 Hope Street.15 The assistant at the Royal Observatory in Cape Town, Charles Piazzi Smyth, visited the exhibition and was most impressed. The objects on display were illustrated by the accompanying artwork of Charles Davidson Bell, comprising nearly three hundred drawings. In his obituary for Bell, Smyth commented: Everyone was astonished, delighted and instructed at finding the walls of the room decorated by nearly three hundred of C. D. Bell’s drawings … There, in those matchless drawings, was the peculiar country the expedition had passed through, in its minuter as well as its larger features; unadulterated, moreover, artistically, by any methods of drawing taught at home on English trees and hedges and shady lanes; for C. D. Bell had taught himself in South Africa on exactly what nature presented to him there. Hence was the great interior’s physical geography, geology, and vegetation, too, where there was any, depicted again and again, either in brilliant colour, or chiaro-scuro force of black and white, and almost perfect truth of outline; with the very atmosphere almost before one to look into, it shimmered and boiled in the vividness of solar light, and over stony surfaces heated to 140 or 150 Fahr. but yet garnished with episodes of the wild animals of the region – generally gigantic animals of South Africa today; but of other parts of the earth only in some past geological age; and with lifelike examples of natives of every tribe, whose lands the expedition had traversed, depicted in their most characteristic avocations.16

Smyth’s assessment of the role and value of vivid images presents an interesting contemporary view of how three-dimensional objects might be successfully juxtaposed with two-dimensional illustrations [ 20 ]

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to reinforce the message of the exhibition or display. These combinations of object and image were also employed by Baines at King’s Lynn. When Baines returned to Europe, there was no shortage of exhibits of southern African material in Britain either. Museums, exhibitions, shops, theatres and domestic houses provided the setting for the objects through which British people ‘saw their empire’.17 William Bullock had brought his talents as a showman and popular entertainer to London in 1809. His Egyptian Hall, which was a popular venue for displays, opened in Piccadilly in 1812 and was, according to Jane Austen, one of the most fashionable places in London.18 Colonial exhibitions and trade fairs were particularly fertile areas for displaying objects relating to Africa.19 Andrew Smith’s exhibits, for example, were dispatched for Britain in September 1836, and an exhibition showcasing the collection opened at London’s Egyptian Hall in July 1837. At an entrance fee of one shilling, and advertised as ‘The South African Museum’, it ran for a year.20 The same title had been used by Andrew Steedman, a Cape merchant and naturalist, when he displayed Cape objects at the London Colosseum in 1833.21 Of course, this interest in the wider world was not just confined to Africa. At the Egyptian Hall in 1846, an exhibition of ‘paintings of the natives and scenery of New Zealand and South Australia’ by Mr S. F. Angas (the son of George French Angas) took place. The ‘clever execution of these beautiful ethnographical illustrations’ even pleased ‘Her Majesty and Prince Albert’, who viewed Angas’s paintings.22 Victorian spectacles responded to people’s interest in the educational possibilities of exhibitions, as well as their curiosity in all things unusual. Significantly, this was a taste that permeated across the country; it was manifest in the provinces as well as in the i­ mperial metropolis of London.23 Historians are increasingly aware of the ‘regionally inflected character’ of Victorian science and its adjunct: the museum.24 In September 1821, for example, the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society received a case from a Mr Douglas containing an Egyptian mummy purchased from an ‘old Arab’ at Thebes. On 9 October, news broke to the people of Tyneside, and the Secretary of the Society was forced to put up a sign restricting entry. Later that month, a local newspaper reported on what it described as ‘the socio­ logy of museum visiting’: ‘many aged females were among the most attentive of the observers’. The writer went on to observe: ‘the respectful demeanour of visitors of every age and rank – with the exception of one man in a state of intoxication – reflects much credit on the town’.25 In 1888, Thomas Greenwood, a chronicler of public museums and advocate of their consideration as serious educational institutions, suggested that museums were ‘absolutely necessary for the welfare of [ 21 ]

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every Municipality throughout the country’.26 And this was confirmed by a report by the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1888, which examined 211 provincial museums throughout the United Kingdom.27 Scholars have argued convincingly that the extraordinary material and visual quality of nineteenth-century spectacles of empire affected and influenced Baines following his brief return to England in the mid1850s. They afforded him a visual vocabulary for depicting real and imaginary events and scenes in Africa and Australia.28 At King’s Lynn, however, Baines’s repertoire extended beyond the creation of twodimensional paintings. Here three-dimensional objects, interpretive strategies and old-fashioned curatorial ‘making-do’ all had an impact on his presentation of the wider world to the people of west Norfolk.

King’s Lynn Athenæum The decision to inaugurate the King’s Lynn Athenæum with an exhibition neatly encapsulates some of the reasons for the flowering of museums in nineteenth-century Britain. They were perceived to be civilising institutions, harbingers of a refined, educated and cultured society. At the end of the century, George Brown Goode, director of the National Museum in Washington DC, considered that the ‘degree of civilization to which any nation, city or province ha[d] attained [wa]s best shown by the character of its public museums and the liberality with which they [we]re maintained’.29 The display of material culture, its classification and interpretation was evidence of urban and urbane society.30 The Athenæum at King’s Lynn was part of that growth of provincial learned societies, which flourished in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. Libraries, lectures series and museums were all part of their remit. The Hull Society, which was founded in 1822, for example, was ‘not simply an institution, the only business of which it is to provide first-class lectures on literary and scientific subjects, but it ha[d] also to give the [natural] sciences a permanent home, where they may be illustrated by a continually increasing number of appropriate specimens’.31 When a museum was opened in King’s Lynn in 1844, the mayor offered ‘his congratulations on the establishment of an Institution so well calculated to improve the taste of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood, and particularly of the rising generation; as well as to afford a source of continual amusement and gratification to those persons who had already paid attention to scientific pursuits’.32 The Athenæum was founded some ten years later to provide a permanent home for the various literary, scientific and music societies of the

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town.33 It would, one advocate pronounced, provide a ‘new and handsome abode’ and allow the societies to ‘emerge from their nomadic state’.34 Their sharing of accommodation with other arts institutions was a common feature, and provided vivid and striking evidence of how far museums were ‘embedded within wider civic culture’ at that time.35 John Marsters (the mayor), Lord Stanley (one of the two MPs for the borough), and members of the Corporation formally opened the institution on 16 August 1854. Originally, it was to be unveiled with a grand civic procession. On the eve of the event, however, Frederick Kendle, the honorary secretary, issued a hasty notice. In light of the death of Lord Jocelyn, the other MP for the borough, Kendle requested that the procession from the Town Hall to the building might be ‘unaccompanied by band, banners and other demonstrations’.36 The Athenæum was established through the efforts of the members of the town’s Subscription Library, itself founded in 1797. The subject, first considered at a special meeting on 2 January 1852, was sub­ sequently discussed by the Town Council on 7 January 1853. It agreed to grant £50 annually to the Athenæum, provided there was a surplus in the funds, towards its support. Following its establishment, the rules and objectives of the Athenæum were codified at a meeting on 2 June 1854: Its design shall be the promotion of literature, science, and art, to be effected by providing a suitable building for the accommodation of Institutions formed for such objects, and by affording such other facilities for carrying out the above design as may be practicable.37

The organising committee invited ‘the assistance of all who wish to raise the character of Lynn, with its twenty thousand inhabitants, to a level of intelligence equal to that which is now so rapidly spreading in every town of equal note throughout the kingdom’.38 The inauguration of the institution was of a piece with similar situations across the country, which were the ‘physical manifestation of civic pride, demonstrations of the sophistication of the emerging bour­geoisie writ large (and small) in material culture’.39 Establishing a museum, as ­Jacqueline Yallop has remarked, sent a clear message about the aspirations and ambitions of a town and the far-sightedness and generosity of its inhabitants.40 The organisers sought a building that would accommodate one thousand people for concerts, lectures and the like. By means of a prospective mortgage, debentures and subscriptions, the sum of £6,400 was eventually raised.41 The red-brick, Italianate building that housed the Athenæum was situated on Baxter’s Plain and was completed in

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1854.42 A broad corridor, 78 feet in length, extended from the principal entrance, with rooms on either side. Among other apartments on the ground floor were the Conversazione Room (33 by 25 feet), the News Room (33 by 18 feet), and the Music Hall (82 by 45 feet). The latter was the largest room in the building (32 feet in height and lit by five windows), and had a platform and orchestra at the north end. A ­galleried room (70 by 32 feet), also on the ground floor, was used as the museum. The upper floor included the Subscription Library (50 feet in length), with two adjoining reading rooms, and the ‘Stanley Library’. Minerva, the Roman goddess of learning, stood proudly on the front of the building.43 It was destined to be, the local newspaper proclaimed, ‘one of the most magnificent institutions of its kind throughout the kingdom’.44 Notwithstanding the stated aims of the Athenæum, some of the individuals involved give a sense of the aspirations for the institution and for King’s Lynn. Lord Stanley, who spoke at the opening ceremony, was the grandson of the 13th Earl of Derby, the avid naturalist whose bequest formed the nucleus of the Liverpool Museum. The Stanley family were committed philanthropists, with the 13th Earl contri­ buting some £100,000 to the building and endowing of churches, schools and vicarages.45 Lord Stanley himself had given some £1,600 for the establishment of the Stanley Library in King’s Lynn, besides being a ‘liberal supporter of every other improving influence in the town’. The successor to Lord Jocelyn as Liberal MP for the borough, John Henry Gurney, was also an important supporter of the Athenæum in later years, particularly in the field of science and natural history. ‘A distinguished naturalist’, Gurney ‘indulged his taste’ for the benefit of the Athenæum ‘by not only contributing a splendid collection of birds, but actually fitting up the cases in which they were to be stowed’. As it neared its demise in the 1860s, it was little wonder that Henry Edwards, President of the Athenæum, remarked favourably on the support the institution had received from these quarters: ‘We have the very peculiar privilege of having such liberal support from our representatives as I should think has fallen to the lot of no other borough in the UK.’46 In order to mark its inauguration, the idea of a local trades’ exhibition was first mooted. It was soon decided that the exhibition should be of a broader ‘educational character’.47 Henry Cole, one of the central figures in the South Kensington Museum, had envisaged that institution as being ‘an impressive schoolroom for everyone’.48 Following a similar rationale at King’s Lynn, Henry Edwards suggested ‘the exhibition of objects having a definite aim and significance, and illustrating or teaching something in science, arts, manufactures, the manners [ 24 ]

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and customs of other times and places, &c.’.49 Consequently, Henry Ladbrooke issued a handbill outlining the objectives of the inaugural event:

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It is proposed to mark this event by a grand exhibition of an educational character. Illustrative of the various purposes for which the building is designed, viz: the promotion of a taste for the Fine Arts, Literature, Science, especially Natural History, Arts, Manufactures, &c.

The committee sought objects, encouraging lenders to append ‘a brief description of the article [which] will add much to the educational value which it is desired to give to this exhibition’. The list of catego­ ries of articles included: ‘fine arts’, ‘manufactures’, ‘Mediæval Art’, ‘photography’, ‘foreign curiosities’, and ‘natural history’. The handbill also gives a sense of how things were arranged. In addition to picture galleries and an ‘industrial exhibition’ of machinery and manufactures, the museum comprised the ‘productions of Africa, Australia and Polynesia, India, China, and America, together with specimens of Natural History and Antiquities from various parts of the world’.50 The theme of combining art and science in inaugural exhibitions was one that united many museums across the British Empire. For example, the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, addressed this theme when it opened in February 1870. William Rolleston, a prime instigator of the museum, quoted John Ruskin in seeing art as the interpreter and servant of nature. For him, the museum was ‘but one stage of progress in our study of science’. The opening event took the form of an art exhibition, funded by subscription and the provincial authorities, which included archaeological and ethnological material, together with models of inventions and discoveries. There were examples of lace, Indian silks, monumental brass rubbings, ceramics, photographs, rare books, architectural designs, coins and medals, as well as prints, oil paintings and sculptures.51 The exhibition at King’s Lynn was also planned to showcase ­material borrowed from other key collections. The London Society of Arts was to be a contributor ‘to this branch of the exhibition, in which Indian, African, and Chinese collections, liberally furnished by several gentle­men connected with those countries, w[ould] also be prominent objects of attraction’.52 In the decade preceding the development of the Athenæum, and unlike many provincial museums, the Lynn Museum had fostered a tradition of looking beyond its immediate local vicinity for its collections and this exhibition was destined to continue to cater for that interest.53 For the Athenæum’s inauguration, Thomas Baines was employed in the role of ‘guest curator’. In a letter to Sir William Hooker at Kew, [ 25 ]

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Baines remarked that he had been ‘entrusted with the Superintendence of the “African Department” in the Exhibition’.54 He explained his duties further:

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[In] addition to the general care of the building and its contents I have been entrusted with the arrangement of the African[,] American[,] Egyptian and Botanical Departments, including the painting of a series of Egyptian figures and hieroglyphics on the wall and the display of your most valuable contribution.55

Records and reports of the exhibition suggest that Baines’s principal area of responsibility was the African display, but he also helped with the botanical displays, acquiring specimens from Kew, and he arranged the American section using materials supplied by the Reverend G. Barnley, missionary to the Cree Indians. And, in the China section, ‘a model of a Chinese Mandarin boat or revenue clipper’ was contributed by a Mr Baines.56 Baines provided specialist knowledge and apparently relied on his own collection, together with some loan material, in arranging the African section. Material relating to his travels had already found its way on to display in the town through the good offices of his mother. In 1850, Mrs Baines organised an exhibition of her son’s paintings in King’s Lynn, together with ‘a collection of Natural History, Birds, Beasts, Insects and Vegetables’.57 Baines subsequently presented a collection of natural history specimens to King’s Lynn in January 1855. This material gives an indication of what was on display in the inaugural exhibition. The inventory lists specimens of plants, animals and ethnographical material. It includes the skull of a steenbok, coralencrusted seaweed from Algoa Bay, pipe fish, horns of a springbok ewe, two ‘ear shells’, a piece of hippopotamus hide, a black cobra, a puff adder, and a pouch of leopard skin for bullets.58 There were other contributors too. Reports of the exhibition remark on the numerous objects of ‘ethnology and natural history chiefly contributed by Mr Baines, Lieutenant Curtis, Mr Bollin, Mrs Dye, Mrs Horns, and others’. In addition to an ostrich’s nest, ‘consisting of a mere hole rubbed by the tale of the bird in the sand’ and containing many eggs, there were also the ‘horns of the Cape ox, buffaloes, and various antelopes, spiral horns of the koodoo, and horns of other animals’. One of the most eagerly anticipated exhibits must have been ‘the bead pouches of a Kaffir chief, who was killed in the war of 1846’.59 Baines was entrusted with combining these objects into an intelligible and interesting ensemble for visitors, which he planned to do by incorporating different objects and juxtaposing them with interpretive graphics and text. He wrote about his ideas in a letter to Hooker, [ 26 ]

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to which he appended a drawing to illustrate how the display might appear:

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I intend to give it [the appearance of] an African glen with rocks and plants, appropriate back landscape, and the patrol tent I used in the Kafir war with gun, saddle, blanket and other appurtenances so as to give an idea of frontier life.60

In London, the opening of the British Museum’s Ethnological Room in 1845 led to a formalisation of new taxonomies of display in the study of non-European cultures.61 Charles Willson Peale had expressed a similar desire to incorporate utilitarian objects, such as ‘the arms, dresses, tools and utensils of the aborigenes [sic] of divers countries’, within his ethnological displays at the Philadelphia Museum.62 Peale’s museum used such an approach in order ‘to bring into view a world in miniature’.63 He was concerned that the visitor, after encountering the ‘open book of nature’, should leave the collection enlightened and amused.64 In Britain, William Bullock’s London Museum offered ‘sights unseen before’.65 Bullock’s museum aspired to the ideal of a coherently ordered world imagined through devices such as the habitat group – vivid tableaux that recreated the postures and physical surroundings of creatures in their natural surroundings. He was perhaps the earliest to include painted backdrops.66 The quadrupeds had a special display room, the Pantherion, where animals were posed in reconstructed environments. Thomas Greenwood described what he saw: The other part contained quadrupeds, and, according to the taste at that time for Greek names, was called the Pantherion. The arrangement of this place was a novel plan, intended to display the whole of the known quadrupeds in such a manner as would convey a more perfect idea of their haunts and mode of life than had hitherto been done, keeping them at the same time in their classical arrangement.67

By the early twentieth century, full-scale dioramas (scenic arrangements in which lifelike stuffed animals and plants were displayed in accurate environments, often with a curved back wall to represent illusionistic space) became the most prominent form of display in natural history museums.68 Baines followed a similar strategy at King’s Lynn. When the Athenæum opened, Baines’s African department was on the left as one entered the room designated the ‘Museum’. The first thing one encountered was ‘a miniature representation of an African glen on the Kat River, in which the Hottentot rebellions broke out in 1850’. A painted backdrop set the scene for objects such as ‘natural rocks, plants, pensile nests, and other objects of curiosity’ in the fore[ 27 ]

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ground. In addition, ‘a tent, about 7 feet long and 3 feet in height, is pitched, and is the actual tent in which Mr Baines found shelter during six months while serving on the staff of General Somerset’.69 Here Baines provided a contemporary ‘hook’ for his visitors, giving them something to which they could relate or about which they had read in the newspapers. The Eighth Frontier War (1850–53) was one in a long series of conflicts between European settlers and the amaXhosa people on the eastern border of the Cape Colony.70 Apparently, there was no little competition among those organ­ising different elements of the exhibition. To one reporter, they seemed ‘to vie with each in other in their endeavours to make their department attractive and instructive’.71 The overall effect was successful, however, if one can judge by the recommendation of the Chairman. In his opening speech, he encouraged visitors to explore the various exhibits of foreign climes where, through the creative interpretation and judicious selection of people like Baines, visitors could ‘travel to Africa, or to India, to Polynesia, or Australia … without any travel expenses, without any perils of journeying, without even a mosquito’.72 This evocation of faraway places through museum displays was perhaps the greatest commendation that could be bestowed.

Curatorial practicalities In his role at King’s Lynn, Baines was not only responsible for the cre­ ative display of material. Part of his job involved the identification and procurement of objects for the temporary exhibition. At a meeting of the Museums Association in 1893, F. A. Bather, of the British Museum (Natural History), remarked that ‘the first lesson a curator has to learn is to cut his coat according to his cloth’.73 At King’s Lynn, Baines followed a general trend for loan material, as the organisers of the exhibition placed advertisements in local newspapers requesting objects in order ‘to increase the interest of their own collection by contributions from far and wide’.74 Much of the material going on display was borrowed from private lenders. This was common practice at the time and followed patterns set by such high-profile events as the Great Exhibition in London (1851) and the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester (1857).75 Indeed, as a public institution, Kew was not unusual in lending material – the South Kensington Museum frequently sent objects touring around the provinces.76 While it may have added considerable interest for visitors, this approach brought significant risks and inconveniences for those organising the collation of such diverse objects. The committee paid particular attention to security:

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The Committee, feeling deeply the responsibility of the care of such specimens, have made arrangements for their safe custody by adding to their own daily personal attendance, a police guard day and night during the exhibition: and this responsibility will not cease until the articles lent are returned to their owners.77

As one of the objectives of the exhibition was to introduce visitors to the variety of non-European plants and their possible economic and scientific benefits, Baines sought specimens that he had previously donated to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He wrote to William Hooker: Might I ask you, if not contrary to the rules of your Museum to favour me with the loan of the palm leaf I had the honour of presenting you a few months ago or of any specimens of South African produce not belonging to the Museum which you might be able to spare.78

But things were not as easy to arrange as Baines must have hoped. Until now, it has been difficult to establish what happened and why. We know that Hooker provided something for display at King’s Lynn, because Baines acknowledged its receipt. In a letter, dated 5 August 1854, he gave a sense of the kinds of practicalities that had to be borne in mind as he worked towards the finished curatorial product: If you could kindly give me some idea of the space they would cover I would arrange for them between my own department and the Indian and if you think their freshness might be preserved by planting them in wet sand or earth I should be glad to know it.79

However, a letter in the Norfolk Record Office indicates Hooker’s response to the initial request, why he declined the loan, and his understanding of how he could assist in achieving the main aims of the exhibition. All of this, of course, also highlights the fact that Baines’s curatorial responsibilities were not just confined to painting backdrops. His presentation of Africa, and his concern with conveying an instructive and enjoyable exhibition to the public of King’s Lynn, also depended on a lot of ‘back-of-house’ activity. Hooker explained his rejection of the loan request on two grounds: the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens were public property, and the danger of setting a precedent: The Museum of the Royal Gardens of Kew and all its contents being Government property and daily laid open to the inspection of the public we cannot send such things on loan. If one did that for Lynn (however laudable the object) we should be obliged to do the same for other provincial towns and that would put us to the most manifest inconvenience, and do us serious injury.80

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Hooker had a solution, however, which he thought might be ‘more agreeable and advantageous to the opening of the Lynn Museum’. This would replicate something that Kew had done for York the previous year in similar circumstances: ‘We can send you fresh leaves and specimens of palms, and other interesting plants (clove, cinnamon etc.) and these bear more upon the utility and commercial importance of Botany and were found at York to be very attractive.’ Practicalities are again of paramount consideration, as Hooker asked Baines to ‘mention the latest day on which they should be sent as to arrive as fresh as possible’. He concluded by reiterating: ‘We have no Museum objects whatsoever at Kew except what belong to the public. What I propose sending you of course do not require to be returned.’81 Hooker’s solution was evidently successful because Baines wrote afterwards to acknowledge his contribution: I have the pleasure of forwarding you a note expressing the thanks of the Athenæum committee for your kind and truly valuable present. The exhibition which was intended to last only a week has extended to four and on the whole has I believe been very satisfactory.82

As this letter hints, the work of Baines in procuring material and in presenting it contributed to the success of the exhibition ‘in attracting public attention’ and, within the first week or so, it had sold 2,283 tickets.83 It drew many people from far and wide, leading to its extended run. Despite his curatorial success, however, it is with a palpable sense of relief that Baines informed Hooker in August: ‘my duties as super­ intendent are of course at an end by now’.84

Interpretation as curatorial practice Baines’s stint as ‘guest curator’ might have been relatively short, but throughout his career he demonstrated his commitment to widening the general public’s appreciation and understanding of his particular areas of knowledge and expertise. One of the most obvious ways to do this was through lecturing and ‘conversaziones’.85 As Claire Wintle’s chapter in this volume has demonstrated, the prevalence of lectures and educational programmes represents a widespread and enduring belief in the value and possibility of self-improvement at this time.86 Baines responded to this demand by lecturing extensively on his African experiences when he returned to Britain in May 1853.87 In later years, he spoke at meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and kept in touch with Royal Geographical Society officials. In 1865, he was invited to read a paper on the Zambezi before the British Association in Birmingham; he painted two canvases to [ 30 ]

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illustrate his lecture. This was followed in August 1866 by a lecture to the association in Nottingham on the Limpopo and the Zambezi.88 Robert White, writing from London, informed a friend in southern Africa that Baines’s lectures in the capital were ‘well spoken of in the local press’ and he mentioned that he was going to hear him speak at a Working Men’s Institute the following week ‘on Australia and Africa, an evening for both’.89 The popularity of these types of lectures is telling: in 1853, six hundred places for Working Men’s evening lectures filled up in just two days.90 At the opening of the Athenæum in King’s Lynn, Lord Stanley remarked that the number of mechanics’ institutes across the country amounted to eight hundred.91 The Lynn Athenæum also allowed Baines an opportunity to disseminate information through lecturing. Sometimes, as at Birmingham, he painted pictures with the express purpose of illustrating his lectures; at other times, he used lantern slides to provide an interpretive framework for his discussion. The reaction to his art in these circumstances was similar to that displayed towards his exhibits at King’s Lynn. Both brought Africa to life for the lay person. In the Art Journal of May 1869, the reviewer of the show at the Crystal Palace where Baines’s paintings were on display thought that they merited ‘the attention of all who want[ed] to find out more about the real circumstances of African existence’.92 Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society, believed that the real benefit of Baines’s work was to those in Britain, ‘destined never to penetrate into the southern part of Africa’, who ‘may quite realise to our mind’s eye the true character of that grand continent’.93 In King’s Lynn, Baines lectured first on Africa in general, illus­trating ‘his subject by reference to portions of the exhibitions’.94 Then he moved on to more personal recollections of his travels and ­experiences there. In September 1854, he delivered three lectures under the banner of ‘Reminiscences of South Africa’ in the Music Hall of the Athenæum. Tickets retailed at one shilling for reserved seats or sixpence for un­reserved places, while one could attend all three lectures for two shillings or one shilling for reserved and unreserved seats respectively. The lectures followed a pattern, where he first introduced his audience to the peoples and places of South Africa before proceeding to give more detailed, personal experiences. At the third lecture, on 22 September, his audience were to hear about such intriguing subjects as ‘The chief and the English child’, ‘The puff adder and the lady’, ‘The English girl and the farmer’s wife’, and ‘What may be done with hotcakes and tea after forty-eight hours of abstinence’.95 Overall, the ‘audiences were most respectable, and appeared interested in the lectures, but rather fatigued by their extreme length’.96 Baines’s activities as a vocal public [ 31 ]

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expert on Africa and its exploration were the perfect foil to his work as a curator for the inaugural exhibition at King’s Lynn Athenæum.

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Conclusion In Re-inventing Africa, Annie Coombes examined the construction, through exhibitions, of an ‘idea of Africa’ in Britain in an era of European colonial expansion in sub-Saharan Africa.97 The Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886, for example, was attended by five and a half million people. Through his curatorial work at King’s Lynn, Baines represents an earlier phase of this phenomenon. He is not the last in a line of European explorers who filled in the ‘blanks’ of the African continent. Rather, he is at the beginning of a trend for displaying British experiences in southern Africa, which would be refined and remoulded at twentieth-century exhibitions such as those at Wembley (1924–25), Johannesburg (1936), and Glasgow (1938).98 Baines may have explored large swathes of central and southern Africa, suffering many hardships in the process. However, it seems his museum experience took its toll too. He wrote to William Hooker about the pressures: ‘[I] trust you will excuse my apparent negligence as having been chosen from the committee as a kind of temporary curator, I have been employed almost day and night.’99 At the King’s Lynn Athenæum, Thomas Baines introduced many people to the world beyond Norfolk. In this, he followed Charles Willson Peale, who was ‘desirous to please and entertain the public’ in Philadelphia.100 Maya Jasanoff has argued that imperial collectors were part of ‘larger mechanisms of imperial expansion – war, trade, power’ and that ‘by bringing foreign objects to Britain, collectors played an important role in shaping images of empire at home’.101 Baines did something similar with the display of material culture and its interpretation for the people of nineteenth-century Norfolk.

Notes  1 W. Somerset Maugham, The Explorer (London: William Heineman, 1908), p. 61.  2 Ibid., p. 119.  3 Thomas Baines, Journal of Residence in Africa, 1842–1853, ed. R. F. Kennedy, 2 vols (Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society, 1961–64), vol. 1, p. 9.  4 See Russell Braddon, Thomas Baines and the North Australia Expedition (Sydney: Collins, 1986).  5 On the Livingstone Expedition, see John M. MacKenzie (ed.), David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa (London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 1996) and Lawrence Dritsas, Zambesi: David Livingstone and Expeditionary Science in Africa (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010). On Baines’s experiences at the Victoria Falls, see Thomas Baines, The Victoria Falls, Zambezi River, Sketched on the Spot by Thomas Baines, FRGS, 1862 (London: Day and Son, 1865).

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 6 In particular, see Michael Stevenson (ed.), Thomas Baines: An Artist in the Service of Science in Southern Africa (London: Christie’s, 1999).  7 See Amy R. W. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard (eds), Empire’s Nature: Mark Catesby’s New World Vision (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).  8 Charles Coleman Sellers, Mr Peale’s Museum: Charles Willson Peale and the First Popular Museum of Natural Science and Art (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980).  9 L. C. Rookmaaker, The Zoological Exploration of Southern Africa, 1650–1790 (Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema, 1989), p. 160. 10 R. F. H. Summers, A History of the South African Museum, 1825–1975 (Cape Town: A. A. Balkema, 1975), pp. 1–3. 11 Daniel Beeckman, Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo (London: T. Warner and J. Batley, 1718), p. 179. 12 Ann Datta, ‘Thomas Baines’ contribution to the zoology of southern Africa’, in ­Stevenson (ed.), Thomas Baines, pp. 40–59, p. 41. 13 Thomas Baines, The Northern Goldfield Diaries of Thomas Baines, ed. J. P. R. Wallis, 3 vols (London: Chatto and Windus, 1946), vol. 1, p. 4. 14 John M. MacKenzie, Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), pp. 1–17. 15 P. R. Kirby (ed.), The Diary of Dr Andrew Smith, 2 vols (Cape Town: The Van ­Riebeeck Society, 1940), vol. 2, pp. 212–15. 16 Charles Piazzi Smith, ‘Charles Davidson Bell’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 12 (1886–87), 16. 17 Maya Jasanoff, ‘Collectors of empire: Objects, conquests and imperial self-­fashioning’, Past and Present, 184 (August 2004), 109–35, p. 112. 18 Robert D. Aguirre, Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), pp. 15–16. 19 Robert Grant, Representations of British Emigration, Colonisation and Settlement: Imagining Empire, 1800–1860 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), p. 143. See also, Thomas Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Specta­ cle, 1851–1914 (London: Verso, 1991); Jeffrey A. Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display (London: Yale University Press, 1999); Paul Greenhalgh, ­Ephemeral Vistas: A History of the Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988). 20 Kirby (ed.), Diary of Dr Andrew Smith, vol. 2, p. 236. 21 MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, p. 83. 22 ‘The New Zealand and South Australian Exhibition’, Illustrated London News, 18 April 1846, p. 253. 23 For example, in Liverpool, men like William Roscoe helped to develop a provincial programme of culture centred on collections, museums and their educational possibilities. See Arline Wilson, William Roscoe: Commerce and Culture (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008). 24 Simon Naylor, ‘Introduction: Historical geographies of science – places, contexts, cartographies’, British Journal for the History of Science, 38 (2005), 1–12, p. 7. 25 Stephen Harbottle, The Reverend William Turner: Dissent and Reform in Georgian Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Leeds: Northern Universities Press, 1999), p. 100. 26 Thomas Greenwood, Museums and Art Galleries (London: Simkin, Marshall and Co., 1888), p. viii. 27 Kate Hill, Culture and Class in English Public Museums, 1850–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), p. 37. See also Claire F. Loughney, ‘Colonialism and the development of the English provincial museum, 1823–1914’, unpublished PhD thesis, Newcastle University, 2006. 28 Patricia Davison and Sandra Klopper, ‘Images of distinction: Thomas Baines as ethno­ grapher’, in Stevenson (ed.), Thomas Baines, pp. 90–107, p. 103. 29 Quoted in Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colo­ nial Natural History Museums during the Late Nineteenth Century (Kingston, ON, and Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), p. 93.

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30 See Maria Margaret Lopes and Irina Podgorny, ‘The shaping of Latin American museums of natural history’, Osiris, 2nd series, 15 (2000), 108–18, p. 110. 31 Quoted in Samuel J. M. M. Alberti, ‘Placing nature: Natural history collections and their owners in nineteenth-century provincial England’, British Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2002), 291–311, p. 298. 32 Norfolk Record Office (NRO), C/Scg6/1, fo 3, ‘Report of the first General Meeting of Subscribers to the Lynn Museum, held at the Town Hall, January 25th, 1844’. 33 For a similar collection of cultural and scientific institutions joining together under one roof in nineteenth-century Penzance, see Simon Naylor, ‘The field, the museum and the lecture hall: The spaces of natural history in Victorian Cornwall’, Trans­ actions of the Institute of British Geographers, 27 (2002), 494–513, p. 499. 34 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 13 May 1854. 35 Alberti, ‘Placing nature’, p. 300. 36 Henry J. Hillen, History of the Borough of King’s Lynn, 2 vols (Norwich: East of England Newspaper Co., 1907), vol. 2, p. 636. 37 NRO, SO40/1, fo 3, records of the King’s Lynn Athenæum. 38 NRO, BL/VI/d, fo 1, Henry Ladbrooke, ‘Lynn Athenæum inauguration, 16 of August, 1854’, 22 June 1854. 39 Alberti, ‘Placing nature’, p. 300. 40 Jacqueline Yallop, Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves: How the Victorians Collected the World (London: Atlantic Books, 2011), p. 33. 41 Hillen, Borough of King’s Lynn, vol. 2, p. 634. 42 Paul Richards, King’s Lynn (Chichester: Phillimore, 2000), p. 135. 43 Hillen, Borough of King’s Lynn, vol. 2, p. 635. 44 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 20 May 1854. 45 See Arline Wilson, ‘The 13th Earl as a social and cultural figure’, in Clemency Fisher (ed.), A Passion for Natural History: The Life and Legacy of the 13th Earl of Derby (Liverpool: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 2002), pp. 32–7, p. 36. 46 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 7 March 1864; NRO, SO40/1, fo 114, records of the King’s Lynn Athenæum. 47 There was opposition to the idea of a trades’ fair. A letter to the editor of The Lynn Advertiser complained that this would not be in line with the aims of the institution. See The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 1 July 1854. 48 Quoted in Tim Barringer, ‘The South Kensington Museum and the colonial project’, in Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (eds), Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 11–27, p. 15. 49 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 13 May 1854. 50 NRO, BL/VI/d, fos 1–2, Henry Ladbrooke, ‘Lynn Athenæum inauguration, 16 of August, 1854’, 22 June 1854. 51 MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, p. 214. 52 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 29 July 1854. 53 For the limited range and ambitions of some local museums, see Harriet Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 43. 54 Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 7, Thomas Baines to Sir William Hooker, 31 July 1854. 55 RBG, Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 9, Baines to Hooker, 25 August 1854. 56 ‘Inauguration of the Athenæum’, The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 19 August 1854. 57 J. P. R. Wallis, Thomas Baines: His Life and Explorations in South Africa, Rhodesia and Australia, 1820–1875 (1942; Cape Town: A. A. Balkema, 1976), p. 47. 58 Datta, ‘Thomas Baines’ contribution to the zoology of southern Africa’, p. 53. 59 ‘Inauguration of the Athenæum’, The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 19 August 1854. 60 RBG, Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 8, Baines to Hooker, 5 August 1854. This approach to mounting explanatory and lifelike displays was something that gained increasing currency as the century progressed. See Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of

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Science, p. 9. 61 Aguirre, Informal Empire, p. 107. 62 Quoted in Joyce Henri Robinson, ‘An American cabinet of curiosities: Thomas Jefferson’s “Indian Hall” at Monticello’, in Leah Dilworth (ed.), Acts of Posses­ ­ sion: Collecting in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 16–41, p. 31. 63 Sellers, Mr Peale’s Museum, p. 26. 64 Robinson, ‘An American cabinet of curiosities’, p. 29. 65 Quoted in Carla Yanni, Nature’s Museum: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), p. 27. See also Edward P. Alexander, ‘William Bullock: Little-remembered museologist and showman’, Curator, 28:2 (1985), 117–45. 66 Aguirre, Informal Empire, p. 15. 67 Greenwood, Museums and Art Galleries, pp. 41–2. 68 Yanni, Nature’s Museum, p. 149. See also, Karen Wonders, Habitat Dioramas: Illu­ sions of Wilderness in Museums of Natural History (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993). 69 ‘Inauguration of the Athenæum’, The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 19 August 1854. 70 For further details of the conflict, see Richard Price, Making Empire: Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). At 27 months in duration, it was only exceeded by the Anglo-Boer War at the end of the nineteenth century, which lasted for 32 months. See Noël Mostert, Frontiers: The Epic Story of South Africa’s Cre­ ation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992), p. 1077. In June 1851, Baines met Colonel Henry Somerset who employed him as an official war artist. Despite this status, and the fact that some of his sketches appeared in the Illustrated London News, Baines left his appointment after only a year. This was one of the most brutal in the series of conflicts on the eastern frontier. By the end of the war, sixteen thousand amaXhosa had been killed. See Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2003), p. 160. 71 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 12 August 1854. 72 ‘Inauguration of the Athenæum’, The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 19 August 1854. 73 F. A. Bather, ‘Some colonial museums’, in Report of Proceedings of the Museums Association, 1894 (London: Museums Association, 1895), pp. 193–239, p. 207. 74 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 10 June 1854. 75 See Tristram Hunt and Victoria Whitfield, Art Treasures in Manchester: 150 Years On (Manchester: Manchester Art Gallery, 2007). 76 Barringer, ‘The South Kensington Museum’, p. 14. 77 NRO, BL/VI/d, fo 1, Henry Ladbrooke, ‘Lynn Athenæum inauguration, 16 of August, 1854’, 22 June 1854. 78 RBG, Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 7, Baines to Hooker, 31 July 1854. 79 RBG, Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 8, Baines to Hooker, 5 August 1854. 80 NRO, BL, IV a/1, Hooker to Baines, 3 August 1854. 81 Ibid. 82 RBG, Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 6, Baines to Hooker [August 1854]. 83 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 26 August 1854. The Canterbury Museum in New Zealand had similarly high attendance figures, with three hundred people visiting the three thousand exhibits on the first day. See MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, p. 214. 84 RBG, Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 6, Baines to Hooker [August 1854]. 85 See Naylor, ‘The field, the museum and the lecture hall’, pp. 503–6. 86 See pp. 37–55. 87 Elizabeth Hartrick, ‘Thomas Baines: Empire man and magic lanternist’, in Kate ­Darian-Smith, Patricia Grimshaw, Kiera Lindsey and Stuart Mcintyre (eds), Explor­ ing the British World: Identity, Cultural Production, Institutions (Melbourne, VIC:

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RMIT, 2004), pp. 540–56. For more information on the role of lantern-slide shows in late-Victorian Britain, see Steve Humphries, Victorian Britain through the Magic Lantern (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989).  88 Wallis, Thomas Baines, pp. 154, 158.  89 Robert White to Robert Godlonton, March 1867, quoted in Frank R. Bradlow, ‘Robert White, Thomas Baines and The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa’, Africana Notes and News, 23:4 (1978), 131–47, p. 138.  90 Yanni, Nature’s Museum, pp. 56–7.  91 Hillen, Borough of King’s Lynn, vol. 2, p. 636.  92 ‘The Crystal Palace Picture-Gallery’, Art Journal, 8:5 (1869), 159.  93 Royal Geographical Society (RGS), CB5/33, ‘Victoria Falls of the Zambesi’.  94 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 2 September 1854.  95 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 16 September 1854.  96 The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald, 23 September 1854.  97 Annie E. Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (London: Yale University Press, 1997).  98 Jonathan Woodham, ‘Images of Africa and design at the British Empire Exhibitions between the wars’, Journal of Design History, 2:1 (1989), 16–33.  99 RBG, Director’s correspondence, vol. 34, fo 9, Baines to Hooker, 25 August 1854. 100 Sellers, Mr Peale’s Museum, p. 23. 101 Jasanoff, ‘Collectors of empire’, pp. 110, 112. See also Janet Owen, ‘Collecting artifacts, acquiring empire: Exploring the relationship between Enlightenment and Darwinian collecting and late-nineteenth-century British imperialism’, Journal of the History of Collections, 18:1 (2006), 9–25.

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Chapter two

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Visiting the empire at the provincial ­museum, 1900–50 Claire Wintle

Over the last twenty years, the museum has increasingly been positioned as a ‘committed participant’ in the British imperial project.1 Scholars have persuasively insisted on the link between the institutionalised display of non-Western material culture and Western imperial agendas.2 Due to the paucity of recorded popular reaction to such representations, much of the scholarship which has interrogated the mechanics of these display paradigms has necessarily focused upon intended interpretation, or official constructions of meaning. Critiques of ‘official’ interpretations developed by public institutions and curators tell us much about the histories of academic thought and the intended approaches of such organisations. This chapter, however, focuses on how these official agendas were actually received in practice. Pervasive Foucauldian scholarship emphasising the hegemony of the museum as a technology of power and as an architect of singular knowledge is slowly being countered.3 New calls have been made to reveal the inconsistencies and failures in authority of such ‘disci­ plinary regimes’.4 Others have highlighted the need to credit a broader variety of human agents in the study of meaning-making in museums.5 This chapter will contribute to this scholarship and emphasise the extent to which discrepancies between intended meaning and popular understanding of museum displays occurred. I will use a discussion of visitor engagement with non-European material cultures in the provincial museum to critique the assumption of the pervasive nature of curatorial control of audience reception. Instead, I explore how museum publics form individual responses to cultural heritage, sometimes rejecting official interpretation and drawing upon wider cultural references and experiences. Collections of non-European material culture were important in establishing British perceptions about the peoples [ 37 ]

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of their empire: through objects, visitors were able to glean information about diverse peoples’ cultures and climates, make assumptions about their relative positions in socio-evolutionary hierarchies, and justify their own political and economic subjugation of such peoples. However, such collections were not consumed in isolation; their meanings were informed and contextualised by alternative experiences of empire and non-European material culture found outside the museum. In order to demonstrate this phenomenon, this chapter will focus on the indicative example of Brighton Museum in the first half of the twentieth century. In his 1938 survey of British museums, S. F. Markham commented on this seaside town in the south of England, describing its museum’s ethnographical collections as ‘amazingly rich in objects that cannot now be acquired for love nor money’.6 More recently, in 1997, the ‘World Art and Anthropology’ collections of the now renamed Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove, were designated a pre-eminent collection of national and inter­national importance by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. Host to an outstanding collection of ethnographic material, and held at the heart of a community with a particular flair for documenting and celebrating the British Empire (as we shall see), this museum and its audiences provide a particularly fruitful example with which to explore museum visitors’ engagements with non-European material culture and the British Empire. In focusing on the historically specific situation of one provincial museum, the town to which it belonged, and its curatorial and ­visiting experiences, it is also my aim to scrutinise those claims of an ideological coherence in the development of Western museums which have been made by some pan-institutional, highly theoretical museo­ logy.7 Moreover, although much scholarship to date has focused on the national museum as a key resource, here I argue that if the full complexity of museum history is to be ascertained, the specific financial and organisational circumstances of the provincial museum must also be explored.8 This chapter will first briefly introduce the intentions that Brighton Museum’s staff had when constructing their particular displays of nonEuropean material culture. Following this outline, the latter half of the chapter will argue that the official, institution-led interpretations of the ethnography collections at Brighton Museum formed only half of the story. Firstly, focusing specifically on the museum, it will be suggested that practical problems and confused displays provided a barrier to visitors struggling to comprehend intended curatorial messages. Secondly, this research will show how impressions and objects encountered away from the museum were often preferred by visitors. [ 38 ]

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Scientific displays were often rejected entirely or simply formed a non-specific backdrop upon which to project images of popular culture formed elsewhere. Research into the reactions of museum visitors of the past is notoriously difficult. Given the paucity of literature which has attempted to document or engage with the thoughts and responses of the historic museum visitor, a note on potential methodologies may be welcome here. Visitors’ books, used in museums from the sixteenth century onwards, may be conceived of as a useful source, but it was not until the interwar years of the twentieth century that their role changed from being a record of the signatures, professions and addresses of visitors to providing a space for personal comment and opinion.9 Even then the impact of illiteracy and the tendency of dominant parties to speak for diverse audiences, in both past and present (i.e. the husband for the family, the school teacher for the class, etc.), must be taken into account.10 Sharon MacDonald, in her discussion of the potential advantages and drawbacks of the visitors’ book as a source, has summarised wider analyses of visitor book comments, describing them as socially situated performative acts not necessarily rooted in sincerity.11 Similarly, travel accounts, diaries, handwritten postcards and personal photographs can be invaluable resources, but they are rare gems and often preserved for the nation in particularly unrepresentative ways. Oral testimonies from visitors and staff members can form rich material for analysis of audience engagement with museums: despite the performative nature of such interviews and the subjective character of memory, they necessarily document opinions and perspectives, and reward our search for documentation on the experiences of indivi­ duals.12 The possibility of this option, of course, depends on the period under investigation: for this study, it has been possible to conduct interviews with staff members working from the 1930s onwards, and these happily provide rich insight into the conditions of the museum’s exhibition spaces during this period. The opinions of staff members could generally be characterised as ‘official’ and not necessarily in tune with visitors’ perspectives. Here, however, the comments made by ex-staff members are surprisingly candid and move beyond the dutybound statements of the council employee. Conversely, another potential resource, the official minutes of museum committees, tend to offer sanitised versions of staff intent and activity. Within this format, they do occasionally record the comments of notable dignitaries and, particularly with provincial museums accountable to their rate payers, often include detailed visitor statistics. These insights, however, again tend to provide the researcher with upper-middle-class, white, male, polite opinion, or quantitative [ 39 ]

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information which cannot inform an examination of diverse visitor reaction to specific exhibits or events. Popular tourist guides can offer an insight into the perceptions and value-judgements of a specific author, but tend to provide a descriptive, brief list of ‘highlights’, usually comprising the most valuable or aesthetically pleasing items on display. National and local newspapers, however, are a useful source with which to supplement this uneven terrain. Rosemary Flanders has documented the impact of the press in a ‘new communicative relationship’ between cultural institutions and their civic audiences in the nineteenth century: letters pages, editorials and press reports of town council meetings provided an important space for debate about the value and role of museums.13 Reports of events, lectures and major donations to museums were consistently covered in the local press, particularly in newspapers with a focus on culture and the civic life of the town or city. Naturally, the tendency of newspapers to focus on significant events rather than the everyday, and the agenda of the popular press with its interest in attracting readers through attentiongrabbing and marketable stories, is a somewhat ‘imperfect indicator’ of public opinion.14 Newspapers inevitably offer a selective version of reality governed by media conventions.15 However, given the paucity of information about historical visitor responses, the press provides us with a valuable if partial lens on patterns of interpretation formed by those who visited the museum and those who formed opinions from the outside. Indeed, successful journalism is also about more than ‘telling a good story’: ‘It is about telling stories that contain significant civic unity.’16 The ‘agenda-setting ability’ of the press must also be acknowledged: where the press took a particular approach to museum displays and events, this is likely to have formed the cue for many museum audiences. Accordingly, despite the degree of journalistic whimsy and assumption to be found in the popular media, there must also be a marked value in the use of this material as an insight into public opinion both before and after the media had influenced personal perspectives. This chapter draws heavily upon public opinion submitted to and reported upon in the Brighton Herald and Hove Chronicle (hereafter Herald).17 As the first newspaper to be established in Brighton, in 1806, and as a paper with a particular interest in and good coverage of cultural events in the locality, the Herald provides unparalleled insight into visitors’ experiences of the museum. As suggested, any newspaper inevitably offers a selective version of reality governed by media conventions, but reports and letters uncovered through a sampling of the newspaper from 1900 to 1950 can help to give an indication of a range [ 40 ]

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of regional perceptions. Moreover, an examination of the local press has also supported the development of a new and fruitful method of uncovering the per­ ceptions and experiences of actual and potential museum visitors. This chapter will advocate the merits of placing museum-visiting in a wider context of public cultural production and consumption. Audiences do not visit museums with a perceptive tabula rasa; they develop understanding by building upon established knowledge and experience.18 As evidence from the Herald will show, Brightonians viewed their museum in relation to a variety of other opportunities for education, entertainment and cultural stimulation in the region. Specifically, within this framework, the museum as a public forum for engaging with the British Empire and its peoples was supplemented and informed by other events centred upon this theme. Meaning for the visitor is made through a differentiating process: particularly in this case, the museum was defined by what it offered in comparison to other institutions and events and, indeed, by what it did not. By sour­cing commentaries on these other cultural proceedings – the missionary fair, the charity bazaar, the theatre and the public lecture – a comparative picture or ‘contextual shadow’ can be built and used to inform our understanding of public notions of museum-going.

‘Behind the scenes’: official interpretations at Brighton Museum Notwithstanding its earlier transformations from fishing village to fashionable Regency health resort, and eventually to Victorian daytrippers’ destination of choice, by 1900 Brighton had a year-round population of over 120,000.19 By the early twentieth century, Brighton and its neighbour Hove had again changed, this time into a regional service centre with a permanent population swelled by returned colonial officials and middle-class professionals.20 Within this context a new sense of civic pride emerged, and cultural facilities, including a public museum, were established. Following a gestation period in upper rooms of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton’s Public Museum, along with a Library and Picture Gallery, was eventually inaugurated in 1873 on Church Street, on the site of the old stabling and coach houses of the Pavilion estate. Rate-supported and operating under the Pavilion Purchase Act of 1850, which provided financial support for the upkeep of the larger Pavilion estate, it was administered by a Library, Museum and Fine Arts Committee and a specific sub-committee appointed by the town’s council.21 Following a major refurbishment in 1902, non-European material [ 41 ]

2.1  Postcard of the Archaeological Room at Brighton Museum, c. 1912, showing series of comparative displays. The label ‘Modern Savage Stone Tools’ is partially visible behind the wild-flower table.

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culture was exhibited in various galleries throughout the museum.22 Room IV housed the main ethnography gallery: the contents of the cases were roughly grouped in terms of their geographical provenance and limited interpretative analysis informed visitors about how the displayed objects came to be there, or how they were manufactured and employed.23 Elsewhere, non-European material culture was used slightly differently: in one of the three archaeology galleries, Herbert S. Toms, the museum’s curator, displayed ethnography alongside archaeology collections in order to celebrate the socio-evolutionary comparative paradigm common at the time (see Figure 2.1). Juxtaposing Ma¯ori and Tasmanian stone tools and prehistoric European implements in successive cases, Toms sought to inform visitors not only of the basic likeness in all human nature but also of the so-called ‘advances’ that had been made in Europe compared with other cultures or societies. A series of ‘full descriptive labels’ inserted into the cases, written by Toms and highlighted in the Official Guide, instructed visitors as to the purpose of this arrangement.24 While these documents no longer survive, the scientific rationale of the display and the evolutionary perspective he was known to have ‘staunchly supported all his life’ were recorded in a number of the public lectures given by Toms during this period.25 Many of the presentations he made both to general audiences and to specialist groups emphasised how ‘Ethnography … as a study of the present … ha[d] in numerous instances proved an invaluable key to problems connected with the past.’26 Discussing subjects such as ‘The Marvels of Savage Art’ (May 1909), ‘Flint Chips by Neolithic Man’ (April 1907), and ‘Prehistoric Man’ (January 1908), he consistently aimed to demonstrate the educational value of the presentations: ‘the study of the modern savage is imperative if we desire to obtain an idea as to those primitive conditions of life which gave birth to the arts, sciences, and religions we now enjoy’.27 Other elements of this gallery had other, more specific scientific claims to make: before coming to Brighton, Toms had received his training in archaeology as a field assistant under the tutelage of Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers. He was familiar with Pitt Rivers’s thesis on the typological arrangement of material culture and was influenced firmly by his former employer.28 For example, Toms used the gallery’s ‘Modern Savage Stone Tools’ case to distinguish between the Ma¯ori objects, which he considered to be marked by a specific ‘beauty and delicacy’, and those exhibits he termed ‘the less obvious flakes and scrapers of the extinct Tasmanians’.29 Pitt Rivers’s assertions that objects could be ‘arranged in sequence’ in order to demonstrate ‘the successive ideas by which the minds of men in a primitive condition of culture have progressed’, were echoed in displays [ 43 ]

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in which Toms arranged comparable objects ‘in descending order from the most highly developed forms to the lowest’.30 Presenting an albeit narrow section of what Edward Burnett Tylor, Pitt Rivers and others had envisioned as a wider, unbroken ‘line of continuity between the lowest savagery and the highest civilization’, the stone tools’ display demonstrates Toms’s aim to implement the theoretical perspectives promoted by his peers and colleagues.31 In the event, however, any intellectual debates or curatorial messages with which Toms wished to engage were tempered by a series of practical problems. Tony Bennett has explored some of the general problems involved in the reading of evolutionary sequences in museums, but a close reading of the museum’s sub-committee minutes and annual reports between 1900 and 1940 also highlights other extreme instabilities in the curating of the collection during this period.32 Substantial levels of acquisitions were approved by the sub-committee on a monthly basis, while loans of individual objects and significant collections moved into and out of the museum with surprising speed.33 Toms consistently sought to display much of this incoming material with immediate effect and, as a result, each monthly curator’s report described how particular objects and displays had been ‘reclassified’, ‘overhauled’, ‘rearranged’, ‘temporarily stored’, ‘modified’ or ‘removed’ in order to accommodate the fluid contents of the museum’s holdings.34 Museum documentation noted how ‘questions of space’ had often made it ‘impossible to arrange the specimens in educational series’.35 By 1913, miscellaneous ethnographic objects had been physically ‘crowded out’ of the main ethnography gallery and on to the walls of two other archaeology galleries.36 With the advent of the First World War, and as museums all over the country entered the ‘difficult years’ which followed in its wake, this confused and inconsistent presentation of Brighton’s holdings began to intensify.37 Gaynor Kavanagh has described how, in the interwar period, as local governments became increasingly responsible for education services and their budgets became ever more stretched, museums became ‘the least valued of the municipal services’ in their care.38 Brighton seems to have felt the immobilising results of this difficult situation keenly: longstanding, ageing members of the museum’s sub-committee and staff, including Toms, marked time, working slowly towards the end of their careers at the same institution in cramped, understaffed, and underfunded conditions.39 There seems to have been little opportunity for strategic change and progress at management level, and this wider stagnation of the museum was typified by the director’s republication of his A Brief Synopsis of the Contents of the Brighton Public Library, Museums and Fine Art Galleries of [ 44 ]

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1908–9 almost word for word, twenty years later, for the conference of the Library Association in 1929. Under such circumstances, the ethno­ graphy gallery was described as ‘a mess’: a former museum assistant recalls the cases as ‘absolutely cluttered with stuff’, reminiscing how objects would ‘hang from the roofs of the cases’, and how ‘you could spend a whole day just looking at one case!’40 Contemporary scholarship has identified the stabilisation of meaning that occurs when an object moves into a museum.41 But the formation of a singular knowledge, or the development of a continuous theme which ‘fixed’ the meaning of these objects, is difficult to identify in the context of this particular provincial museum: plagued by a high acquisition rate early in the century, increasingly cramped conditions, and a ‘moribund’ inter-war existence, cogent socio-evolutionary perspectives at Brighton, whether typological or geographical, seem to have been contested.42

Democracy in the museum: patterns of ‘unofficial’ ­interpretation at Brighton Museum Away from the museum, however, there was plenty of additional opportunity to engage with the peoples of the British Empire and their material cultures. Brighton was one of the UK’s most prominent centres for the returned colonial elite.43 As a result, local cultural events ­celebrating empire had a particular flavour, infused, for example, by the input of people who were able to share their direct experiences of the colonies. Moreover, the particular popularity of the local charity bazaar in the Brighton area seems also to have provided Brightonians with a specific arena and a special set of tools with which to engage with the empire. Usually organised by groups of wealthy, female members of society, these events were given a particular theme, often encompassing ‘Empire’ or ‘the East’. In these contexts, ex-colonial officials, and particularly the women who had accompanied them abroad, shared their knowledge and experiences of colonial life. The organiser of one ‘Indian Bazaar’ held in 1903 ‘had recently come from India’ where her husband was a member of the Indian Council, and was able to supply a set of fabrics, brass and silverware for consideration by and sale to visitors to the bazaar.44 Similarly, at a ‘Chinese Fair’, held in the Brighton Dome in aid of the Royal Sussex County Hospital in 1920, ‘people who ha[d] had the closest of relationships with China’ provided audiences with their personal costume collections as an introduction to the region.45 Away from the museum, perceptions of non-Europeans were thus moderated by the people who had actually visited these farflung locales. Indeed, human engagement was central to the concept of these [ 45 ]

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bazaars: their staging provided an important opportunity for personal interaction and for the fostering of local community spirit.46 Such occasions were seen as ‘the big events of the year’.47 They promoted ‘sociability among the members’ of particular organisations and a ‘common enthusiasm’ for a particular cause or theme.48 An emphasis was put upon human interaction and social contact. Whether the attraction was an English person dressed up in imitation of someone from another culture, or an authentic representative of another culture (a Chinese guest, for example, who had been invited to open an event49), or whether those speaking were ‘those who know because they have been to see’, these events provided Brighton residents with a chance to communicate and engage with peers, friends, amateurs and specialists.50 Crucially, discussion and engagement with other people was actively fostered.51 Other successful events which promoted learning about and engagement with other countries also tended to incorporate an element of the personal encounter in their programmes. Lectures, talks and lantern-slide shows on themes of empire and non-European cultures were frequently advertised and reported upon in the local press. There was seemingly a regular audience, formed either from the general public or from specialist groups, for presentations on subjects such as ‘The Native Races of South Africa’, ‘India under King Asoka’ and ‘Life in New Zealand’.52 Praise for these occasions focused on the ability of a live speaker to deliver ‘intimate knowledge’ or ‘first-hand information’ to their audiences.53 Live speakers were able to draw ‘a most alluring picture’ and present ‘a vivid idea’ of their subject matter.54 Similarly, the attraction of the live performance as a mode of disseminating information about non-European cultures could also be found in local theatre productions: the themes of ‘Britannia and her Colonies’ and ‘The Masque of Empire’ were common subjects for the productions of local youth groups.55 Throughout the 1930s, the Brighton and Hove Harmonic Society brought Thomas Fairbarn’s London production of Hiawatha to Brighton (see Figure 2.2). Featuring both the famed Mohawk baritone, Chief Os-ke-non-ton, ‘curiously impressive, because he is the real thing’, and the pupils of a number of Brighton’s local dance schools, such events were the perfect combination of presumed authenticity, human interest and local participation.56 The production of knowledge and understanding of the ‘other’ in the context of this sociable, dynamic environment, ripe for individual involvement and group participation, can be seen as an important aspect of how ­Brightonians viewed the outside world. Bazaars also provided Brighton’s residents with opportunities to perform and demonstrate their creativity and imagination with regard [ 46 ]

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2.2  Miss Mavis Bennett as Minnehaha, Mr Joseph Farrington as Hiawatha and ‘Chief Os-ke-non-ton’ as the Medicine Man.

to the depiction of the empire’s peoples. At the ‘Lure of the Orient’ bazaar, which raised funds for Hove Hospital in 1924, a painting of the Taj Mahal formed the backdrop for a performance in which ‘a typical Eastern melody was played at the organ … followed by a long retinue of ladies and gentlemen in Oriental dresses’.57 An ‘Eastern Bazaar’, held in November 1909, included a similar pageant featuring ‘Stately Egyptian water-carriers of alluring charm, turbaned Hindoos of grave demeanour, dapper little Japs, sprightly Turks with the complexion of coffee, and winsome geisha borrowed from the Japanese tea-house’, each played by local residents.58 The stars of such shows may or may not have visited the countries represented in their productions and costumes, but one suspects that Master E. W. Dixon’s ‘Canadian Indian’ and Master Leonard Harrison’s ‘fearful and wonderful Zulu, black as night’, who ‘kept guard’ at the Imperial Market in 1909, were actually the products of a home-grown imagination and fantasy, linked instead to popular stereotypes proliferated by popular culture about the ‘Wild West’ and the Boer Wars.59 Indeed, popular books such as Ardern Holt’s Fancy Dresses Described, which gave advice to those who wished to produce costumes for ‘fancy balls’ or similar events, combined a desire for authenticity with a need for practicality and social etiquette: he openly suggested of his own creations that ‘no one would probably view them with more curiosity than the peasantry they are intended to portray’.60 This sense of creativity, fantasy and performance was not limited to such theatricals – objects also formed an important part of these cross-cultural negotiations. The commodities sold at the bazaars were subject to the creative efforts of charitable local women.61 At a ‘Chinese Fair’, a journalist for the Herald documented a process where, at the [ 47 ]

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hands of the organising committee, ‘humbler things’ were transformed into realistic ‘articles of the greatest beauty and interest’ available for sale: a cigar box was fashioned into ‘some rare casket inlaid with mother-o’-pearl and costly woods’, and ‘what was once a jam pot is now resplendent as a piece of Venetian ware’.62 Similarly, for their costumed cantata of ‘Britannia and her Colonies’, the boys from York Place School had made their own tomahawks and ‘scalping knives’, using ‘wood covered with tinfoil’ for their spears and shields.63 The perceptions and modes of learning formed in the world away from the museum, then, were very different from those presented by Toms and his staff. Michael Baxandall has advocated a model for exhibition analysis in which the agency of the visitor forms a crucial element of how an exhibit is received.64 The varying learning styles, life experiences, and complex motivations of museum audiences complicate even the most cogent and coherent curatorial and design mechanisms. The modern museum’s ‘master narrative’ as described by Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, or at least its successful reception, can be difficult to locate.65 Certainly in Brighton, where Toms’s displays were blighted by high acquisition rates, cramped conditions, low budgets and understaffing, his scientific arguments often became only one potential influence among many. A general picture of public reaction to the museum’s collection, built up through references sourced in the Herald, reveals how semblances of the creativity, imagination and participation demonstrated in the region’s celebrations of empire are easier to identify than the scientific or geographical interpretations instigated by Toms. Popular visions of the ‘other’ as dramatised in the local bazaar, or on the amateur stage, seem to have been projected on to the contents of the museum. Adding layers which often superseded or simplified Toms’s complex scientific correlations between material form and socio-evolutionary hierarchy, audiences saw savagery, comedy and the supernatural in their own conceptions of a more generalised ‘other’. In a report of a public tour of the museum, it was those objects most closely representing the ‘bizarre barbaric devices’ employed as stage props for the Brighton and Hove Harmonic Society’s performance of Hiawatha, or the handmade accompaniments for York Place School’s cantata, for example, that were chosen for detailed description.66 From the entire ethnography collection, it was a ‘a real cannibal mancatcher, warranted to work, … a Red Indian tomahawk … [and] the poisoned darts used by the aborigines of the Malay Peninsula’ that were selected for comment.67 At the reopening of the museum in 1902 and the unveiling of Toms’s anthropological series, the contents of the ethnography galleries were described as that ‘which gener[ 48 ]

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ally works out as a collection of the war-clubs, poisoned arrows, and more peaceful implements of savages’.68 An article covering Toms’s lecture on the contribution of Ma¯ori artefacts to evolutionary theory was entitled ‘Marvels of savage art: Comedy in the Cannibal Islands’, emphasising the popular attraction of cannibalism as a subject, and the wider appeal that anthropology had as a source of entertainment, over Toms’s careful argument.69 Toms himself was included in this picture: the Herald described his ‘wondrous stories’ and knowledge of the Stone Age, pausing to imagine him as ‘a reincarnation of one of its medicine men’.70 Another article, suitably entitled ‘In darkest Sussex’, presented a curious, mystical picture of Toms ‘wearing a red fez … and surrounded by curios from Egypt, Africa, Polynesia, and [other] equally thrilling relics … [as he] chatted … about witchcraft.’71 However, while some visitors and commentators were able to transfer their experiences on to the museum and glean something positive from their visit, others were less imaginative. Instead, for them, the museum was simply marked out as a space which failed to support the popular participatory and people-focused methods of engagement provided by the bazaar, the lecture hall and the theatre; indeed, the museum disappointed as a result. In a report of a missionary exhibition at Hove Town Hall in 1920, the scene was described as ‘laden like a museum with all manner of curiosities belonging intimately to the life and religion of the people’.72 But these comparisons were short-lived: [The fair] was, however, much more than a museum, for each section was in charge of a missionary who could, and did, speak with personal experience of life and labour in the land: and the frequent round of talks and explanations gave the exhibition abundant vitality.73

Professional concerns in the museum world were voiced about how ‘the very word “museum” excite[d] the wrong impression in the minds of people’, and how this was ‘not surprising when one consider[ed] how dull many of them ha[d] become and how low the worst of them ha[d] sunk’.74 Some Brightonians saw the town’s museum as a ‘shelter in wet weather’.75 Others regarded it as a repository of ‘old bones and stones’.76 Despite the presence of Toms as a public figure, it would appear that the museum’s publics needed more participation and personal input into the learning experience. Envisioned as quiet, didactic, strictly monitored funeral parlours, museums such as that at Brighton had an alternative ‘reputation for being dusty places where dead objects rested’.77 The experts, live shows, performances and participation of the fairs and bazaars were sorely missed at the museum. Of course, the alienation caused by this lack of opportunity for personal involvement in the construction of knowledge is at the heart of [ 49 ]

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current debates in contemporary visitor and learning studies. Increasingly, models for object- and gallery-based experiences which accept ‘the possibility of socially mediated learning’ have influenced best practice in the heritage industry.78 In his ‘Constructivist Museum’, George Hein ‘makes provision for social interaction’, designing spaces, constructing exhibitions, and organising programs which ‘deliberately capitalize on learning as a social activity’.79 Jeremy Roschelle asserts that ‘learning proceeds primarily from prior knowledge and only second­arily from the presented materials’, highlighting the distortion that can occur if the two entities are at odds with each other.80 The methods of engagement with Brighton Museum’s ethnography collections as discussed in this chapter highlight the desire for personal involvement and demonstration of prior knowledge during the learning experience, thus lending an eloquent historical case study to such discussions. Certainly, the museum was a major protagonist in the circulation of wider impressions of empire and imperial narratives within Brighton. Toms, as a museum curator, lent an institutional authority that was distinct from the first-hand but subjective experiences of the missionaries and colonial officials who had spent time in the colonies, and separate from the whimsy of the town’s amateur dramatic clubs and bazaar organisers. Despite the issues raised, the museum and its ethno­ graphic collections did provide an important opportunity to expand existing understandings of the ‘Oriental’ or ‘savage’ ‘other’, supplying an alternative framework within which to reaffirm these ideas and narratives, and presenting a creative forum for projecting and exploring them further. The museum’s collections may well have directly inspired the creativity of local audiences and, as objects made and perhaps used by non-Europeans in their indigenous contexts, they had the capacity to evoke the agency and creative choices of their source communities in ways that the props manufactured by Brightonians could not. The rich and multiple histories of many of the museum’s objects – visually clear through the erosions and alterations to their physical states, and highlighted in their associated interpretation and documentation – evoked different meanings from the pristine, unused items sold at the missionary exhibitions and charity bazaars. This volume seeks to test the impact of the individual curator on the dynamics of empire. In Toms’s case, his success in informing and instructing his publics as to the evolutionary status of man and the diversity of humanity throughout the British Empire was limited. Certainly, Toms’s address would have resonated with the select elements of his audience who were familiar with these issues. However, for his wider, more general audience, his ‘disciplinary technologies’ and [ 50 ]

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experiments with objects as indicators of socio-evolutionary theory became blurred by the practical problems of the provincial museum. In practice, audiences combined their own expectations and learning requirements with messages put forward by the museum’s displays, forming a complex amalgam of impressions about the world which were no means dominated by the museum. Both inside and away from the museum, individual perspectives were rife; different audiences had nuanced and particular attitudes to both the museum and the diverse peoples of the empire. The peoples of the empire were not collated to form a single ‘other’: the imagined ‘winsome geisha’ of the bazaar was not equated with the ‘primeval’ cast of Hiawatha, just as the museum’s Japanese pottery collection was conceptually distinct from the cannibal man-catchers highlighted during a tour of the museum.81 For many in Brighton Museum, however, ‘science’ seems to have been largely shunned, and popular types forged in the outside world appear to have reigned supreme.

Notes  1 Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn, ‘Introduction’, in Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (eds), Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 1–8, p. 4.  2 See, for example, James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagin­ation in Late-Victorian and Edwardian England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).  3 The important contributions of Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (London: Routledge, 1995), and Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1992), have been particularly influenced by Michel Foucault’s principles of disciplined surveillance and power/ knowledge as applied in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Allen Lane, 1977).  4 Kate Hill, Culture and Class in English Public Museums, 1850–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), p. 6; Lara Kriegel, ‘After the exhibitionary complex: Museum histories and the future of the Victorian past’, Victorian Studies, 48:4 (2006), 681–704.  5 Mark Elliott, ‘Behind the scenes at the magic house: An ethnography of the Indian Museum, Calcutta’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2003, p. 18.  6 S. F. Markham, The Museums and Galleries of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, 1938), p. 47.  7 Scholars have identified the need for such studies. See Marcia Pointon: ‘Introduction’, in Marcia Pointon (ed.), Art Apart: Art Institutions and Ideology in England and North America from 1800 to the Present (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 1–5, pp. 2–3, and Nick Prior, Museums and Modernity: Art Galleries and the Making of Modern Culture (Oxford: Berg, 2002), p. 6.  8 Samuel J. M. M. Alberti, ‘Placing nature: Natural history collections and their owners in provincial nineteenth-century England’, British Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2002), 291–311; Hill, Culture and Class, p. 6.  9 Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 136–46. Findlen’s discussions are based on visitors’ books attached to early modern natu-

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ralists’ private museums. Liesbet Nys, ‘The public’s signatures: Visitors’ books in nineteenth-century museums’, Museum History Journal, 2:2 (2009), 143–61. Nys’s discussions are based on Belgian visitors’ books. 10 Nys, ‘The public’s signatures’, p. 155; Findlen, Possessing Nature, pp. 143–4; Sharon MacDonald, ‘Accessing audiences: Visiting visitor books’, Museum and Society, 3:3 (2005), 119–36, p. 125. 11 MacDonald, ‘Accessing audiences’, p. 122. Brighton Museum has not retained its historical visitors’ books, if they ever existed. 12 Ronald Grele, ‘Movement without aim: Methodological and theoretical problems in oral history’, in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds), The Oral History Reader (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 38–52. 13 Rosemary Flanders, ‘Early museums and nineteenth-century media’, in Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (ed.), Museum, Media, Message (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 72–81, p. 72. 14 Thomas E. Patterson, ‘The news as a reflection of public opinion’, in W. Donsbach and M. W. Traugott (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research (London: SAGE, 2008), pp. 34–40, p. 34. 15 Ibid. 16 Maxwell E. McCombs, Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and Public Opinion (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), p. xiv. 17 The Brighton Herald and Hove Chronicle changed its name to Brighton & Hove Herald in November 1922. The moniker of Herald will be used here throughout. 18 Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 13. 19 Timothy Carder, The Encyclopaedia of Brighton (Lewes: East Sussex County Libra­ ries, 1990), entry 127. 20 S. Farrant, K. Fossey and A. Peasgood, The Growth of Brighton and Hove, 1840–1939 (Brighton: University of Sussex, Centre for Continuing Education, 1981), pp. 13–16. 21 Henry D. Roberts, The Brighton Public Library, Museums and Fine Art Galleries: A Retrospect, reprinted from the Library Association Record (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press Limited, 1908), pp. 1–2. 22 Claire Wintle, Colonial Collecting and Display: Representations and Encounters through Material Culture of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Oxford: Berghahn, forthcoming). 23 Editions of the Official Guide were published in 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1913. The references throughout and the descriptions here are taken from the ‘Ground Floor Plan, Brighton Museum’ in Official Guide to the Public Library, Museum and Fine Art Galleries, 5th edn (Brighton: County Borough of Brighton, 1913), pp. 4–5. 24 Official Guide, p. 13. 25 Ralph Merrifield, ‘Some personal memories of H. S. Toms’, in G. A. Holleyman, Two Dorset Archaeologists in Sussex: Lieut. General Pitt Rivers in Sussex, 1867–1878 and Herbert Samuel Toms, Curator of the Brighton Museum, 1896–1939 (privately printed, 1987), pp. 29–39, p. 35. 26 Herbert S. Toms cited in ‘Marvels of savage art: Comedy in the Cannibal Islands’, Herald, 1 May 1909, p. 6. 27 Ibid. 28 During his employment with Pitt Rivers, Toms’s sleeping quarters were based in his employer’s museum at Farnham, giving him ample opportunity to engage with the collection of ethnographic material stored there. Indeed, Toms’s grandson Richard has remarked that his grandfather ‘cannot have been anything other than influenced by Pitt Rivers’ (Richard Toms [H. S. Toms’s grandson], in an interview with the author, 10 August 2007). 29 Herbert S. Toms cited in ‘Marvels of savage art: Comedy in the Cannibal Islands’, Herald, 1 May 1909, p. 6; Herbert S. Toms, ‘Notes on recent developments at the Brighton Museum, prepared for the Museums Association, Brighton Meeting, 1911’, Museums Journal, 11:4 (1911), 93–111, p. 97. 30 Augustus Lane Fox, Catalogue of the Anthropological Collection Lent by Colonel Lane Fox for Exhibition in the Bethnal Green Branch of the South Kensington

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Museum, Part I and II (London: Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education, 1874), p. 71; Herbert S. Toms, ‘Notes and News: Museums’, Brighton Library & Museum Record, 1:3 (1906), 1–2, p. 2 31 E. B. T[ylor], ‘Anthropology’, in Hugh Chisholm (ed.), The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn, 29 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910–11), vol. 1, p. 116. 32 Tony Bennett, Pasts Beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums, Colonialism (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 174, 167. 33 This was despite the fact that by 1900 a loans policy had already been formulated, which dictated that ‘no loan be accepted for a period of less than a year’. See Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove (RPMBH), Museum sub-committee meeting minutes, 21 December 1900, cited in the RPMBH, Library, Museums and Fine Arts Committee meeting minutes, 27 December 1900, p. 20. 34 These terms litter the curator’s reports in the museum’s sub-committee meeting minutes (now in the archive of the RPMBH) throughout this period. 35 Official Guide to the Public Library, Museum and Fine Art Galleries, 2nd edn (Brighton: County Borough of Brighton, 1909), p. 19; Henry D. Roberts, A Brief Synop­ sis of the Contents of the Brighton Public Library, Museums and Fine Art Galleries, Specially Prepared for the Conference of the Library Association, September, 1929 (Brighton, 1929), p. 3. 36 Official Guide, 5th edn, pp. 13, 16. 37 Gaynor Kavanagh, Museums and the First World War: A Social History (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1994), p. 171. 38 Ibid., pp. 162–3. 39 Winifred Patchin, Museum Assistant (1934–76), in an interview with the author, 18 March 2008. 40 Ibid. 41 David Jenkins, ‘Object lessons and ethnographic displays: Museum exhibitions and the making of American anthropology’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 36:1 (1994), 242–70, p. 255. 42 Kavanagh, Museums and the First World War, p. 162. 43 Elizabeth Buettner, Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 19. 44 ‘Indian bazaar at the Hove Town Hall’, Herald, 14 February 1903, p. 8. 45 ‘The Chinese fair: Opening by Chinese minister’, Herald, 27 November 1920, p. 8. 46 On the development of the charity bazaar throughout Victorian England, and the social and entertainment aspects of such events, see Frank K. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 47–72. 47 ‘“The lure of the Orient”: The great Hove Hospital bazaar’, Herald, 25 November 1924, p. 4. 48 ‘Imperial market at St. Saviour’s’, Herald, 20 November 1909, p. 4, and Mrs Hoskyns, married to the Vicar of Brighton, cited in ‘An Eastern bazaar: Church extension at Aldrington’, Herald, 20 November 1909, p. 4. 49 ‘Sao Ke’, ‘Alfred Sze’ and ‘Madame Sze’ were, for example, present at the Chinese Fair at the Dome in November 1920. See ‘The Chinese fair: Opening by Chinese minister’, Herald, 27 November 1920, p. 8. The transformation of the Royal Pavilion into a hospital for wounded Indian soldiers between 1914 and 1916 was, of course, another opportunity for such personal interaction with people from other countries. See Joyce Collins, Dr Brighton’s Indian patients, December 1914 – January 1916 (Brighton: Brighton Books, 1997). 50 ‘From the seven seas: Great missionary exhibition in the Dome’, Herald, 24 November 1900, p. 5. 51 Sarah Cheang has commented on the fair and the bazaar as unique occasions for ‘learning by doing’ and offering the opportunity to participate. See Sarah Cheang, ‘“Our Missionary Wembley”: China, local community and The British Missionary Empire, 1901–1924’, East Asian History, 32/33 (2007), 177–98, p. 191. 52 ‘The native races of South Africa’, Herald, 13 March 1909, p. 6; ‘Entertainments and meetings’, Herald, 25 October 1919, p. 3; ‘A journey through New Zealand’, Herald,

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1 December 1923, p. 8. 53 ‘A journey through New Zealand’, Herald, 1 December 1923, p. 8; ‘The native races of South Africa’, Herald, 13 March 1909, p. 6. 54 ‘Lure of the South Pacific’, Herald, 22 November 1919, p. 11. 55 ‘York Place School entertainment: Tableaux and costume cantata’, Herald, 21 February 1903, p. 3; ‘Girl Guides’ “Masque of Empire”’, Herald, 23 May 1925, p. 10. 56 ‘“Hiawatha” as spectacle: Impressive scenes in the Dome: Music, colour and action’, Herald, 2 December 1933, p. 5. Performing as the medicine man in the Royal Albert Hall production between 1924 and 1936, like many Kahnawake performers, Os-kenon-ton seems to have adjusted his indigenous clothing to meet the expectations of audiences who equated Plains feather bonnets and hide clothing as the standard of ‘Indianness’. See Trudy Nicks, ‘Indian villages and entertainments: Setting the stage for tourist souvenir sales’, in Ruth B. Phillips and Christopher B. Steiner (eds), Unpacking Culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 301–15, p. 305. 57 ‘“The lure of the Orient”: The great Hove Hospital bazaar’, Herald, 25 October 1924, p. 4. 58 ‘An eastern bazaar: Church extension at Aldrington’, Herald, 20 November 1909, p. 4. 59 ‘Imperial market at St. Saviour’s’, Herald, 20 November 1909, p. 4. 60 Ardern Holt, Fancy Dresses Described; Or What to Wear at Fancy Balls, 4th edn (London: Debenham & Freebody, 1884), p. 1. 61 The charity bazaar has been widely contextualised as a space for the development of women’s creativity and philanthropy. See Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, pp. 57–8; Frank K. Prochaska, The Voluntary Impulse: Philanthropy in Modern Britain (London: Faber and Faber, 1988), pp. 65–6; Simon Morgan, A Victorian Woman’s Place: Public Culture in the Nineteenth Century (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), pp. 116–25. 62 ‘When the Dome becomes Chinese: Preparing for Great Bazaar’, Herald, 20 November 1920, p. 8. 63 ‘York Place School entertainment: Tableaux and costume cantata’, Herald, 21 February 1903, p. 3. 64 Michael Baxandall, ‘Exhibiting intention: Some preconditions of the visual display of culturally purposeful objects’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), pp. 33–41. 65 Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 24–5. 66 ‘“Hiawatha” as spectacle: Impressive scenes in the Dome: Music, colour and action’, Herald, 2 December 1933, p. 5. 67 ‘A tour through the Brighton Museum’, Herald, 17 April 1909, p. 6. 68 ‘Our new home of art: The re-modelled Library, Museum, and Art Galleries’, Herald, 1 November 1902, p. 2. 69 ‘Marvels of savage art: Comedy in the Cannibal Islands’, Herald, 1 May 1909, p. 6; Henrika Kuklick, The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 13. 70 ‘Archaeology and holidays’, Herald, 5 November 1910, p. 5. 71 ‘In darkest Sussex’, West Sussex Gazette, 14 November 1929, p. 11. 72 ‘Foreign scenes in Hove Town Hall: Interesting missionary exhibition’, Herald, 4 December 1920, p. 11. 73 Ibid. 74 Henry Miers, A Report on the Public Museums of the British Isles, Other than the National Museums (Edinburgh: Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, 1928), p. 80. 75 ‘Does Hove need a museum? A shelter in wet weather! N.C.U. opposition’, Herald, 24 January 1925, p. 4. See the directors’ own concerns about how visiting occurred ‘because they either drift in or it is a wet day’: ‘Treasures in our Art Gallery: Lecture by Mr. Henry D. Roberts’, Herald, 24 April 1909, p. 5. 76 ‘Science Notes’, Herald, 28 April 1900, p. 3.

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77 Kavanagh, Museums and the First World War, p. 174. 78 George E. Hein, Learning in the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 174. 79 Ibid. 80 Jeremy Roschelle, ‘Learning in interactive environments: Prior knowledge and new experience’, in J. H. Falk and L. D. Dierking (eds), Public Institutions for Personal Learning: Establishing a Research Agenda (Washington DC: American Association for Museums, 1995), pp. 37–51, p. 37. 81 ‘“Hiawatha” as spectacle’, Herald, 2 December 1933, p. 5.

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Chapter three

Carving out a place in the better Britain of the South Pacific: Ma¯ori in New Zealand museums and exhibitions Conal McCarthy

Studying colonial history reminds us that in the most oppressive of poli­ tical systems, people found not just niches in which to hide and fend for themselves, but handles by which the system itself could be moved.1

Introduction: the past in the present … leave us with the past; In memr’y let us wander back Amid the scenes we loved of yore. There let us roam, untrammell’d, free. For mem’ry, like that herb, embalms, Preserves, endears our recollections.2

This excerpt from a heroic poem ‘A scene from the past’, written by ¯ Ma¯ori leader Apirana Ngata in 1892 while a student at Canterbury University College in Christchurch, New Zealand, shows a grasp of English literary conventions as well as a new Ma¯ori outlook on culture and tradition – a view that contradicted both contemporary beliefs in a dying race and modern theories of cultural invention. Ngata and his generation of politicians, the Young Ma¯ori Party which worked on the inside of government in the early twentieth century, felt that the maintenance of cultural heritage was essential for survival and development in the present and future. Memory was not nostalgia; it was a political weapon. They did not want merely to preserve the past but to revive it, not as a prelude to assimilation but to bolster their claim on modernity. Ma¯ori participation in museums and exhibitions was [ 56 ]

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therefore part of an overall strategy to become part of the nation, the empire and the modern world. This chapter presents a new perspective on museums and empire seen from the ‘other’ side, offering an indigenous view that contradicts some scholarly assumptions about the display of the Other. In the next section I briefly review the international literature, which calls for a more historicised approach to museums and empire, and New Zealand research which points to the specific local experience of empire as a ‘middle ground’ between coloniser and colonised. The idea of recolonisation is used to reframe the understanding of cultural difference within settler society, through the voices and actions of Ma¯ori people who saw themselves as ‘Brown Britons’ adding a distinctive Polynesian tinge to the identity of this ‘Britain of the South’.3 These theories are then applied to three case studies which demonstrate a strong Ma¯ori interest in the Western culture of museums, history and heritage: the Colonial Museum in the nineteenth century, and the proposal for a National Ma¯ori Museum in 1902; the Festival of Empire in 1911; and the Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924. It is argued that the Ma¯ori involvement in museums was the result of complex personal relationships between professional staff and Ma¯ori individuals negotiated through specific collections, displays and events. I conclude that, by exhibiting their taonga (cultural treasures/goods) in museums and exhibitions, Ma¯ori people were recalling the past but were also looking to the future in an active engagement with Europe and the world.

Museums and empire: doing history historically Museums are often portrayed in the literature as blunt instruments of empire, and contemporary analysis casts a cold eye on the historical role such institutions played in colonialism. Today many scholars tend to adopt a theoretically correct posture towards the institutions, artefacts and people implicated in imperialism which are gleefully deconstructed in a ‘colonial critique’.4 ‘For many Europeans India was a vast museum’, writes Bernard Cohn. Museology was one of the ‘investigative modalities’ of the colonial project by which ‘knowledge is produced and employed to govern’.5 Culture was not innocent, we are reminded, it was part of the armoury of conquest. ‘Colonialism was made possible, and then sustained and strengthened, as much by cultural technologies of rule’, argues Nicholas Dirks, ‘as it was by the more obvious and brutal modes of conquest that first established power on foreign shores.’6 In the field of museum studies, a predilection for theory over history has produced writing which presents museums as synonymous with [ 57 ]

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empire.7 In contrast, historians have fleshed out the bare bones of museum histories in the Victorian period, providing more light and shade in their analysis. John MacKenzie recently provided a comprehensive survey of colonial museums within a ‘British world’, the kind of groundwork that addresses the gaps in this area pointed out by scholars.8 The collection of essays in this volume, derived from a conference on museums, material culture and empire held in October 2009, follow up MacKenzie’s lead in exploring new territory and setting fresh research agendas. Museum history needs to be reconnected with new work on colonisation and empire, particularly from the disciplines of history and anthropology, which contextualises cultural institutions in their social and cultural networks and provides a more nuanced analysis of culture and agency in colonial encounters.9 In contrast to the ‘invention of tradition’ school which dismisses indigenous attempts at cultural maintenance and revival, such scholars of the Pacific remind us that indigenous people survive and construct their own modernities.10 ‘The image of colonialism as a coherent, monolithic process seems, at last, to be wearing thin’, writes John Comaroff. His work has sought to ‘treat as problematic the making of both colonisers and colonised in order to understand better the forces that, over time, have drawn them into an incredibly intricate web of relations’.11 Frederick Cooper criticises post-colonial studies for treating colonialism ‘abstractly, generically, as something to be juxtaposed with an equally flat vision of European “modernity”’.12 He laments the tendency to ‘do history backward’: Trying to illuminate present issues is a fine motivation for exploring the past, but as one looks backward, one risks anachronism: confusing the analytic categories of the present with the native categories of the past, as if people acted in search of identity or to build a nation when such ways of thinking might not have been available to them. Even more important is what one does not see: the paths not taken, the dead-ends of historical processes, the alternatives that appeared to people in their own time.13

Cooper suggests a more rigorous historical method – ‘doing history historically’ – that includes both coloniser and colonised in the same analytical frame, taking account of the fact that ‘both makers of empire and indigenous leaders operated within an imperial framework’.14 He also urges us to resist the temptation to discount indigenous response as futile, a version of the fatal impact theory. ‘The view of an atemporal modern colonialism goes along with a notion of resistance as heroic but vain’, writes Cooper.15 The ‘fiction of a Manichean state’ that underlies the orthodox view of colonialism has also privileged [ 58 ]

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‘certain forms of opposition and denied legitimacy to others’ so that heroic struggles by independent rebels against the oppressor are seen as being preferable to ‘forms of political action and claim-making that depended on overlapping idioms and interaction between coloniser and colonized’.16 Native peoples who work with Europeans rather than in open conflict against them can be dismissed as collaborators. Another problem with overtheorised studies of colonial museums and exhibitions is the facile way that contemporary notions of difference, identity and nation states have been back-projected on to the past. Empires did not necessarily exhibit the ‘racialised difference’ of self/other, coloniser/colonised or the quest for national identity that we read about in the critique of nineteenth-century European colonies. Burbank and Cooper point out that an empire could be made up of ‘an assemblage of peoples’. There were many instances of a ‘recognition of difference’ through the empowering of local leaders who could ‘manage their people’ within empire. Difference could be ‘a fact and an opportunity, not an obsession’.17 When it comes to museums, the literature in the Pacific is unfortunately distinguished by an enthusiasm for post-colonial theory that is not always backed up by historical method or an understanding of museum practice.18 A number of Ma¯ori critics have applied postcolonial language to the museal fate of Ma¯ori artefacts as objects of an ‘imperialist gaze’.19 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, borrowing from Edward Said, suggests that knowledge about traditional Ma¯ori culture was constructed by Pakeha (European New Zealanders) in the colonial period in the form of a Western discourse about the Other which allowed them to control Ma¯ori by studying, describing and authorising their culture.20 Paul Tapsell’s work on the recent return of Ma¯ori taonga (treasures) to tribal control draws a stark and overly simplistic distinction between enlightened museum practice in the present and the sins of the historical past.21 Surprisingly, many studies of New Zealand museums have not taken note of the local scholarship which stresses the complexity of the indigenous relationship with Europeans and the British Empire.22 As Chris Hilliard has put it: ‘Maori “cultural brokers,” mixed-race people, Pakeha who spoke Maori, and the “Pakeha–Maori” who lived among indigenous communities worked between cultures in contexts where colonial power relations were far from settled.’23 One of the few works by local scholars to deal specifically with museums and empire is a book by Amiria Henare which does emphasise the close connections and exchange between museums in Britain and New Zealand observed through the emerging discipline of anthropology.24 The early Ma¯ori enthusiasm for books and literacy mean that Ma¯ori[ 59 ]

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language sources in archives and published in newspapers and journals give us a window on an indigenous world in the process of colonisation. Historian Lachy Paterson’s work uncovers a range of Ma¯ori experiences and responses in this period, including fierce opposition to European encroachment and defence of their mana (authority, power, respect) but also enthusiasm for new technology, material progress, and an openness to travel, education and business. Much of the govern­ ment discourse in Ma¯ori-language newspapers was certainly aimed at the assimilation of Ma¯ori into a European lifestyle, but these voices were challenged by others, especially in Ma¯ori-run newspapers, which articulated a strong Ma¯ori belief that they could advance into the modern world under their own rules.25 ‘Some of these Ma¯ori voices in the newspapers reflected opinions that do not always sit comfortably with views of history in which (good) Ma¯ori tribes resist (evil) Pakeha colonialism’, writes Paterson. ‘Such histories tend to marginalise those Ma¯ori who did not actively resist colonisation as having been duped or indoctrinated.’26 Despite the modern-day criticism of Ma¯ori who worked within the system, the generation of young educated politicians who made ¯ up the Young Ma¯ori Party (James Carroll, Apirana Ngata, Peter Buck, Ma¯ui Po¯mare) were not dupes who merely facilitated assimilation into mainstream society but facilitators who successfully preserved a degree of Ma¯ori independence in ‘a kind of benign segregation’. In the cultural sphere in particular, as we shall see, there are plenty of examples of Ngata’s ‘brilliantly subversive cooperation’.27 The museum, like sports, war and politics, was the stage for an indigenous engagement with the settler state through which they blunted the power of the dominant culture and advanced their own causes. As Ngata joked in a letter to Peter Buck: ‘One foot on the Pakeha brake and the other on the Ma¯ori accelerator, how will the car stand it?’28 Historian James Belich has emphasised the relatively ‘good news’ of Ma¯ori adaptation and survival (despite the undoubted destruction and loss), in contrast to the ‘bad news’ now usually recounted, arguing that Ma¯ori resistance to, and cooperation with, British colonisation is a ‘great survival story’.29 There were clearly plenty of disadvantages for Ma¯ori as a result of British rule, and particularly direct settler rule, but we should not overlook the concessions Ma¯ori did manage to achieve. Underneath the old myth of racial harmony, there was much intermarriage and interaction in a small country, and an absence of the formal discrimination seen in other settler colonies (if not casual racism). Ma¯ori had rights enshrined in the Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840, were members of Parliament from the 1860s, and of national sports teams from the 1880s, graduated from universities from the 1890s, and [ 60 ]

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were regarded as artists and performers of national importance from the 1900s.30 Importantly, Belich’s theory about the revolution in Anglosettler societies, in which they remade themselves through a process of ‘recolonisation’, makes it possible for a reconsideration of the position of indigenous people within empire. As he points out, if contact history was ‘skewed by myths of European superiority’, then modern history has been distorted by ‘victim ideology’ which ‘obscures the success of indigenous resistance, and co-existence’. ‘What was done to non-European peoples outranks what they did about it’, Belich writes; ‘their tragedy outranks their agency’.31 I have found that Belich’s ideas about settler society and recolonisation can be usefully employed to reconceptualise Ma¯ori involvement in Pakeha cultures of collecting and display, which can be seen as part of a larger struggle to create a more equitable space for themselves in New Zealand society. According to Belich, the first period of ‘progressive colonisation’, focused on explosive expansion and the extraction of resources from the new colony as a Neo-Britain, was characterised by a competitive attitude to London. Then from the 1880s we find New Zealand recasting itself as a loyal offspring of the Mother country, a Better Britain of the South Pacific. This social and economic shift, which he calls recolonisation, was the result of the renewal and reshaping of links between colony and metropolis based on the new protein industry (frozen meat and dairy products) by which New Zealand functioned like a ‘town supply’ sending primary produce to the guaranteed market 12,000 miles away at ‘Home’.32 As the Better Britain, however, New Zealand was not an independent nation state with a national identity as we would understand that today. Rather, this subnationalist ‘Dominionist’ identity in settler society, as in other settler ‘newlands’ like Australia and Canada, was firmly British, but with a few local inflections which gave it a distinctive quality.33 The white Dominions under recolonisation were racially exclusive in terms of their immigration policy, keeping out the Chinese and other minorities, but included Celtic, Nordic and, in New Zealand, even Aryanised Polynesians as ‘sun-tanned whites’.34 The Better Britain of the South Pacific was ‘more British than the British’ but frequently presented itself with Ma¯ori symbolism to distinguish itself from other colonies.35 An example was the art, design, literature and music of ‘Maoriland’ which flourished between the 1890s and the 1920s, as seen in the poem which opens this chapter. But how were indigenous elements co-opted for this national imagery without disrupting the Britishness of New Zealand society? Belich explains: A distinctive history and a distinctive set of cultural symbols borrowed from Ma¯ori provided … runes and ruins for a runeless and ruinless land.

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The beauty of it was that such distinctiveness, the distinguishing ‘golden tinge’ in New Zealand culture, did not threaten the recolonial imperative of racial homogeneity and Britishness, because Ma¯ori were Aryan – virtually Brown Britons.36

This extraordinary merging of Ma¯ori into recolonial society was made possible through the myth of the Aryan Ma¯ori. The ‘whitening’ of Ma¯ori as fellow Aryans was proposed in a popular book by Edward Tregear which claimed spurious Ma¯ori ancestry from Europe, remaking them into a race of honorary whites who were therefore capable of civilisation.37 Of course Maoriland is now seen as embarassingly nationalistic and the idea of Aryan Ma¯ori dismissed as nonsense, but people at the time clearly felt differently about this (much as it might embarrass their descendants today, both Ma¯ori and Pakeha). Ma¯ori may very well have seen through it at the time, yet many appear genuinely to have seen themselves as Brown Britons and expressed their dual heritage in a range of ways: language, clothing and the arts. They did not necessarily see any contradiction between a concern for their traditional heritage and the consumption of the products and benefits of a British world. A vivid picture of the syncretic material world in which they lived is provided by an English visitor who observed the Ma¯ori welcome at Rotorua to the future King, the Duke of York, on the royal tour of 1901: There was a curious mingling of the old and new. Deeply tattooed warriors some of whom had witnessed a cannibal feast, rubbed noses with young men who rode bicycles and pounded the big drum in the brass band. … It was one huge fancy ball, full of fantastic anachronisms ­characteristic of a time of transition.38

The Ma¯ori enthusiasm for royal regalia and imagery, a taste for British goods and British arts, and a strong appetite for travel and education, are all features of the writing in the Ma¯ori language which includes diaries, journals and letters plus articles published in newspapers and magazines.39 These accounts suggest that many Ma¯ori saw themselves as British subjects of an empire that belonged to them just as much as their fellow Pakeha New Zealanders, and therefore as deserving of its material progress and benefits as anyone else. Ma¯ori travellers usually saw themselves as on a par with Europeans, and often on a higher level than other colonised peoples with whom they came into contact. There is abundant evidence of Ma¯ori loyalty to the empire. In the South African War of 1899–1902, ‘His Majesty’s Ma¯ori sons of Empire’ declared their readiness to fight to maintain the mana (respect, authority) of the sovereign, the empire and the nation.40 As soon as war was declared in Europe in 1914, there was intense pressure from Ma¯ori poli[ 62 ]

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ticians and tribal leaders to allow volunteers to fight in the defence of king and country (which led to a change in the rules that originally forbade native involvement in European wars). Pakeha praised this display of Ma¯ori bravery and loyalty. ‘I would not be afraid to trust the Ma¯ori in war’, declared an elderly missionary: ‘He will be truly British.’41

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The Colonial Museum: objects, visitors, biographies The Colonial Museum was established in the capital city of Wellington in 1865, only twenty-five years after the colony became part of the British Empire with the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. In many ways its orientation and trappings were decidedly colonial, in terms of its name, its links to the Colonial Office, its function as the scientific wing of the settler government, and its role in celebrating links with empire through events such as the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886.42 However, like other major New Zealand museums, its policy and practices were not solely determined in London, and anyway a host of practical problems with buildings, money and resources meant that the daily reality of the Colonial Museum was a far cry from the current picture of museums as the Foucauldian power-houses of empire.43 Despite these shortcomings the director James Hector had considerable room to steer his own path, in relation to the New Zealand Institute of which it was a part, not to mention the myriad other government scientific functions it had to perform: geological survey, meteorological office, observatory, botanic gardens and so on.44 Recent scholarship has revealed evidence of Ma¯ori contact with colonial museums and exhibitions in the nineteenth century, and especially the early twentieth century, as visitors but also as donors, informants, mediators, collaborators, and in a few cases as staff and patrons of museums and related projects.45 An example is the visitors’ books at the Partridge Collection, a private gallery in Auckland where portraits of Ma¯ori by Gottfried Lindauer were displayed. They show that Ma¯ori visited frequently, paid close attention to the works and responded effusively to these lifelike records of fondly remembered ancestors.46 Evidence of Ma¯ori visitation to the Colonial Museum is provided by signatures in visitors’ books from the time it opened in 1865 until after the turn of the century when the books were no longer used. While there was no room in the book for comments, there are a few clues about the attraction the museum may have held for Ma¯ori. After the installation of the famous meeting house Te Hau ki Tu¯ranga in early 1868 there was a notable increase in Ma¯ori signing their names in the [ 63 ]

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visitors’ books.47 Over forty Ma¯ori visited in June and July, several of them more than once, with one ‘G Aperaniko’ from Whanganui visiting no less than six times between July and September. At the end of June, a large group of twenty-four Te Arawa and Whanganui people went to the museum, among them notable loyalist chiefs Ke¯pa Te Rangihiwinui (Major Kemp) and Metekingi, who took a seat in Parliament that year. It seems highly probable that these prominent leaders from loyalist tribes, which Belich calls the Ma¯ori winners of the New Zealand wars, came to inspect the magnificent whare whakairo (carved meeting house) that had recently been put on display.48 Records of specific responses to the Colonial Museum are rare. One letter from a Ma¯ori visitor has survived which provides a valuable contemporary reaction to the displays. This rangatira (chief) visited the museum on 9 June 1874, and wrote to James Hector the same day. He told the director that he liked the museum ‘and the things in it’, and that it was a good place for ‘both Ma¯ori and for Pakeha’ to see displays. He was obviously impressed with what he saw, perhaps most of all by the foreign exhibits, because he praises the Pakeha for arranging these ‘industries of the world’. He ends by praying that ‘God will guide you the Pakeha in your important work’. But despite these positive comments, a more sombre tone appears when the writer says he thought it was bad that ‘dead things’ (‘nga¯ mea mate’) were displayed. Whether he was referring here to taxidermied animals, or to human remains which may have been on display, is not clear.49 Reports, diaries and letters in the Ma¯ori language suggest Ma¯ori people were genuinely interested in museums, exhibitions and related institutions in New Zealand and overseas.50 One report in a Ma¯ori newspaper in 1882 about the Auckland Museum described it as a ‘Whare-kohinga-mea-rereke¯’ (house for collecting extraordinary things), but also used the transliteration ‘Muhiama’ (museum). Readers were told that this was a place where ‘Pakeha and Ma¯ori go to look at numerous excellent objects … collected from many lands around the world’. They were urged to visit the museum ‘to gaze at all the taonga (treasures/goods) heaped up there’.51 There was some Ma¯ori interest in the New Zealand courts at world’s fairs where Ma¯ori objects were displayed, but they seem to have been interested in all the displays and not simply their own material culture, or New Zealand products alone.52 Terei Nga¯tai, a Ma¯ori soldier visiting London in 1902 as part of a contingent attending the coronation of King Edward VII, wrote rapturous accounts of all the sights he saw for the Ma¯ori Anglican journal Te Pipiwharauroa. ‘The Exhibition Building (British Museum) is another wonderful place’, he wrote, ‘where all kinds of things have been amassed.’53 There was also some Ma¯ori interest in the proposal [ 64 ]

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for a permanent colonial display in London in the form of a proposed Imperial Museum in the 1870s.54 All this evidence in Ma¯ori, previously absent from the literature, attests to the diverse indigenous reaction to the Western culture of display which should cause us to revise our assumptions about colonial museums and exhibitions. Another surprising feature of the colonial period was the fluid nature of categories of collection and display which allowed space for indi­ genous intervention. Victorian curators did not necessarily distinguish between categories of objects that later were more firmly separated within disciplines, so that Ma¯ori artefacts were variously collected and exhibited as curios, specimens, manufactures and even as art.55 At the Industrial Exhibition in Wellington in 1885 a government notice in Ma¯ori was sent out to encourage tribes to send exhibits, which used the word taonga for both agricultural produce and handmade crafts, so that they might ‘show the treasures/goods of all the people of our country’. 56 It was not uncommon to find greater Ma¯ori involvement in commercial realms than the formal setting of museums or scientific endeavours, because shops, fairs and trade expositions were more likely to include indigenous objects and to do so in ways which approximated their own cultural frameworks – for example, the notion of objects as taonga (treasure/goods). Despite this solicitation, the Wellington exhibition of 1885 obviously did not receive many exhibits from Ma¯ori, something that was noted in the press. ‘Visitors to the Exhibition will probably be a good deal surprised at the conspicuous absence of any representation of Ma¯ori manufactures or art’, observed the Evening Post. The reporter suggested that ‘leading native chiefs’ be encouraged to attend the exhibition as they ‘would probably gain as much instruction from an inspection of the exhibits as any other class of visitors [wa]s likely to derive’.57 If official museum discourses contained elements of rational recreation and social improvement, they also reflected attempts by Ma¯ori leaders to steer government preservation campaigns towards their own aims, contributing to the museumification of the ‘Ma¯ori as he was’ in order to save their customary culture. A good example was the project to establish a National Ma¯ori Museum, which was the result of an intercultural partnership between two men: Englishman Augustus Hamilton, who was the author of the influential book Ma¯ori Art and soon to become director of the Colonial Museum, and the leading Ma¯ori politician James Carroll, who was the bicultural and bilingual offspring of an Irish father and a Ma¯ori mother. These two men were thrown together in common purpose when concern about the loss of Ma¯ori artefacts overseas led to the passing of the Antiquities Act, largely as a result of gifts presented by the tribes to the Duke and Duchess of York [ 65 ]

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and Cornwall on their visit to Rotorua in 1901. Along with other Pakeha gentleman-scholars of Ma¯ori tradition, such as S. Percy Smith of the Polynesian Society, Hamilton was guilty of expressing the racial prejudices of his generation but earned a lot of respect from Ma¯ori for his promotion of Ma¯ori art at the museum. He helped Carroll frame this legislation, one of the first examples of its type in the world to protect indigenous artefacts. It has to be admitted that there was much talk around 1900 of Ma¯ori as a dying race and salvage ethnography as a natural consequence, but many did not believe this theory of displacement. Moreover, as Francis Reid points out, it was often used as a tool for generating funding for science and collecting activities in museums and should not therefore be taken at face value.58 In addition to the Antiquities Act, the two men worked closely together to garner support for the idea of a National Ma¯ori Museum to store the objects saved from export and sale, a concept which may very well have been driven by acquisitive notions of salvage but overlapped with deeply held Ma¯ori concerns for what was coming to be seen as precious cultural heritage or taonga tuku iho (ancestral treasures).59 In a letter to Hamilton, Carroll wrote that a Ma¯ori museum had ‘long been a desire of mine to see established’.60 For all his championing of Ma¯ori visual culture, Hamilton has received a bad press for his part in encouraging an orthodoxy of ‘traditional’ Ma¯ori art that stymied its creative development.61 Nevertheless, the proposals for the National Ma¯ori Museum have surprisingly progressive ideas for the time: bilingual labels, three out of seven positions on the board reserved for Ma¯ori, and an innovative village display in a winter garden setting.62 Hamilton saw the museum as a ‘meeting ground for the two races’ and a ‘Valhalla for the Maori’.63 For his part, Carroll hoped that Ma¯ori would deposit family heirlooms and tribal history in this museum as a ‘constant reminder to the coming generations of the capabilities and taste of the Ma¯ori race’.64 There was obviously a good deal of realpolitik in the relationship. In return for his support for the popular legislation, Carroll backed Hamilton’s proposals for the National Ma¯ori Museum, was instrumental in having him appointed as director, and supported his efforts to enlarge the collection and house it in a new building. Though the proposal was never fully realised, it had a major impact on collecting and exhibiting at the existing institution, with a concerted drive to collect Ma¯ori carving which was then displayed together in what was referred to as the Ma¯ori Hall (Figure 3.1).65 It is clear from this case study that in addition to seeing the Colonial Museum from the outside in terms of social discourse, it can also be seen from inside, through the relation[ 66 ]

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3.1  The ‘Maori Hall’ of the Dominion (formerly Colonial) Museum in ­Wellington about 1907, where director Augustus Hamilton displayed the growing collections of Ma¯ori art.

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ships that were formed within it. The entwined biographies of Carroll and Hamilton blur the boundary between coloniser and colonised and show how, below what is often presented as the abstract, macro-level of ideology, empire was mediated at the micro-, local and personal levels.

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Makereti’s exhibition and troupe, 1909–11 As well as Ma¯ori interventions in mainstream institutions, there were also independent Ma¯ori initiatives, but still operating within a recolonial vision of New Zealand within the British Empire.66 With recolonisation, indigenous difference was recast through the collection and display of Ma¯ori culture in museums and exhibitions from the 1880s to the 1930s. The shift can be seen in the way exhibits changed from an early emphasis on ‘extractive products’ to a later emphasis, after recolonisation, on nature and natives as manifested not only by a greater interest in ethnography but also by the attractions of hot pools, ferneries and pretty Ma¯ori maidens. By the early 1900s, New Zealand displays at world’s fairs presented a vision of Maoriland in displays which often had direct Ma¯ori input.67 The Festival of Empire held at Sydenham in London in 1911 celebrated the connections between empire, state and crown. Set up in the shadow of the Crystal Palace, which was the venue for the first world’s fair in 1851, the event allowed visitors to view a scaled-down version of the empire on tours of the ‘All-Red route’ featuring models of 300 buildings from every corner of the globe.68 Among them was a small Ma¯ori village where a troupe of men and women from the Te Arawa tribe performed songs, demonstrated crafts and voluntarily put themselves on exhibition. On the opening day, as King George V and Queen Mary toured the All-Red route, the Ma¯ori group stopped the royal carriage with an impromptu haka (posture dance). The King addressed his native subjects, telling them, ‘I hope that you will all enjoy your stay in the Mother Country’.69 Who were these people, how did they come to mount their own exhibit, and how did they feel about being ‘on display’ in the exhibition? The troupe was led by a beautiful mixed-race Ma¯ori woman called Maggie Papakura (Makereti) who had gained fame as a guide in the tourist resort of Rotorua when she showed the thermal wonders to the Duke of York in 1901 (Figure 3.2). In 1906 she went to the New Zealand International Exhibition in Christchurch and lived in a model pa¯ or village with a large group of artists and performers from her tribe. This experience seems to have given her the idea to try something like this under her own steam, an entrepreneurial spirit typical of the Te Arawa people who had long been involved in tourism, the souvenir [ 68 ]

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3.2  Makereti (Maggie Papakura) photographed c. 1910 inside her house at Whakarewrewa near Rotorua. The mix of European and Ma¯ori objects reflects the bicultural world in which she lived.

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trade and touring concert parties. She may also have been encouraged by her friendship with T. E. Donne, the director of the Department of Tourism and Health Resorts, who was a keen collector of Ma¯ori art and promoted the Christchurch exhibition and the New Zealand court at an exhibition in St Louis in 1904. In 1909 and 1910 Makereti took a concert party from the Te Arawa tribe and a set of carvings to Melbourne and Sydney and set up a village as an attraction for paying visitors in partnership with an Australian syndicate. Their village consisted of a meeting house and storehouse decorated with their own carving plus thatched sleeping houses. Their repertoire included traditional performing arts but also a brass band and European art songs. In fact, one talented contralto in the party, Evaline (Iwa) Skerrett from the South Island, was hailed as ‘Maoriland’s Melba’.70 They did not necessarily see this display as inauthentic. As Makereti explained in a letter to Donne, they lived ‘the same as we do at home in our own village’.71 Far from being exploited, a member of the party wrote that they went overseas to ‘show the work of the Ma¯ori … in front of the people of the world’.72 According to the letters sent to Te Pipiwharauroa, the group seemed to enjoy their time in Australia. They were keen on sightseeing, were curious about Aboriginal people, and thought that the highlight of their visit was a race between their own waka taua (war canoe) and a whaleboat.73 Makereti told the New Zealand press later that they had changed local assumptions about native people. ‘I imagine from the demeanour of those who visited our village that they expected to find people resembling the Australian Aboriginals,’ she said, ‘and they were agreeably surprised’.74 In 1911 Makereti’s troupe, including some well-known chiefs and carvers, travelled to London for the Festival of Empire, where Donne was now working in the New Zealand Trade Commission. With ­Makereti’s contacts she managed to overcome the prohibition on ‘coloured natives’ being used for exhibition purposes, not least because she was perceived to be an accomplished and educated woman who ‘could hold her own in the best English society’.75 The Ma¯ori troupe caused a press sensation when they arrived at St Pancras Station in London clad in their feather cloaks where they were met by Donne. If they were quite happy to exploit their exotic appeal to the English, they were also anxious to remind audiences of their loyalty. ‘To the Ma¯ori there is no place beyond England, only heaven’, Makereti told reporters. After a tour of the sights in London in a Daimler, during which, as biographer Paul Diamond points out, ‘they in turn became attractions’, Makereti and her party settled in to their village at the exhibition grounds in Sydenham.76 Unfortunately, despite their popularity, things did not work out [ 70 ]

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very well for the Te Arawa troupe. Because their whare were deemed a fire hazard, they had to move out and ended up at the Coronation Exhibition at White City in Shepherd’s Bush, London. They made a big splash at the Henley Regatta in Oxfordshire when they crewed a decorated waka (canoe) on the river Thames. Overall, the venture was not a financial success and there were conflicts within the group. Most had to return to New Zealand, where they faced controversy about the finances and the death of a member of the party on the way to England. One faction did not want to leave, and promptly announced they were going to stay in London and try their hand on the entertainment circuit. These people had been wined and dined by Tuahine Rangiuia, a successful Ma¯ori music-hall performer who had impressed his guests with his fine house and servants. Although most eventually returned to New Zealand, the contralto Evaline Skerett remained in Britain and had a long concert career billed as ‘Princess Iwa’.77

Ma¯ori at the 1924–25 Empire Exhibition A photograph shows King George, Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales, visiting the carved meeting house Mataatua at the Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924–25 (see Figure 3.3 overleaf).78 They stand in the porch beside a Ma¯ori guide in ‘traditional’ costume on one side, and on the other a well-dressed Ma¯ori dandy in a suit holding a club. It is easy to see images such as this as a bald statement of the asymmetrical power relations of empire. But the historical record tells us something quite different, as is revealed by a closer analysis of this image and the Ma¯ori people present at the time it was taken. In this section, I suggest that ethnographic exhibitions, favourite targets of critical discourse analysis, reflect the messy process of their production and reception, and uncover different responses from developers, participants and visitors, despite the undoubted ethnocentrism of the day. The British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924–25 was the most important imperial exposition ever staged. Never before had the empire’s dominions been given such space to present themselves in the metropolis, and each colony was assigned its own pavilion – New Zealand’s was at the western end.79 When plans for a New Zealand contribution were discussed within the Dominion, opinions about Ma¯ori content were mixed. Some museums wanted to send Ma¯ori artefacts, but many Pakeha officials were concerned about creating an impression that the country was mostly Ma¯ori and therefore not modern. Other Pakeha supported the idea of Ma¯ori culture representing New Zealand but were concerned about whether the Dominion’s Ma¯ori treasures risked damage in being sent overseas.80 Although Tau Henare [ 71 ]

3.3  King George V, Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales visiting the carved meeting house Mataatua at the Empire E­xhibition at Wembley in 1924. Hohepa Te Raki stands to the right of the Prince of Wales, and Roger Ingram Dansey to the left of the King.

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and other Ma¯ori MPs opposed sending a Ma¯ori troupe to London with ¯ the exhibition, Apirana Ngata wanted Ma¯ori exhibits included. This was part of Ngata’s strategy of ‘rapprochement’ that led to his support for the war effort, and displays of loyalty to royal visitors, for example the welcome to the Prince of Wales at Rotorua in 1920.81 At Ngata’s suggestion, artist James McDonald at the Dominion Museum co-ordinated an exhibit of weaving made by Rihipeti Aperaniko and her people at Koroniti, one of ethnologist Elsdon Best’s informants from the Whanganui river. It was intended to be sold after the exhibition for their benefit.82 The letter to Aperaniko was written in Ma¯ori, probably translated by Best, and explains that the ‘Ma¯ori things’ sought after were to be sent to the ekipihana (exhibition) as tauira (examples) of weaving for people to see. The museum request was governed by ethnographic considerations, specifying what the weaver was to make, insisting that it was ‘traditional’ and not made with European materials, and asking her to identify and explain each item. This transaction was typical of the time, and though driven by museological considerations of traditional authenticity, it does not lack concern for the maker and leaves some room for negotiation.83 If the production of the exhibition display reflected a diversity of motivations and objectives, in the end the New Zealand pavilion at Wembley appears to have been a rather hastily organised affair which elicited a rather mixed reception. The main display in the New Zealand section was the meeting house Mataatua, which had been reassembled from the carvings that had been sitting in the South Kensington Museum since the 1880s, where they had ended up after being displayed in exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne as the result of being a ‘gift’ to the Queen.84 One surviving photograph shows Mataatua amidst native flax plants and shrubs, the exterior walls constructed of reddish brown asbestos sheets and the roof completed with English thatch.85 Standing beside the classical architecture of the New Zealand pavilion at Wembley, Mataatua was, to some European viewers at the time, rather incongruous. To present-day critics it is a clear sign of the incorporation of indigenous people within empire, but also, judging by the evidence of Ma¯ori involvement with it, it can be read as an attempt to be included within the embrace of empire. There were at least three groups of Ma¯ori present at the exhibition whose different views and motivations are reviewed here to demonstrate that, contrary to academic opinion, indigenous people did not all think the same. Though the New Zealand commissioners were not so keen to have historic exhibits and live performances, British organisers liked the idea of an exotic carved house from the South Pacific, and attitudes to Ma¯ori in England appear if anything to be more favourable than in [ 73 ]

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New Zealand. Commissioner James Allen reported that Ma¯ori were ‘regarded here as a native of the highest type’.86 The obvious person to turn to for help with the New Zealand court was Makereti, who had stayed on in England, having married an English gentleman and thereafter become Mrs Margaret Staples-Brown. Despite encouragement from her old friend Donne, she was reluctant to take part in the exhibition as she was now retired from public life, and had followed her son to study anthropology at Oxford University and donated artefacts from her collection to the Pitt Rivers Museum.87 In the end she did participate, lending some of her collection and helping out with training the Ma¯ori performers who took part in the Pageant of Empire, an extra­ordinary theatrical re-enactment of the history of the empire with a cast of some twelve thousand. In the New Zealand episodes she played the part of a warrior woman fighting British troops at the ¯ ¯kau. For her part, Makereti was dissatisfied with famous battle of Ora the Ma¯ori component of the exhibition and told Donne that she protested about the ‘cheap jack show’ organised by officials who ‘kn[e]w nothing of Ma¯ori customs and care[d] less’.88 Some of her criticism may have been directed at the Ma¯ori who were actively involved with the whare. The man in charge of Mataatua was Hohepa Te Rake, a kinsman from her Te Arawa tribe in Rotorua, who can be seen in the photograph beside the Prince of Wales dressed in a korowai (cloak with tassles) and piupiu (flax skirt) and holding a taiaha (long club) showing the royal party around. Te Rake had fought in the Pioneer Ma¯ori Battalion in the First World War and married an English woman. The other Ma¯ori in the photograph, standing to the left of the King and holding the patu (club) and a bowler hat, was a close friend of Makereti’s who was also living in England. Major Roger Ingram Dansey was an engineer, soldier and businessman who, like her, was the child of a European father and Ma¯ori mother. He took part in the pageant and seems to have played a leading role in organising the Ma¯ori exhibits and associated public programmes.89 A more forthright protest, but again couched in the language of loyal subjects of Empire, was lodged by another group of Ma¯ori in London at the time. This was the large contingent of performers, musicians and artists led by T. W. Ra¯tana, a faith healer and prophet who founded a church and political movement that sought recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi to raise the status of Ma¯ori within New Zealand. The symbolism of the Ra¯tana faith reflected its synthesis of Ma¯ori and Christian elements, with their flags and regalia showing the Union Jack, the bible, and the Treaty. Ra¯tana, like many Ma¯ori leaders before him, had come to London to deliver a petition to the King and appeal to the British parliament to resolve their grievances, but soon became [ 74 ]

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frustrated with officials of the settler government back in New Zealand who were embarrassed by his presence and blocked his access to politicians. However by the 1930s the movement had achieved considerable political influence and its candidates secured all four Ma¯ori seats in parliament in coalition with the Labour Party, a legacy which has continued to recent times.90 The Ra¯tana group did perform concerts at the exhibition, but were unhappy at their treatment by the organisers and annoyed that they had had to pay their own way.91 They were also unhappy with the Ma¯ori display at the exhibition, and said so in no uncertain terms. Ra¯tana’s secretary Pita Moko described the dilapidated state of the incomplete whare as a ‘disgrace’, especially considering ‘the Ma¯ori boys had proved themselves as such good fellows during the wartime at home and were respected’. He complained to reporters: ‘We were the only coloured race under the British flag that did not have proper representation at the exhibition.’ Ra¯tana did not stop at complaining about the display, but immediately ‘took control’, Kereama Pene recalling later how they ‘redid the whole meeting house exhibition’.92 Ra¯tana’s party stayed on in London for some time, as their lawyers tried to make some headway with the petition, but their entreaties to British politicians were eventually referred back to the New Zealand government. Though they met the Prince of Wales and presented him with a letter and gifts, and also visited the League of Nations in Geneva, Ra¯tana felt their mission was a failure: On this day I have led the mo¯rehu [survivors/followers] across the seas of the world to … see our father [King George V] and present to him the cries of his children for justice. As I stand in this door that is closed to us, you see before you an orphan. I have no home here.93

While these interactions between Ma¯ori and Europeans were occurring in association with exhibitions on the other side of the world, similar collaborations were developing in New Zealand museums which were an important site for recolonial myth-making and images. The two domains – museums and exhibitions – were closely interconnected and influenced one another, sometimes a result of the profile, money and technologies that flowed from exhibitions to museums. At the Auckland Museum in the 1920s, a new building was opened with Ma¯ori ceremonial staged alongside the European festivities. The Nga¯ti Maru people of Thames attended the event to open their wharenui, Hotunui, which was enshrined in the middle of the Ma¯ori Court at the centre of the institution. This house within a house can be seen on the one hand as the classic statement of colonial assimilation, incorporating the native within the nation, but on the other hand as a symbolic insertion [ 75 ]

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into the national story. There were limits to this inclusion – there were no Ma¯ori staff at the museum – but there was an Anthropology and Ma¯ori Race Section which had some involvement from Ma¯ori scholars like Peter Buck, the doctor and politician turned anthropologist who was to go on to teach at Yale and become the director of the Bishop Museum in Hawai’i.94 At the Dominion Museum in Wellington there was more evidence of Ma¯ori inclusion. There was a Ma¯ori carver on the staff, Ma¯ori collections continued to grow, with objects now regarded as arts and crafts rather than curios, and ethnographic projects preserved many important elements of customary culture which were later to provide the platform for cultural revival and reinvention. Ngata continued his cultural development programmes using museum collections, staff, research and other resources to maintain and strengthen Ma¯ori identity, sometimes in association with his friend, the prime minister Gordon Coates, who was sympathetic to Ma¯ori aspirations. The list of collaborative projects was impressive: the Board of Ma¯ori Ethnological Research, the Ma¯ori School of Arts and Crafts, as well as ethnographic expeditions and publications recording tribal traditions.95 In all this work, Ma¯ori adopted formal heritage practices not to condone assimilation, endorse the salvage project or deny coevalness, but simply to keep the past alive in the present in the form of taonga tuku iho (ancestral treasures). Preserving their history was a way of insisting on their presence within the nation and empire, of claiming a place in the present on the strength of past glories, the cultural heritage which was increasingly seen as an essential element of recolonial New Zealand. The literature in museum studies tends to stress how the display of indigenous artefacts in European museums and exhibitions served the West at the expense of the rest. While the negative impact of empire on colonised people and their culture is undeniable, this highly theorised post-colonial analysis fails to explain the complexities of specific colonial encounters seen in these variegated, multifaceted case studies where divisions between coloniser and colonised, metropole and periphery, and self and other broke down. Drawing on recent historical studies of empire, this chapter has presented detailed empirical evidence of Ma¯ori participation which shows that, by engaging with museums, they saw themselves as partners in colonial development and not merely as victims of it: Brown Britons in a Better Britain keen to take advantage of their place within the empire. Seen in the context of recolonisation, and from a Ma¯ori perspective as expressed in their own words, I have argued that indigenous people used museum collections and exhibitions for their own ends, as a means of negotiating with empire, nation and modernity. If museums were tools of empire, [ 76 ]

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then they were also a means of resisting, collaborating with, and using that empire. Like Ngata’s poem which began this chapter, Ma¯ori may have looked to the past, but they saw their heritage as a living presence, and a springboard for the future.

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Notes  1 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), p. 242. ¯ pirana Ngata, ‘A scene from the past’, in Jane Stafford and Mark Wil 2 Excerpt from A liams (eds), Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872–1914 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006), p. 262.  3 Stephen Constantine, Emigrants and Empire: British Settlement in the Dominions Between the Wars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 2.  4 Gyan Prakash, quoted in Cooper, Colonialism in Question, p. 16; Gyan Prakash, ‘Museum matters’, in Bettina Messias Carbonell (ed.), Museum Studies: An Antho­ logy of Contexts (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 208–15.  5 Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 9.  6 Nicholas B. Dirks, ‘Foreword’, in Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, pp. ix–xvii, p. ix.  7 Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine (eds), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991); Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (eds), Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture, and the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998).  8 John M. MacKenzie, Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009); Amy WoodsonBoulton, ‘Victorian museums and Victorian society’, History Compass, 6:1 (2008), 109–46.  9 Martin Daunton and Rick Halpern, Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 1600–1850 (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999); Antoinette Burton (ed.), After the Imperial Turn: Thinking With and Through the Nation (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2003); Marshall Sahlins, Culture in Practice: Selected Essays (New York: Zone Books, 2005). 10 Jurg Wassmann (ed.), Pacific Answers to Western Hegemony: Cultural Practices of Identity Construction (Oxford: Berg, 1998). These works react against an earlier tradition. See Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Alan Hanson, ‘The making of the Maori: Cultural invention and its logic’, American Anthropolgist, 91 (1989), 890–902. 11 John L. Comaroff, ‘Images of empire, contests of difference: Models of colonial domination in South Africa’, in Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (eds), Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, and London: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 163–97, p. 165. 12 Cooper, Colonialism in Question, p. 3. 13 Ibid., p. 18. 14 Ibid., p. 12. The title for this section is taken from Frederick Cooper, ‘Postcolonial studies and the study of history’, in Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Matti Bunzl, A ­ ntoinette Burton and Jed Esty (eds), Postcolonialism and Beyond (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2005), p. 409. 15 Cooper, Colonialism in Question, p. 25. 16 Ibid., p. 231. 17 Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Poli­ tics of Difference (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 12. 18 Lita Barrie, ‘Eurocentrism in a glass box’, AGMANZ Journal, 17:1 (1986), 20–2. 19 See Ngapine Allen, ‘Maori vision and the imperialist gaze’, in Barringer and Flynn

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(eds), Colonialism and the Object, pp. 144–52. Sidney Moko Mead, ‘The maintenance of heritage in a fourth world context: The Maori case’, in Philip Dark and Roger Rose (eds), Artistic Heritage in a Changing Pacific (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1993), pp. 223–31. 20 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 1999). 21 Paul Tapsell, Pukaki: A Comet Returns (Auckland: Reed, 2000). 22 Anne Salmond, Two Worlds: First Meetings Between Maori and Europeans, 1642– 1772 (Auckland: Viking, 1991); Anne Salmond, Between Worlds: Early Exchanges Between Maori and Europeans, 1773–1815 (Auckland: Viking, 1997); Judith Binney, ‘“In-between” lives: Studies from within a colonial society’, in Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney (eds), Disputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand’s Pasts (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2006), pp. 93–117; Tony Ballantyne, ‘Archives, empires and histories of colonialism’, Archifacts (April 2004), 21–36. 23 Chris Hilliard, ‘Licensed native interpreter: The land purchaser as ethnographer in early-20th-century New Zealand’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 45:2 (2010), 229–45. 24 Amiria Henare, Museums, Anthropology and Imperial Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 25 Lachy Paterson, ‘Kiri ma, kiri mangu: The terminology of race and civilisation in mid-nineteenth-century Maori-language newspapers’, in Jenifer Curnow, Ngapare Hopa and Jane McRae (eds), Rere atu, taku manu! Discovering History, Language and Politics in the Maori Language Newspapers (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2002), p. 92. 26 Lachy Paterson, Colonial Discourses: Niupepa Maori 1855–63 (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2006), p. 12. 27 James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000 (Auckland: Allen Lane and Penguin, 2001), p. 206. 28 Ibid., p. 201. 29 Ibid., p. 16. See also James Belich, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century (Auckland: Allen Lane and Penguin, 1996); James Belich, ‘Colonisation and history in New Zealand’, in Robin W. Winks and Alaine M. Low (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume 5: Historiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 182–92; James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the AngloWorld, 1783–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 30 Belich, Paradise Reforged, p. 191. 31 Ibid., pp. 552–3. 32 Ibid., pp. 29–30. See also Belich, Replenishing the Earth, pp. 466–75. 33 Belich, Paradise Reforged, pp. 76–86. 34 Belich, Replenishing the Earth, p. 466. 35 Belich, Paradise Reforged, p. 83. 36 Ibid., p. 209. 37 Edward Tregear, The Aryan Maori (Wellington: Government Printer, 1885). On this point, see Belich, Paradise Reforged, pp. 189–215. See also Tony Ballantyne, Orien­ talism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). 38 R. A. Loughnan, quoted in Stafford and Williams (eds), Maoriland, p. 257. 39 Helen M. Hogan, Hikurangi ki Homburg: Henare Kohere and Terei Ngatai with the Maori Coronation Contingent 1902 (Christchurch: Clerestory Press, 1997); Brian Mackrell, Hariru Wikitoria! An Illustrated History of the Maori Tour of England, 1863 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1985). 40 ‘Resolution passed by East Coast tribes (Maoris)’, 1902, in Hogan, Hikurangi ki Homburg, p. 9. 41 James Cowan, The Maoris in the Great War: A History of the New Zealand Native Contingent and Pioneer Battalion (Wellington: Maori Regimental Committee, 1926), p. 12. It should be noted this was paralleled by opposition from other tribes to war conscription because of the confiscation of land.

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42 R. K. Dell, Dominion Museum, 1865–1965 (Wellington: Dominion Museum, 1965). 43 For accounts of the Canterbury and Auckland Museums reinforcing this view, see MacKenzie, Museums and Empire. See also Sarah Longair’s chapter in this volume, pp. 122–44. 44 Robert Falla, ‘Museums’, in Laura Salt and John Pascoe (eds), Oxford New Zealand Encyclopedia: Companion Volume to the Oxford Junior Encyclopedia (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 256. See also Simon Nathan and Mary Varnham (eds), The Amazing World of James Hector (Wellington: Awa Press, 2008); Francis Lucian Reid, ‘The province of science: James Hector and the New Zealand Institute, 1867–1903’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2007. 45 Conal McCarthy, Exhibiting Ma¯ori: A History of Colonial Cultures of Display (Oxford: Berg, 2007). 46 Whakamı¯haro Lindauer Online, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland. Website: w ­ ww. lindaueronline.co.nz (accessed 25 September 2010). The Partridge Collection is now part of the Auckland Art Gallery. See also Roger Blackley, ‘Beauty and the beast: Plaster casts in a colonial museum’, in Anna Smith and Lydia Wevers (eds), On Display: New Essays in Cultural Studies (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2004), pp. 41–64. 47 For visitors’ books for 1868, see Te Papa Archives, Wellington (hereafter TPA), MU 130/1. 48 TPA, Colonial Museum visitors’ book 1868, MU 130, box 1; Belich, Making Peoples, p. 265. 49 TPA, Hector inwards correspondence, MU 147/4, Unsigned letter 9 June 1874. 50 For examples, see Conal McCarthy, ‘Objects of empire? Displaying Maori at International Exhibitions, 1873–1924’, Journal of New Zealand Literature, 23:1 (2005), 52–70. 51 Te Korimako, 14 October 1882, p. 1. 52 McCarthy, Exhibiting Ma¯ori, pp. 33–8; Conal McCarthy, ‘“Our works of ancient times”: History, colonisation and agency at the 1906–7 New Zealand International Exhibition’, Museum History Journal 2:2 (2009), 119–42; Margaret Orbell, ‘Maori writing about the Exhibition’, in John Mansfield Thomson (ed), Farewell Colonial­ ism: The New Zealand International Exhibition Christchurch, 1906–7 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1998), pp. 141–64. 53 Hogan, Hikurangi ki Homburg, p. 62. 54 See the report mentioning correspondence from Karaitiana Takamoana, MP for Eastern Ma¯ori, Te Wa¯nanga, 4:16 (21 April 1877), p. 148. 55 Christopher Whitehead, Museums and the Construction of Disciplines: Art and Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London: Duckworth, 2009). 56 Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, Williams 709a, Pa¯nui (Notice) from Te Ruihi (Lewis), Native Affairs, Industrial Exhibition, Wellington, 30 April 1885. 57 Evening Post, 31 July 1885. 58 See chapter 6 in Reid, ‘The province of science’. 59 For examples of Ma¯ori interest in museums, archives and history around 1900, see Conal McCarthy, ‘Before “Te Maori”: A revolution deconstructed’, in Simon J. Knell, Sheila Watson and Suzanne MacLeod (eds), Museum Revolutions: How Museums Change and are Changed (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 117–33. 60 James Carroll to Augustus Hamilton, 6 August 1901, quoted in Elizabeth Pishief, ‘Augustus Hamilton: Appropriation, ownership, authority’, unpublished MA thesis, Massey University, 1998, p. 28. 61 Sidney M. Mead, Te toi whakairo: The Art of Maori Carving (Wellington: Reed Methuen, 1986), pp. 168–72. 62 Augustus Hamilton and S. Percy Smith, ‘Suggestions for the establishment of a Maori Museum’, Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 8 (1902), 1–3. See also Natalie Wilson, ‘Augustus Hamilton, colonial collector: 1890–1903’, in Michael Reilly and Jane Thomson (eds), When the Waves Rolled Upon Us: Essays in Nineteenth-Century Maori History (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 1999), pp. 148–60.

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63 Augustus Hamilton, ‘Notes for the information of Members of both Houses of Parliament, in the matter of the National Maori Museum proposed to be erected in Wellington to carry out the provisions of the Maori Antiquities Act of 1901, and to be a permanent memorial to the past history of the Maori people’ (Dunedin: Fergusson and Mitchell, 1902), unpaginated. 64 Auckland Museum, Hamilton papers MS 131, vol. 11, folder 1, item 5, Carroll to Hamilton, 8 June 1901. 65 McCarthy, Exhibiting Ma¯ori, pp. 50–8. 66 For an example of a tribal museum initiative in the 1900s, see McCarthy, ‘Before “Te Maori”’. 67 Conal McCarthy, ‘New Zealand Exhibition, Dunedin 1865’, ‘New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, Dunedin, 1889–90’, ‘New Zealand International Exhibition, Christchurch, 1906–7’, in John Findling and Kimberly Pelle (eds), Encyclopedia of World’s Fairs and Expositions (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2008), pp. 34–6, 87–90, 108–10. 68 Susan Bennett, ‘London 1911’, in Findling and Pelle (eds), Encyclopedia of World’s Fairs, pp. 211–13. 69 Paul Diamond, Makereti: Taking Ma¯ori to the World (Auckland: Random House, 2007), p. 102. 70 Ibid., p. 98 71 Ibid., p. 94. 72 Hone Morehu Nuku, ‘Te Arawa Turupa Maori’, Te Pipiwharauroa, 151 (November 1910), p. 8. 73 Hone Morehu Nuku, ‘Te Turupa Maori o Te Arawa’, Te Pipiwharauroa, 153 (January 1911), p. 8; Hone Morehu Nuku, ‘Te Turupa Maori o Te Arawa’, Te Pipiwharauroa, 154 (February 1911), pp. 5–7. 74 Diamond, Taking Ma¯ori to the World, p. 96. 75 Ibid., p. 99. 76 Ibid., p. 100. 77 Ibid., pp. 105–6. 78 Alexander Turnbull Library, N-P 1235–43. The photograph was published in the Auckland Weekly News, 8 May 1925. 79 Alexander C. T. Geppert, ‘Wembley 1924–5’, in Findling and Pelle (eds), Encyclopedia of World’s Fairs, pp. 230–6. 80 Conal McCarthy, ‘From curio to taonga: A genealogy of display at New Zealand’s National Museum, 1865–2001’, unpublished PhD thesis, Victoria University of ­Wellington, 2004, p. 123. 81 Ranginui Walker, He tipua: The Life and Ttimes of Sir Apirana Ngata (Auckland: Viking, 2001), pp. 213–14. See also Belich, Paradise Reforged, p. 214. 82 Memo from Hislop to Downie Stewart, 15 March 1923, in Ross O’Rourke (ed.), ‘Te Hau ki Turanga: A chronological document bank’ (Wellington: Museum of New Zealand, 1994), unpaginated. 83 TPA, Wembley exhibition file, MU 1, 26/15, [James McDonald?] to Rihipeti Aperaniko, 6 August 1923. Ma¯ori were not always willing to produce exhibits according to Pakeha tastes, and there are examples of artists telling Pakeha patrons where to put their ethnographic scruples. TPA, Hamilton/Best miscellaneous files, MU 206, 2/9, Mere Wha¯riki to James McDonald, 1 June 1914. 84 This wharenui, originally built in Whakata¯ne in 1875, was displayed inside out at the Sydney exhibition of 1879. It had long been the subject of disputed ownership claims, and after this exhibition returned to another in New Zealand, then to the Otago Museum, before recently being repatriated to the Nga¯ti Awa people who are about to incorporate it into a new cultural centre. See Hirini Moko Mead, ‘Nga karoretanga o Mataatua whare: The wanderings of the carved house, Mataatua’, Research Report no. 2 (Whakatane: Te Runanga o Ngati Awa, 1990). 85 Souvenir of the New Zealand Pavilion at the British Empire Exhibition, Wembley, London 1924 (Wellington: Tanner, 1924), unpaginated. 86 See TPA, Wembley file, MU 1, 26/15.

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87 Diamond, Taking Ma¯ori to the World, pp. 143–4. 88 Ibid., p. 147. 89 ‘Roger Ingram Dansey’, Dictionary of New Zealand biography, www.dnzb.govt.nz/ dnzb (accessed 1 October 2010). 90 ‘Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana’, Dictionary of New Zealand biography, www.dnzb.govt. nz/dnzb (accessed 1 October 2010); Keith Newman, Ratana Revisited: An Unfin­ ished Legacy (Auckland: Reed, 2006). 91 Keith Newman, Ratana the Prophet (Auckland: Raupo, 2009), p. 92. 92 Ibid., p. 90. 93 Ibid., p. 93. 94 Stuart Park, An Introduction to Auckland Museum (Auckland: Auckland Institute and Museum, 1986). 95 McCarthy, ‘From curio to taonga’, pp. 116–18.

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Chapter four

Curiosities or science in the National ­Museum of Victoria: procurement ­networks and the purpose of a museum Gareth Knapman

As centres for research, museums have had a chequered history. The museum movement of the mid-nineteenth century located them as central repositories for research. However, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, museums increasingly became centres for public education. This transition led to an awkward tension between private Barnum-style curiosity shows and public museums.1 Both of these types of organisations displayed the exotic marvels of the world to an audience that was looking for entertainment. From its inception, the National Museum of Victoria (now known as Museum Victoria and located in Melbourne, Australia) performed the dual roles of research and public education. Its long-time director, Sir Frederick McCoy observed that this was a tightrope with ‘many of even the better informed classes of the public clinging to the old notion of a Museum being at best a place merely for the innocent amusement of schoolboys and idlers’.2 McCoy wanted a museum for serious public instruction and research, but his museum also became a popular ‘entertainment venue’ in colonial Melbourne. This chapter examines how specimen acquisition contributed to the shaping of museums as locations for education at the expense of research. The chapter explores how McCoy’s collecting and procurement networks contributed to the type of museum he constructed and examines whether it was a museum for scientific research or a museum for scientific teaching. In this respect I am defining science as a cultural phenomenon, in which particular activities conducted by particular people are defined as scientific.3 McCoy and his contemporaries defined

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their work as scientific, and, as Jim Endersby argues, ‘scientific’ was something of a synonym for ‘philosophical’, with the term ‘science’ being broader in the nineteenth century than it is today. Endersby also argues that the status of a ‘man of science’ was also conflated with class issues of professionalisation and amateurism.4 The procurement of objects considered as scientific specimens was equally a product of cultural construction. McCoy considered scientific specimens as ‘raw materials which Nature furnishes to us’; nevertheless, he was not comfortable with human remains in the museum and argued that works of art and curios (ethnographic objects) belonged in an art museum.5 Therefore museums became important centres in which the meaning of science was defined to a broader audience. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section examines the genesis of the museum in Melbourne and debates over its purpose. The second section looks at why McCoy failed to develop a comprehensive domestic collecting mechanism within Australia. The third section continues the argument by exploring McCoy’s connections with, and reliance on, British natural history dealers. In doing so, this section questions the notions of centres and peripheries in the study of colonial networks. The final section looks at the role of scientific exchanges and McCoy’s attitude to these within scientific networks. This demonstrates that McCoy’s museum was a product of his procurement networks, which provided specimens for popular consumption and education rather than research. Susan Sheets-Pyenson has argued that the achievement of colonial museum directors was their ability to develop museums under difficult circumstances, only for the direction of science to move away from museums at their point of maturity.6 In this respect, SheetsPyenson focused on the peripheral nature of the colonial museum. In engaging with McCoy’s previously underexamined correspondence with European natural history dealers and his domestic (colonial Australasian) networks in the Museum Victoria’s archives, this chapter proposes an argument that challenges our ideas of centres and peripheries in nineteenth-century British scientific networks and also demonstrates the importance of procurement networks in shaping the direction of the museum. A constant theme in the literature on McCoy is that he was a difficult character. This has most recently been expressed by John MacKenzie, who maintains that ‘McCoy in some ways fits the model of the early museum buccaneering maverick, a more highly trained figure than [William] Blandowski, but still a law unto himself and lacking any real scientific specialism’. 7 MacKenzie characterises McCoy’s personality as ‘fiery, blunt, cantankerous and

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polemical’.8 He paints a picture of McCoy along with Gerard Krefft (the director of the Australian Museum in Sydney) as being feisty attention-seekers whose egos and lack of ability to cooperate hampered their scientific capacity. Similarly, Sheets-Pyenson maintained that McCoy ‘colluded’ in gaining control of the museum in a ‘clever but hotly resented manoeuvre’. But after receiving £10,000 in 1858 and a further £12,000 in 1862 for building works and regular moneys for collection acquisition, ‘it was not in McCoy’s nature … to be satisfied with what the government had given him’.9 Sheets-Pyenson suggests that although this behaviour was characteristic of colonial museum directors, McCoy felt he was ‘persecuted by institutionalized “official” British science’.10 These factors suggest that a methodological focus on McCoy’s procurement practices reveals the social complexities behind curating natural history within the British Empire. A close analysis of his engagement with natural history networks highlights how these networks influenced curating practices, transforming the museum from a research-focused institution into one for popular entertainment.

Popular or elite? The purpose of the National Museum of Victoria From the late 1850s until his death in 1899, Sir Frederick McCoy controlled the National Museum of Victoria. McCoy was one of the leading scientific minds in colonial Australia.11 He arrived in Melbourne in 1854, which was then a gold-rich outpost of the British Empire. McCoy came with strong credentials. He had been Adam S ­ edgwick’s prodigy and was formerly Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at Queen’s College, Belfast. As a palaeontologist, McCoy achieved acclaim for identifying two distinct layers of strata separating the Cambrian and Silurian deposits, thereby mediating the Cambrian–Silurian debate between Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison.12 In Melbourne, as director of the National Museum (1858–99) and professor at the University of Melbourne (1854–99), McCoy was an important figure in colonial Victoria. As director of the museum, McCoy had to negotiate a variety of political problems that revolved around the role of the museum in the colony, and, in turn, these negotiations had curatorial impact. In 1857 one of the key problems was a perception of elitism. McCoy moved the museum from the centre of Melbourne to the then newly established university on the outskirts of the city. The campaign against McCoy was led by the Philosophical Institute and had broad support in the Press. The Melbourne Punch proclaimed:

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There was a little man, And he had a little plan, The public of their specimens to rob, rob, rob, … And if you want to know Who took them you should go And seek information from McCoy, Coy, Coy.13

The perception was that McCoy had stolen the museum from the people for the purpose of elite education. McCoy’s opponents argued that the museum should be part of the Public Library, which was the first free public library in Victoria and the centrepiece of public education and improvement in the colony. McCoy’s assertion that museums existed for serious science and not for the ‘innocent amusement of school boys’ appeared to support his detractors’ arguments that McCoy was an elitist.14 On this point, David Goodman has argued that McCoy’s museum existed in ‘fear of circuses’.15 In these early years, McCoy’s vision for the museum was that it acted as a compendium to the university and assisted in teaching elite education. Despite fearing that a museum for amusement would become a curiosity museum, by the 1860s McCoy used its public popularity as his trump-card in negotiating difficulties with competing cultural institutions, such as the Public Library, and government ‘bean counters’. He argued that the average per annum attendance was 53,000 in the 1860s, 95,000 in the 1870s and 110,000 in the 1890s, with a peak of over 130,000 in 1888, in spite of the museum’s move to the suburbs.16 In 1870 Melbourne’s population was 150,000, making McCoy’s museum one of the central attractions in the colony.17 The public popularity of the museum, however, depended on McCoy’s ability to acquire exotic exhibits that entertained as well as informed the people. With this in mind, he secured some of the first specimens of gorillas to be displayed outside Britain. Beyond major exhibits such as the gorillas, McCoy’s displays were based on geographical regions. Barry Butcher has suggested that this was a mechanism for combating arguments in favour of evolution, for it went against the emerging trend to display specimens by their evolutionary links.18 Nevertheless, McCoy reflected that ‘the plan and arrangement for the National Museum had from the first some special peculiarities’, principally the devotion of galleries to each of the ‘six zoological regions of the earth’.19 McCoy argued: ‘this gives great interest to geographical studies, and the public will readily see the zoological peculiarities of each of these regions with a distinctiveness not suggested by any other arrangement’.20 This curatorial approach was popular with patrons because it grounded the museum in a geographical arrangement that imitated a global tour. Although popular, this method of display aimed to educate audiences in ‘geo[ 85 ]

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graphic distribution’, ‘classification’ and how the ‘structure of animals [was] due to their surroundings, climate etc.’. Through his exhibits McCoy adjusted a scholarly argument for popular consumption. McCoy procured specimens from all geographic regions, but he had the additional focus of needing spectacular specimens. For example, his publicity poster, published in the Australasian Sketch, highlighted exotic fauna, both living and extinct, from around the world. The consequence of this was that the museum did not focus on Austra­ lian fauna, which would have been the natural approach for a research museum based in the colony of Victoria. Sheets-Pyenson argues that McCoy’s reasoning for this was that ‘in the absence of foreign specimens for comparison, investigators could not hope to identify local materials properly’ and that of all the colonial museums, McCoy’s was the ‘least interested’ in ‘emphasizing native flora and fauna’.21 In this regard, McCoy’s vision connected the museum to teaching and classification, but such a large overseas collection appealed to popular education more than the specialist elite.22

A domestic collecting network? On taking control of the museum, McCoy inherited over 14,000 specimens from the lower Murray river, collected by William Blandowski and Gerard Krefft in 1856.23 On returning to Melbourne, Blandowski was replaced by McCoy as the principal scientific officer in the National Museum. This collection is unique. It was, for its time, comprehensive and it captured an environment that was changing rapidly. In relation to many of the specimens collected, this would be the first and last time they were encountered by Western science.24 The collection was therefore an ideal platform for research into Australian fauna. In his time at the museum, McCoy did not sponsor scientific collecting expeditions, relying instead upon opportune donations and purchases of Australian fauna. In some cases, this included the Melbourne fish market. On 30 November 1883, George Gordon McCray, a patent clerk, wrote to McCoy about a fish he saw in the window of ‘Dentin’s Fish Shop’. With excitement, he remarked: Apparently [it is] of the shark tribe and possibly a hybrid. It is of so singular an appearance and presents such unusual traits as to tempt me to take the liberty of writing to you so that you may either see it or acquire it for your collection.25

McCoy later described this fish in the Prodromus of the zoology of Vic­ toria as the Callorhynchus Antarcticus and stated: ‘this fish is tolerably common along the coast, and is frequently called Elephant Fish by the [ 86 ]

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fishermen’.26 McCoy regularly received letters from beach­combers or fishermen reporting interesting finds, and, as with McCray’s elephant fish, McCoy’s published descriptions focused on commercial fish catches.27 In the nineteenth century, reliance on fishmongers for the identification of new species was practically the only possible mechanism for discovering new marine organisms. In comparison, land animals and birds provided opportunities for more systematic collecting and observation practices. Nevertheless, McCoy came from the tradition of museological description and analysis that did not involve fieldwork. He only made one field trip during his Australian career, and this was for the purpose of procuring sea lions from the seal colony at Phillip Island.28 McCoy relied on others to provide him with information and specimens from the field. His main collector and hunter was Cyril Stafford, who lived in Gippsland. In the 1870s, Gippsland was a thick temperate rainforest and largely untouched by settlement. Stafford forwarded McCoy anything that he could find: frogs, birds, reptiles and mammals.29 In turn, McCoy forwarded regular payments and gallons of spirits for the preservation of specimens.30 McCoy also asked Stafford pointed questions on ecology. In April 1879, McCoy requested information on the habits and habitats of the Brown Snake.31 Although Stafford provided a five-page missive of his recollections, he cautiously replied: ‘I have paid but little attention to the habitats and habits of Reptiles, and moreover, it must be allowed there exists an undeniable excuse’ – the excuse being that Brown Snakes are extremely venomous.32 In relying on these second-hand anecdotes, McCoy chose to work from a distance. His focus was the material descriptions of the specimen from collected examples and the mapping of its geographic distribution through second-hand sources. Although Stafford collected for McCoy during the 1870s and 1880s, McCoy did not cultivate regular collecting networks with many people on the frontier. His collecting was generally opportunistic, haphazard and, most of all, conducted from a distance. More telling of his research methodology was his approach to palaeontology. Richard Owen, one of the most significant figures in natural history museums at this time, revealed that Australia had a unique prehistory in which marsupials had provided the basis for megafauna. Therefore, fossil beds revealing large marsupials were sought after by museum directors and curators. McCoy commissioned a number of palaeontological excavations. In each case he commissioned local amateur geologists to conduct the excavations. In 1858, he organised excavations in ‘the swamps near Mount Macedon’ in which Dr Hobson had previously ‘found the large jaws and teeth and bones of extremi[ 87 ]

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ties’ of a Diprotodon, which had been forwarded to Richard Owen before McCoy had a chance to claim the find for the colony of Victoria.33 Most of these excavations emerged after workmen dis­covered bones accidently, and government officials then forwarded them on to McCoy. These haphazard discoveries, combined with McCoy’s reluctance to engage in fieldwork, led to novel ways of ascertaining provenance. In August 1862, McCoy received a witnessed note, complete with seven signatures, supporting the veracity of one such find. The note was compiled by W. J. Gore, a government architect, guaranteeing the authenticity of the excavation of fossilised bones below a lava flow at Mount Gambia.34 Such examples demonstrate the obscure lengths to which McCoy went in order to verify the finds that he had not observed directly. McCoy regularly received specimens through similarly opaque donations. Nevertheless, despite such problems, he made major discoveries. In 1865 he reported in The Argus newspaper the accession of four fossils from Geelong, which were ‘found at Murchill Station (belonging to Mr John Bell)’ but ‘presented by Mr Charles Dyson, of Market square, Geelong, through Dr Greeves’. The find revealed the existence of an ‘extinct gigantic marsupial herbivorous animal, as big as a bullock in the body, intermediate between the kangaroo and native bear in affinities, not hitherto known to occur in Victoria’.35 In addition, McCoy noted that ‘immediately with this specimen were two great canine teeth about the size of those of a tiger, and nearly the same shape of root … [to] those of a very old Tasmanian devil’. These teeth, he argued, ‘are of the highest possible interest to the Australian geologist and zoologist, as they are the first remains of this part of the extinct gigantic carnivorous marsupial the thylacoleo carnifex which have ever been found’.36 The finding of these fossils in Victoria perplexed McCoy. He wrote in 1880: It is a very curious circumstance that I find the skulls and teeth of the ‘Tasmanian Devil’, Sarcophilus ursinus very common in the most recent Tertiary clays, and in the various ossiferous caves of Victoria, perfectly identical in all respects, … [with] the individuals now living in Tasmania; while there is not a trace of the species now living, or evidence of its having existed, on the continent during the modern period. 37

With such concerns, McCoy wrote to Stafford in 1873: ‘It has been rumoured that the Tasmanian Devil and Marsupial Wolf have been found in the locality in which you are now collecting [South Gippsland], the Director request[s] that you will use your utmost endeavours to procure specimens of the same for the museum.’38 When Stafford was unable to find any, McCoy accepted it was extinct on the mainland. [ 88 ]

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This is one of the few occasions where McCoy directed Stafford to ‘find’ a rare species. And it provides a window on to the theoretical dilemmas McCoy faced, namely his rejection of Darwinism. McCoy continued to undertake research himself and published prolifically. He produced seven decades of the Prodromus for zoology and palae­ ontology. His Melbourne contemporary, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, reasoned, however, that McCoy was lazy. He wrote to Julius Haast: So far Professor McCoy has not yet held his announced lecture on your fossils, or has anything been seen or heard of his ‘Decades’, announced for half a dozen years past. What could not an industrious German produce with his salary … and with his large resources!39

Nevertheless, the opportunity to research needs to be placed in the context of the institutional focus and the mechanism of specimen acquisition. Although McCoy accepted specimens from the frontier, he did not appreciate the role of people he called ‘ignorant amateurs’ and believed their donations were ‘of scarcely any value’.40 This led to a level of colonial absurdity, as McCoy ordered Australian specimens through London rather than develop a collecting network within Australia. For example, one of the key requests that McCoy directed to the natural history dealer Lovell Reeve was a conchology collection of Australian species, to which Reeve responded: I know of some valuable Australian specimens, in addition even to my own, which have been collected by Jukes, Strange, Juce and others; and which have now been worked out and named and I am daily in expectation of receiving a valuable collection from Adelaide which will have to be sifted and named, and most of them at my disposal for sale.41

Making similar requests to his other dealers, McCoy placed importance on scientific collection by professional collectors over that of frontiersmen. Reeve’s testimony also demonstrates there was a major advantage in acquiring collections from Britain – the hard work of naming them had already been done. Consequently, McCoy did not develop Australian networks and therefore his museum reflected the circulation of money and state patronage rather than the circulation of new discoveries.

Centres and peripheries in imperial networks In his own words, McCoy took control of the museum for ‘want of a better’ and set about creating a global collection.42 Writing to John Gould, John Gray and Richard Owen (in that order), McCoy requested [ 89 ]

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to ‘beg this favour’ of them in using their networks to supply the ­‘Government of Victoria’ with the specimens for a ‘good museum’ that ‘illustrated Classical Zoology’.43 McCoy instructed Gould and Gray to acquire ‘all the genuine types possible, and then geographical groups of all the principal species’ and commented to Gray that he desired ‘complete sets of the British Museum Catalogues’.44 The word ‘type’ needs to be qualified. Today’s notion of the ‘type specimen’ was still evolving in 1857, and the word ‘type’ could refer to ‘type-specimens’ or ‘type-collections’.45 ‘Type-specimens’ served as an example on which the published description was based and therefore the specimen embodied the distinctive characteristics of the species. By comparing another specimen to the ‘type-specimen’, it could be determined if the new specimen was of the same species if it did not display any essential differences. The growth in museum collections meant other examples became avail­able for comparison. In this context, the ‘type-collection’ referred to the several specimens chosen to illustrate the range of variation (such as age differences or sexual differences) within the same species.46 These ‘type-specimens’ were the most prized possessions of museums. For Gray to supply McCoy with the British Museum’s ‘type-specimens’ would have been unusual. Nevertheless, McCoy actually received many ‘type-specimens’ from the British Museum and other institutions. McCoy also used the word ‘type’ in a more general sense, as in specimens that exemplified the common types on which the genus was based. His desire for ‘type’ specimens from across the world demonstrates that he wanted to build a museum with a large collection for comparative analysis. McCoy made this clear in his 1857 lecture, stating: By laying out the whole of the money placed at my disposal by the University for Natural History collections in the purchase of specimens of other countries, illustrating all the classical divisions of the science as a whole, embracing, in the first instance, types of all the classes, orders, families, and as many genera as possible, so that the public may have an opportunity of acquiring enlarged views of classification as an affinity, and learn the scientific mode of approaching the study of the subject.47

These sentiments also demonstrate that McCoy’s focus was classification for public education. He made a similar case in his 1851 application to be keeper of the fossil collection at the British Museum, in which he advocated the need to ‘arrange in stratigraphical order’ the British Museum’s collections for ‘public view’.48 With a Whiggish view towards public education that emphasised order over the ‘showy and useless’, McCoy straddled a fine line between education and research.49 In this regard, Sheets-Pyenson argues that ‘McCoy adopted … Richard [ 90 ]

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Owen’s maxims of museum exhibition: to display specimens that called attention to an animal group by accentuating a particular quality’.50 Therefore a whale skeleton demonstrated the size attained by aquatic mammals, while an extinct moa (Dinornis maximus) portrayed the biggest bird ever known to man, and a skeleton of the great Irish deer illustrated the largest antlers ever seen.51 This desire for exotic specimens for comparison and as examples of an accentuated quality also meant the displays still served patrons looking for a Barnum-style museum. Much recent research into the history of the natural sciences has focused on the social conditions of research and the networks of engagement between centres and peripheries which natural history research generated in the nineteenth century. Jim Endersby’s biography of Joseph Hooker is an excellent example of this approach.52 Endersby argues that the system of exchange was a mechanism for negoti­ating normative issues around social status in the Victorian scientific community. Simply put, the obligations of gift exchange gave greater power to the periphery while the commercial exchange of specimens for money placed the collector on a lower social stratum. In the case of Hooker, Endersby argues that he relied on a network of reciprocal gift exchanges for his best specimens. Ferdinand von Mueller played an important role in this network. A key aspect of Hooker’s career, and a central purpose of Kew Gardens, was botanical research. Therefore a culture of gift exchange was built into the procurement of material for research. In comparison to herbaria, nineteenth-century museums were as much about entertainment as research.53 Like Hooker and von Mueller, Frederick McCoy was part of a network of acquisition. However, he primarily relied on commercial systems rather than gift exchanges. This system shaped the purpose of the museum and, I argue, contributed to directing McCoy down the path of education and display rather than research. McCoy did not know Gray or Gould well from his time in Britain. In comparison, he had corresponded with Owen, who was a leading figure within the natural history establishment, but McCoy asked the least of Owen.54 In propositioning their help, McCoy flattered Gray and Gould but still approached them as his equals. McCoy proposed to Gray and Gould that they owed ‘antipodes’, even writing to Gould ‘you are one of us’.55 He also made it clear he was a patron and would finance the employment of ‘any person to look up specimens, hunt up the dealers, write Catalogues’ and would also cover ‘travelling’ expenses.56 McCoy was a buyer with large amounts of cash to spend. Using the largesse of the government of Victoria, supported by gold finds, McCoy transferred aspects of the power relationship to ­Victoria, [ 91 ]

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with Gray, Gould and the taxidermist Edward Gerrard sending McCoy regular shipments during the 1860s. All three went out of their way to secure rare specimens from around the world. From their letters to McCoy, they each indicate that he had first option on a number of new collections coming from disparate parts of the world.57 In writing to these dealers, McCoy confidently proclaimed that any expenses would be ‘cheerfully paid by the Colony’. His approach to procurement was to order the specimens and then expect the university and parliament to pay. By the early 1860s, however, the colony had established a number of cultural institutions including the Public Library in 1854, the Botanical Garden in 1857, the National Gallery in 1859, and an Observatory in 1863.58 This growth in new cultural institutions diverted funds away from the museum. Between 1857 and 1867, McCoy’s museum consumed an astronomical £80,000 in building construction and furnishing collections.59 From the early 1860s, McCoy’s budget was constrained by the Chief Secretary’s office and later the Board of Trustees. Consequently, McCoy delayed payment of his overseas accounts. Each of his correspondents became concerned about McCoy’s erratic settling of accounts, in some cases covering his accounts with their own money for up to three years. After not being paid for two years, Gould wrote despairingly to McCoy: As I have not received a reply to my Letter[s] … I reason of your silence … our correspondence is mainly in your interest and I do think that on reflection you will come to the conclusion that you are not using me well.60

On another occasion Gould suggested that colonial life was destroying McCoy’s respect for good manners in not promptly acknowledging receipt of correspondence.61 Similar complaints are made by Gray and, to a lesser extent, by Gerrard.62 However, they all continued to supply McCoy with specimens. Their complaints reveal tensions over social class and commerce in the natural history community. The importance of British natural history dealers to McCoy, and the centre-periphery and class relations that emerged in these interactions, are demonstrated by the story of Lovell Reeve. Their relationship went back to when McCoy was a young palaeontologist searching for publications and permanent work. Reeve was a leading British conchologist but made a living as a natural history publisher, although naturalists complained that Reeve’s publications focused too much on the popular market.63 His success was marked by his election as a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1846 and of the Geological Society in 1853. Never­ theless, Reeve was not totally accepted by the scientific hierarchy. For example, his unsuccessful attempt to be elected as a Fellow of [ 92 ]

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the Royal Society in 1849 might have been due to his involvement in trade.64 In 1850 Reeve contracted McCoy to produce a ‘Popular History of Fossils’.65 McCoy forwarded a draft copy to Reeve, complete with illustration plates. However, Reeve discovered that McCoy was also writing the more scholarly Contributions to British Palaeontology and he tore up the publishing contract.66 McCoy accused Reeve of returning the manuscript and plates in such a way as to ensure that the plates were destroyed in the post.67 At this stage in his career McCoy was at the behest of powerful and mid-level figures in the natural history community. Ten years later, McCoy was no longer an itinerant academic looking for a position but, rather, an established figure in colonial Victoria’s intellectual milieu. Reeve contacted McCoy in 1861, informing him that he had gone into business selling shell collections and stating he had heard that McCoy wanted to purchase the ‘Cuming Collection’. Arguing that the ‘Cuming Collection’ should ‘go to the British Museum’, Reeve maintained that McCoy would be better to purchase a 1,000-shell selection from the ‘Metcalfe Collection’ with a few rare specimens.68 Responding, McCoy made it clear he was a real patron requesting ‘seven or eight thousand of the rarest species’. Reeve was overjoyed, maintaining: It is rather difficult to answer this question; but I may say that an average of two shillings a specimen, (or rather species, for where the species is small I would put up two or more specimens as one) would include a large number both of rarity and nice. Special things over and beyond this would be subjects for special negotiation.69

Reeve must have thought McCoy’s museum presented an opportune bonanza. Consequently, he went out of his way to fulfil his new patron’s desires, offering to ‘send you [McCoy] all the species that can [be] brought together … enabling you to make comparisons. You will then have only to make your selection, and send the unselected specimens back.’70 Reeve also acknowledged the growing intellectual weight of colonial Victoria, commenting ‘it is quite delightful to find natural history so scientifically encouraged in the famed colony in which you have cast your lot’.71 Similar flattering, yet also patronising, comments can be found in the correspondence of each of McCoy’s dealers from the 1860s. These comments are testament to the influence of money in science. The growth of science in Melbourne was a potential goldmine for dealers in natural history. Between 24 May 1862 and 17 May 1863, McCoy ordered £474.14s.8d of shells from Reeve. Using average earnings as a comparison, in today’s value this would equate to £305,000.72 [ 93 ]

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Nevertheless, by October 1864 McCoy had paid only £294.5s.0d and did not clear his account until after Reeve’s death in 1866. At this time, Reeve’s widow informed McCoy: ‘His affairs were not at his death in a very prosperous state, and I have some heavy payments to make.’73 Reeve’s letter of 19 June 1864 expresses the obvious financial concern that he felt: ‘I am very much surprised at not having heard from you[;] not one line have I received from you since your letter of the 24th Dec 1862!’.74 McCoy could have easily provided a mea culpa letter explaining government finances similar to the ones he sent to Gould, Gray and Gerrard, yet he did not. Each of McCoy’s suppliers expressed concern at his lack of correspondence. Yet even for McCoy’s standards, his treatment of Reeve was particularly cruel and most likely contributed to Reeve’s poor financial state. It is reasonable to suspect that McCoy enacted a degree of personal revenge for Reeve’s 1852 rejection of his book. Reeve’s story demonstrates the complex centre–periphery relations that existed within the trade in natural history specimens. McCoy was not acting as an agent on the periphery, rather he acted as a major patron immune from the consequences of failing to pay debts. His arrogant dismissal of his debts to the London-based mid-level scientific establishment figures did not hinder his intellectual standing. In 1879, he was awarded the Murchison Medal and, in 1880, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Nevertheless, he received few honours during the 1860s and early 1870s when he amassed these large debts. The fact that McCoy suffered minimal consequences reflects the fact that there was very little dealers like Reeve could do to McCoy. In June 1864, Reeve threatened McCoy: ‘Unless I receive a satisfactory reply from you by return mail, I shall lose no time in submitting my case to the Colonial Minister with the view of having my claim put in train for settlement.’75 This was an impotent threat. Victoria was a self-governing colony with control over its own budget. At most, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies could send a letter of concern to the Chief Secretary of Victoria over McCoy’s actions. To pre-empt this issue, McCoy forwarded a measly £50 to pacify Reeve. This highlights that the notion that peripheral science in Melbourne was structurally subservient to London needs to be seriously qualified. McCoy’s actions demonstrate that he could exert independence and authority and could acquire choice specimens by virtue of his distance and perceived access to wealth for patronage. This relationship was also built on impressions. Each of these dealers made patronising statements about their support for the growth of science in the colonies. They assumed that McCoy, on the colonial periphery, would be subservient to them at the centre of the British Empire. McCoy [ 94 ]

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initially pandered to these beliefs, yet made it clear that he was an important figure and could treat them how he wished. I suggest this was a product of his insecure position in the 1840s and early 1850s, rather than an expression of colonial activism. Therefore, by using the National Museum of Victoria and McCoy as a case study, we can see that geographical and intellectual peripheries became intertwined and dependent on circumstances in wider colonial networks.

Exchange networks In addition to commercial procurement, McCoy was also involved in exchanges of specimens. McCoy’s involvement with exchanges has often been overrated to the point of being erroneous. For example, Malcolm Carkeek comments: ‘McCoy, almost single-handedly, built up the collection over four decades, mainly by trading Australia’s unique flora and fauna with museums around the world.’ Carkeek’s observations are simplistic and wrong in his understanding of McCoy’s attitude to exchanges.76 One of McCoy’s first acts, on taking up the directorship of the museum, was to develop a policy on exchanges. He stipulated that ‘approximately equal number of specimens may be exchanged for specimens of other countries required by the museum’.77 Despite this policy of one-for-one exchange, very few exchanges met this standard. The first big exchange occurred when Prince Paul of Württemberg travelled through Australia in late 1858 on his way home to Württemberg after spending a number of years exploring California. Prince Paul was an accomplished explorer and naturalist, having spent years trekking through North and Central America and exploring the Upper Nile.78 In Australia, he journeyed through northern Victoria and southern New South Wales, retracing the regions already surveyed by William Blandowski.79 He returned to Melbourne in September 1858 and negotiated (with McCoy) a large exchange of 286 species collected by Blandowski, which were dually dispatched to Württemberg. In his promissory note, Prince Paul committed: ‘I shall not fail to send other equivalents from Europe for the University Museum Melbourne’. As a down payment he left some of the species he had collected in America (one monkey and two North American rats) and a Black Crowned Crane from Africa, which he happened to be carrying with him.80 Unfortunately for McCoy, Prince Paul never sent the specimens promised. He died only a few months after returning from Australia.81 Travellers visiting the museum initiated most of the international exchanges in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Two notable examples were an exchange with the Smithsonian Institution in the United States [ 95 ]

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of America and an exchange with the Imperial Museum in St Petersburg. In both cases, it was the visiting parties who expressed a desire for exchange. In the case of the Smithsonian, the deal occurred after Dr Lewin stayed in Washington on his way to Austria and informed the institution that McCoy was willing to exchange a large collection for North American material. On receiving their request, McCoy forwarded 160 specimens, yet nothing was received in return. Similarly, in January 1862, Captain Boulakoff, commander of the I­mperial Russian Frigate Sweetland, landed in Melbourne and declared that he desired to collect Australian specimens for the Imperial Museum in St Petersburg. After ‘accidentally’ hearing of Boulakoff’s desire, McCoy entrusted him with 111 specimens of ‘birds and quadrupeds’, asking that they forward a ‘skin or skull of a brown bear’ or a ‘wild bull’ in exchange, which were never sent.82 In both instances, McCoy stated that he hoped to continue an engagement. McCoy also sent a collection of 102 birds to Edward Blyth in Calcutta.83 Unfortunately, however, other than the list of specimens sent, no other records of this transaction appear to exist. The lack of real reciprocity by American and European institutions to McCoy was a problem that many colonial Australian museums faced. Krefft complained to McCoy that ‘the Trustees [of the Austra­ lian Museum] will be very exacting’ on a deal that he and McCoy were negotiating because ‘they have been badly treated by Prof Agassiz in particular, who for more than £70 worth of specimens never made a return’.84 Failure to reciprocate was not necessarily deliberate and was probably accidental. For example, despite McCoy responding to the Smithsonian request for an exchange in 1860 which they did not reciprocate, Joseph Henry from the Smithsonian wrote to von Mueller in 1869, complaining: ‘We addressed Prof. McCoy some time since on this subject [exchanges] but have, as yet, received no reply from him, and presuming that if he had been inclined to accede to the proposition he would have written to us before this time.’85 It was not until 1877 that Henry and McCoy were able to resolve their differences. Very little correspondence survives explaining what occurred, but McCoy did not receive any exchanges from the Smithsonian until the late 1870s when they exchanged publications and fish specimens. The lack of correspondence from the Smithsonian accepting the collection that McCoy sent in 1860 may indicate that they never received the collection.86 Whatever the case, Henry’s letter to von Mueller suggests McCoy did not dignify this with a response. In making these exchanges, McCoy was not acting alone. The exchanges were authorised either by the Chief Secretary’s Office or Judge Redmond Barry.87 Barry was the driving force behind the estab[ 96 ]

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lishment of the University, Public Library, National Museum and National Gallery. He was eager to develop overseas connections, establishing publication exchange networks with other colonies in the British Empire, and gleefully commented to McCoy that Boulakoff presented an ‘extremely desirable … offer’.88 Despite Barry’s belief that these were worthwhile connections, nothing was received in return. The only exchanges that reached anything close to McCoy’s policy of ‘approximately equal number of specimens’ were the exchanges made with local naturalists and colonial museums in Australia and New Zealand. However, these were generally instigated by the other party. One such example was the exchanges between Krefft and McCoy. Krefft had worked as Blandowski’s assistant on the Lower Murray expedition. On his return to Melbourne, Krefft courted McCoy’s support for a position at the National Museum. Although McCoy did not support him in a permanent position, he gave him temporary work and wrote a glowing letter of recommendation urging the trustees of the Sydneybased Australian Museum to employ Krefft.89 As soon as he gained a position, he tried to bring McCoy into an exchange system, writing: Dr Pittard is very anxious to enter with you into a system of exchanges of specimens. … You might receive from here a complete conchological collection in exchange for other specimens of Australian fossils there are also duplicate specimens, at the museum; but our Australian vertebrate animals are rather thinly represented in the cabinets.90

As a former employee and part of the expedition that acquired the majority of the specimens in the National Museum, Krefft regularly made suggestions to McCoy in the early 1860s about how he could fill some of the holes in McCoy’s collections through exchanges. McCoy did dispatch collections in exchange for Krefft’s, although probably not to Krefft’s desire. A continual theme in Krefft’s correspondence was his (Krefft’s) desire to regain the specimens that he had collected with Blandowski, making comments such as: ‘We are still very deficient in Victorian specimens in particular in those found in the Valley of the Murray.’91 In return for Victorian mammals, Krefft sent McCoy casts of the major fossil finds from New South Wales. In 1874, a member of the Victoria Parliament complained that McCoy was not finding specimens to support Owen’s research. McCoy responded by stating: ‘[my research] is confined to Victorian Organic remains, while the material of Professor Owen’s work on the bones of Marsupials abound chiefly in the caves of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia comparatively few beyond these I have described occurring in Victoria’.92 McCoy’s relationship with Krefft was an important means of acquiring casts of these important finds of megafauna. Despite this reciprocal relationship, in October 1861, Krefft complained: [ 97 ]

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I am sorry that the greater part of the mammalia you sent were totally destroyed by insects and not fit to be sent. I hope you will send me at least a few good skins if you have any at all and I shall return these … if you have no good skins of mammalia I shall be happy to [receive] foreign kinds in stead [sic] of native. I will furnish you with a list you know my dear sir that I do whatever I can to supply you with as much specimens as you are in want.93

Krefft’s correspondence is more engaged with the spirit of exchange and collegiality than McCoy’s lacklustre approach to Australian exchange networks. McCoy’s ambivalence was replicated with inter­ national ­ naturalists that contacted him with the idea of making exchanges. Victor de Robillard operated out of Mauritius and aggressively pursued an exchange relationship with McCoy. After the first exchange, however, McCoy wrote to Robillard asking to purchase Mauritian specimens rather than exchange them.94 Despite this reluctance, McCoy did readily despatch substantial collections with very little assurance of something coming back in return. In doing so, therefore, he supported the idea of a global exchange community. Never­ theless, similar to his correspondence with Krefft, McCoy rarely wrote the first letter. Consequently he responded to opportunities rather than cre­ating them. This discussion has focused on exchanges as commodified natural history specimens. However, exchanges were also an important part of scholarly discourse. Martin Rudwick argues that exchanges in publications and specimens were part of the ‘republic of letters’ and a backbone to scholarly engagement.95 Many people tried to bring McCoy into exchanges as a form of intellectual discourse. On 18 May 1864, Louis Agassiz wrote to McCoy: ‘for years past I have wished to enter upon a correspondence with you to propose to you exchanges of specimens of natural history in order not to being with words only’. As such, he sent McCoy two boxes of ‘Echinoderm which you may value for the sake of their identification’.96 It took McCoy a year and half to respond, at which time he forwarded a collection of 157 species from Blandowski’s Lower Murray catalogue.97 Although this was a nice gesture, McCoy’s delay and the manner of his response did not pick up on the spirit of intellectual enquiry and discovery that Agassiz was trying to convey and instead McCoy merely asked for animals for display. In a similar vein, Julius Haast approached McCoy in 1860, offering to send a ‘collection of N. Zealand fossils on condition that’ McCoy ‘describes them and returns duplicates and sketches of the unique specimens’.98 In what became a common story, Haast complained of McCoy’s lack of correspondence and progress. Haast had hoped that McCoy would be more productive in the naming and describing of specimens. Disgrun[ 98 ]

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tled with what he perceived as McCoy’s lethargic nature, he asked for his specimens back.99 These examples demonstrate that McCoy was not an exponent of intellectual exchange when it meant the physical transfer of objects. The specimens that McCoy exchanged came mainly from the Blandowski catalogue. The Blandowski catalogue presented a major logistical problem. As previously stated, it consisted of approximately fourteen thousand specimens. Unfortunately, the government of Victoria did not have the resources to store this collection adequately. Until 1863, the entire museum was stored in temporary premises. Not only did McCoy exchange a large number of specimens, he destroyed a large number too. With both Krefft and Robillard complaining of their condition, there is evidence that the specimens McCoy exchanged were substandard. Considering the size of the collection, the storage conditions, the fact that McCoy was destroying infested specimens, and the observations that McCoy’s exchange specimens were in poor condition, it appears that his exchanges related more to collection management techniques than collegial scientific activity. This premise is further supported by a dialogue between Redmond Barry and McCoy. As President of the Victorian Court for the International Exhibition, Barry was taking a collection of Victorian insects to the 1862 International Exhibition in London. Barry asked McCoy: ‘Will you let me know if you think I might make predacious sale or exchange of all or any of these in Europe and if so and with what bodies.’100 To this McCoy responded: I do not think there would be the slightest chance of replacing so complete a collection of all the orders of Australian insects and hope they will be returned in accordance with the initial arrangement as there is nothing of the kind to be had by exchange in Europe so important for our university purposes.101

This dialogue reveals that McCoy’s primary interest was education and display. It also makes clear that his idea of exchange was similar to that of a boy trading marbles, whereby one aims to trade rubbish for quality. It is worth noting that out of the many exchanges that McCoy conducted with European and American museums, he rarely received anything in return. Therefore, McCoy saw exchanging as a collection management tool, or an easy mechanism of de-accessioning.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that collection acquisition contributed to the curatorial decisions that shaped the National Museum of Victoria as a museum for display and education rather than research. [ 99 ]

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McCoy’s initial intention was research. His chosen path of acquisition, however, helped to propel him down a path of collection display. His key pedagogical focus was to build a global collection with the aim of showing geographical distribution and developing a collection for comparison. In doing so, his exhibitions catered for both scholarly and popular audiences. In following this approach, McCoy responded to his critics in Melbourne who accused him of developing the museum for elitist education. His collections and displays were open to the public and were popular. To build this collection, McCoy purchased collections from natural history dealers rather than developing domestic collecting networks. This approach ensured that McCoy gained excellent collections that enabled him to mount popular displays. They were already organised, labelled and ready for instant comparative use. Furthermore, it meant that McCoy aimed to replicate the institutional breadth of collecting institutions at the centre of the British Empire. His museum was therefore dependent on networks of empire, but he used government money to build his connections and splashed largesse on the natural history industry. In doing this, McCoy made key figures in the natural history establishment his clients. Many expressed their unhappiness with how the relationship developed. This created a network of interdependency, in which the dominant actor became hard to distinguish. Another aspect of McCoy’s attitude to networks was his use of exchanges. Previous commentators have misunderstood the role of these exchanges in McCoy’s approach to collection development. Rather than using exchanges to build a collection, McCoy used exchanges to reduce the size of, and to clear out, local Australian collections. This approach to exchange also indicates that he did not regard it as a serious scientific exercise but rather as a collection management tool. McCoy did not aggressively pursue exchanges; rather, he preferred the simplicity of commercial transactions. McCoy requested large collections for display, making it clear he wanted the best available. His idea of the best specimens was based on rarity and the visual nature of the display. This focus on commercial engagement helped to propel McCoy curatorial decisions down a display-orientated path.

Notes  1 The Barnum-style curiosity museum is a reference to the American entertainment entrepreneur, Phineas Taylor Barnum, whose entertainment establishment – the ‘Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome’ – blurred the lines between museums as science and museums as circuses.  2 Frederick McCoy, ‘Museums in Victoria’, The Argus, 29 May 1857.  3 This cultural definition of science is drawn from the work of Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar in Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (Beverly

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Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1979).  4 Jim Endersby, Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 13–30.  5 McCoy, ‘Museums in Victoria’, The Argus, 29 May 1857. For his rejection of ethnographic objects as scientific, see also Museum Victoria Archives (MVA), Letter Book 1861–65, MVS 3/1(1), Frederick McCoy to Rev. Goodwin, 26 December 1862, p. 21. This point is the subject of a paper currently in preparation entitled ‘Resisting Man’s place in nature’.  6 Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century (Kingston, ON, and Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), pp. 95–101.  7 John M. MacKenzie, Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), p. 137.  8 Ibid., p. 138.  9 Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science, pp. 52–3. 10 Ibid., p. 33. 11 Ian Wilkinson, ‘Frederick McCoy and the University of Melbourne’, The Victorian Naturalist, 118:5 (2001), 186–92; Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science, pp. 27, 30, 35. 12 Doug McCann, ‘Frederick McCoy and his contributions to stratigraphical palaeontology’, The Victorian Naturalist, 118:5 (2001), 165–77, p. 170. 13 Quoted in Carolyn Rasmussen, A Museum for the People: A History of Museum Victoria and its Predecessors, 1854–2000 (Carlton, VIC: Scribe Publications, 2001), pp. 37–8. 14 McCoy, ‘Museums in Victoria’, The Argus, 29 May 1857. 15 David Goodman, ‘Fear of circuses: Founding the National Museum of Victoria’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 3:1 (1990), 18–34, p. 29. 16 MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, p. 142; Rasmussen, A Museum for the People, p. 53. 17 Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science, p. 52. 18 Barry Butcher, ‘Frederick McCoy’s anti-evolutionism: The cultural context of scientific belief’, The Victorian Naturalist, 118:5 (2001), 226–30, p. 229. 19 MVA, File 2909, Frederick McCoy, ‘Letter to editor of The Age: National Museum’, c. 1898, p. 4. 20 Ibid. 21 Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science, pp. 73, 99. 22 Ibid., p. 100. 23 Rasmussen, A Museum for the People, p. 41. 24 Ibid. 25 MVA, File 2631, George Gordon McCray to Frederick McCoy, 30 November 1883. 26 Frederick McCoy, Natural History of Victoria: Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria, Or, Figures and Descriptions of the Living Species of all Classes of the Victorian Indigenous Animals (Melbourne, VIC, and London: John Ferres, Trübner and Co., 1885), decade 11, p. 51. 27 His accounts are full of recipes from fishmongers. 28 John Keen, ‘A rare field trip for Professor McCoy’, Caught and Coloured: Zoolo­ gical Illustrations from Colonial Victoria, http://museumvictoria.com.au/ caughtandcoloured/fieldtrip.aspx (accessed 30 August 2010); MacKenzie, in Museums and Empire, argues that McCoy did not engage in fieldwork. In reality, this trip to Phillip Island was probably closer to a holiday than fieldwork. 29 Stafford supplied McCoy with specimens for approximately fifteen years. Unfor­ tunately, only the letters for 1879 and some from 1880 survive. See MVA, File 2647. 30 MVA, Letter Book 1878–80, MVS 2/1(5), Frederick McCoy to Cyril Stafford, 5 February 1880, p. 79. 31 MVA, Letter Book 1878–80, MVS 2/1(5), McCoy to Stafford, 3 April 1879, p. 31; McCoy to Stafford, 25 April 1879, p. 34. 32 MVA, File 2647, Stafford to McCoy, 31 May 1879. 33 MVA, Letter Book 1857–61, MVS 2/1(1), Frederick McCoy to Richard Owen, 14 June

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1858, p. 87. 34 MVA, File 2631, W. J. Gore to Frederick McCoy, including letters by J. W. McGowan, 6 August 1862. 35 Frederick McCoy, ‘Letter to the Editor: Victorian Gigantic Fossil Animals’, The Argus, 24 August 1865, p. 5. 36 Ibid. 37 Frederick McCoy and Geological Survey of Victoria, Prodromus to the Palaeontology of Victoria, Or, Figures and Descriptions of Victorian Organic Remains (Melbourne, VIC: John Ferres, 1874), decade 7, p. 12. 38 MVA, Letter Book 1865–73, MVS 2/1(3), McCoy to Stafford, 23 September 1873, p. 582. 39 Ferdinand von Mueller to Julius Haast, 1 November 1861, in R. W. Home et al. (eds), Regardfully Yours: Selected Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, 3 vols (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), vol. 2, p. 170. 40 Quoted in Kathleen Fennessy, A People Learning: Colonial Victorians and their Public Museums, 1860–1880 (Melbourne, VIC: Australian Scholarly Press, 2007), p. 64. 41 MVA, File 2693, Lovell Reeve to Frederick McCoy, 18 April 1862. 42 MVA, Letter Book MVS 2/1(1), McCoy to Owen, 14 September 1857, p. 24 43 MVA, Letter Book MVS 2/1(1), Frederick McCoy to John Gray, 14 September 1857, p. 22; McCoy to Owen, 14 September 1857, p. 24. 44 MVA Letter Book MVS 2/1(1): McCoy to Gray, 14 September 1857, p. 22; McCoy to John Gould, 14 September 1857, pp. 21–2. 45 Paul Lawrence Farber, ‘The type-concept in zoology during the first half of the nineteenth century’, Journal of History of Biology, 9:1 (1976), 93–119. 46 Ibid., p. 100. 47 McCoy, ‘Museums in Victoria’, The Argus, 29 May 1857. 48 MVA, File 3182, Frederick McCoy to ‘My Lord Archbishop’ [possibly John Bird Sumner], Woodwindian Museum, 15 September 1851, p. 2. 49 McCoy, ‘Museums in Victoria’. 50 Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science, p. 73. 51 Ibid. 52 Endersby, Imperial Nature. 53 Goodman, ‘Fear of circuses’, p. 29. 54 Mitchell Library, A 675, McCoy to Owen, 23 October 1849. 55 MVA, Letter Book MVS 2/1(1), McCoy to Gould, 14 September 1857. 56 Ibid. 57 For example, see MVA, File 2923, Gray to McCoy, 16 December 1857; File 2617, Gould to McCoy, 15 February 1860; File 2616, Edward Gerrard to Frederick McCoy, 8 February 1861. 58 Fennessy, A People Learning, pp. 1–8. 59 Rasmussen, A Museum for the People, p. 64. 60 MVA, File 2618, Gould to McCoy, 25 February 1871. 61 MVA, File 2618, Gould to McCoy, 1 May 1863. 62 For example, MVA, File 2616, Gerrard to McCoy, 19 September 1862, 27 October 1862, 18 October 1864; File 2923, Gray to McCoy, 19 June 1863. 63 S. Peter Dance, ‘Reeve, Lovell Augustus (1814–1865)’, in H. C. G. Matthews and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 61 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 46, pp. 343–4. 64 Ibid. 65 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 19 March 1850; Reeve to McCoy, 15 September 1850. 66 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 15 February 1853. 67 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 13 August 1853. 68 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 17 April 1862; see also, MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 18 April 1862. 69 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 18 April 1862. 70 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 25 April 1862.

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71 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 18 April 1862. 72 Lawrence H. Officer, ‘Five ways to compute the relative value of a UK pound amount, 1830 to present’, MeasuringWorth, 2010, www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare (accessed 19 August 2010). 73 MVA, File 2693, Martha Reeve to Frederick McCoy, 14 May 1866. Under probate Lovell Reeve’s wealth at his death was £3,000. See Dance, ‘Reeve, Lovell Augustus (1814–1865)’, p. 344. 74 MVA, File 2693, Reeve to McCoy, 19 June 1864 (emphasis in original). 75 Ibid. 76 Malcolm Carkeek, ‘McCoy, Sir Frederick (1821/2–1899)’, in Matthews and Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 46, pp. 162–3. 77 MVA, Letter Book MVS 2/1(1), note by Frederick McCoy, 25 January 1958, p. 33. 78 S. W. Geiser, ‘Some frontier naturalists’, Bios, 5:4 (1934), pp. 141–52, p. 147; ‘On this day: Prince Wurttemberg explores the West’, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ prince-wurttemberg-explores-the-west (accessed 29 August 2010). 79 ‘Count Heidenheim – The Prince Paul of Wurtemburg’, The South Australian Advertiser, 14 September 1858, p. 2. 80 MVA, File 2612, Prince Paul of Württemberg to Frederick McCoy, September 1858. 81 ‘On this day: Prince Wurttemberg explores the West’. 82 MVA, Letter Book 1861–1865, MVS 2/1(2), Frederick McCoy to Captain Boulakoff, 16 January 1862. 83 MVA, ‘List of Specimens Sent to Edward Blyth, Calcutta Museum, August 1861’, in Visitors Returns Book, April 1864–April 1871, and Outgoing Specimen Book, 19 September 1859 – 10 January 1872, p. 35. 84 MVA, File 2622, Gerard Krefft to Frederick McCoy, 27 June 1873. 85 Joseph Henry to Ferdinand von Mueller, 25 October 1869, in Home et al. (eds), Regardfully Yours, vol. 2, p. 522. 86 I contacted the Smithsonian archive in June 2009. They found one letter to McCoy in RU 53 [outgoing], vol. 40 (1869), pp. 259–61. There was, however, a fire in the Smithsonian in 1865 that destroyed many of its early records. 87 See examples in MVA, File 2605, Sir Redmond Barry, 1850–72. 88 MVA, File 2605, Frederick McCoy to Sir Redmond Barry, 16 January 1862. 89 MVA, File 2622, Krefft to McCoy, 7 August 1860, p. 10. 90 Ibid. pp. 4–5. 91 MVA, File 2622, Krefft to McCoy, 16 May 1864, p. 3. 92 MVA, Letter Book 1873–78, MVS 2/1(4), Frederick McCoy to G. B. Kuper, 15 December 1874. 93 MVA, File 2622, Krefft to McCoy, 9 October 1861, pp. 2–3. 94 See MVA, File 2638, ‘Robillard – letters and lists of specimens from Mauritius’. 95 Martin J. S. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 39. 96 Harvard University, Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Agassiz Letter Books, 1859–1910, Special Collections, MCZ F890, vol. 2, Louis Agassiz to Frederick McCoy, 18 May 1864. 97 MVA, Letter Book, 2/1(3), McCoy to Agassiz, 25 January 1866. 98 MVA, Letter Book 1865–73, MVS 2/1(1), Frederick McCoy to Julius Haast, 25 November 60. 99 MVA, File 2931, Haast to McCoy, 14 August 1864. 100 MVA, File 2605, McCoy to Barry, 16 January 1862. 101 Ibid.

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Chapter five

Narrative as history, image as memory: ­exhibiting the Great War in Australia 1917–41 Jennifer Wellington

A visitor to Canberra today would have a difficult time avoiding the Australian War Memorial. The Memorial, a mock-Byzantine structure topped by a green copper dome at the end of a wide, sweeping parade joining the Memorial in a visual axis with Australia’s Parliament, attracts around a million visitors a year to its imposing site.1 To enter, a visitor climbs broad, grey stone steps, passes through a wide doorway, and walks between two stone lions (taken from the original Menin Gate in Belgium) before being accosted by a staff member in a red tie proffering a glossy map. Glance ahead: there are cloisters lined with the names of the dead; a still pond with an eternal flame burning at one end; gargoyles; yew trees. At the far end is the muted green dome of the ‘Hall of Memory’. Another red-clad attendant hovers by the doorway. Everywhere appears the injunction: Remember. Turn left, and walk through glass doors to a long, white entrance hall, where quotations in raised letters stare down from the walls: ‘Here Is Their Spirit’ (C. E. W. Bean); ‘Australia Was Born’ (Prime Minister Billy Hughes, 1915). Walk down another corridor, turn left, and enter the museum proper: here are galleries devoted to the history of Australia in the First World War.2 Or are they devoted to the memory of that conflict? By ‘memory’, I mean the sensation of a proprietary, emotional connection to the past and the community of the dead, buttressed by broadly accepted impressions of that past, as opposed to ‘history’, which requires the recitation of facts based on verifiable evidence.3 This chapter aims to demonstrate the processes by which, over time, this memory has trumped history – or, put another way, feeling [ 104 ]

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trumped understanding – in the representation of the First World War in the Australian War Memorial. I will begin by sketching the origins of the Australian War Memorial and its collections during the First World War and continue by describing the ways in which the balance of objects displayed in the museum became less overtly martial, less narrative and more commemorative in character in the period 1917–41. I will focus especially on the role of Australia’s official war correspondent, official war historian and national war museum progenitor, C. E. W. Bean, in effecting this shift, through his involvement in the selection of exhibits for the Memorial, and his extensive editorial control over the creation of artistic representations of warfare for public display. Two sculpted scenes – dioramas – of different elements of the Australian war experience, the Mont St Quentin diorama (1920– 23), and the Pozières diorama (1928–29) will act as nodes for exploring these issues: whose view of the war was represented in the museum, how the form of representation used altered the viewer’s understanding of the war, and whether the museum was a location for narrating history or, rather, a locus of memory or ‘site of mourning’.4

‘War to End All Wars’: the Great War and Australia’s compulsion to record and remember The impulse to remember was evident in all combatant nations during the war itself. Such was the sense of the momentous nature of events, that this ‘Great’ war was quite unlike anything seen previously, that recording it seemed not only desirable, but a necessity. Within the British Empire, Britain and the Dominions commissioned officers to write histories, collect artefacts and organise artists and photographers to record the conflict. Historical units were formed to document all facets of the conflict minutely, transforming the event into history while it was still occurring. For example, in early 1915 the British ­government employed the Royal Librarian, Sir John Fortescue, to write a propagandist history of the British Army, and in January 1915 the Canadian government hired Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook) to ‘follow the fortunes of the 1st Division, share its experience and give the Canadian public an account of the performance of its regiments and finally enshrine in a contemporary history those exploits which w[ould] make the 1st Division immortal’.5 This impulse – to amass, record and remember – was particularly strong in the case of Australia, a nation which had come into being as a unified polity only thirteen years prior to the outbreak of the Great War.6 From the outset both politicians and public sentiment characterised the war as just the sort of monumental event which might, through [ 105 ]

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violent opportunities for tragic heroism and dogged survival, forge a national identity. Indeed, in 1915 Billy Hughes, Australia’s bellicose war-time prime minister whose intransigence triggered frequent changes of party-political allegiance, proclaimed that ‘Australia was born on the shores of Gallipoli’, the site of the new nation’s first major military engagement.7 Newspapers, too, eagerly circulated stories which confirmed the supposedly unique qualities of the Australian soldier, and reprinted foreign accounts which supported the notion that Australian troops had passed some kind of necessary, nationdefining trial by fire. These stories, too, began with the first reports of Australian participation in the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula beginning on 25 April 1915. The Melbourne Argus (and many other papers) reprinted British official war correspondent Ellis AshmeadBartlett’s comments that ‘colonials’ were ‘practical above all else’, that he had ‘never seen anything like these wounded Australians in war before’, and that severely injured Australians ‘were happy because they knew they had been tried for the first time and not been found wanting’.8 This account (later reinforced by many more) represents a vision of the Australian character that has become so entrenched over time that it still forms part of government-sponsored explanations of Australian identity.9 This narrative of trial by fire was, however, entangled in grief and loss. Out of a population of a little less than five million, 417,000 ­volunteered for the armed services during the First World War; 331,000 of these volunteers served overseas, and of these, two out of every three were killed or wounded. Sixty thousand died: ‘a higher proportion of enlistments than any other contingent of Britain and its Empire’.10 Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett’s account of the heroism of Australian troops fighting in the initial attack on the Gallipoli peninsula appeared alongside a list of the names of hundreds of men who had died in the ‘glorious’ actions he lauded.11 This admixture of pride and loss was not merely a journalistic construct; private citizens also experienced grief inter­ mingled with patriotic consolation. Columns of ‘In Memoriam’ notices in newspapers were filled with messages marking the deaths of young men in the service of the empire.12 Families consoled themselves with the belief that ‘their soldier sons had sacrificed their lives in a noble and just cause’.13 The most common phrases in these notices were ‘“he died a hero”; “he gave his life for his country”; “Anzac hero”; “duty nobly done”; “he died for King and country”’.14 These were not merely trite sentiments, uttered without real belief; they were sincerely felt means of coping with bereavement. The project of recording, memorialising and publicising the actions and experiences of Australians at war thus had a resonance that went [ 106 ]

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beyond the official realm. C. E. W. Bean, the official war correspondent, historian and museum progenitor sincerely believed, albeit romantically, that Australians had both demonstrated a special character and achieved ‘a recognised place among the nations’ through their participation in the war.15 Bean’s ‘official’ view became truly popular as it both reflected and influenced popular sentiment. His Official History explicitly took a ‘front line view’, ‘questioning the men who were actually there’.16 Affection for ordinary soldiers lay at the heart of his writing, as did a belief in the importance of their actions. This viewpoint meant that his belief in the need for thoroughly preserving everything that could be part of a ‘national record’ was able to gain traction on an ‘official’ level, leading to the official constitution of the Australian War Records Section in early 1917, and also that this record was relatively democratic.17 Soldiers responded to the (official) injunction to ‘souvenir’ things with great energy.18 Bean reported to the Minister of Defence in 1918: [Units] have in many cases become so enthusiastic that there exists a regular rivalry between them as to which battalion or company shall be represented by the finest collection. The 3rd Battalion, for example, actually carried out (from the forward area) by night from well under the enemy’s observation at Wytechaete a German camouflage tree, together with the whole steel core of it.19

Indeed, as Ken Inglis notes, ‘some responded too exuberantly: ancient cannon and old masters had to be returned to French chateaux, and labels addressed to the Australian War Records Section were detached from German prisoners’.20 Bean’s idealised admiration for the ordinary Australian soldier also led to the creation of a photographic record in which an official, tactical record and the documentation of private soldiers’ experiences were preserved. It included: not only the chaos and confusion of the battlefield, its death toll, and the strain on the combatants but also the more mundane details of everyday life such as health inspections, laundry work, and food preparation.21

The inclusion of these types of images in the Official History and also in exhibitions and displays regarding the war enabled families who had no experience of the horrors of combat to connect in some small way to the experience of their sons, husbands and brothers.22 This photographic record went on display in travelling photographic exhibitions in the early 1920s, and also as part of the Australian War Memorial Museum’s display. An official war photographic exhibition was held in the Sydney Town Hall from March to May 1922. Descriptive paragraphs advertising this event were sent to the Sydney newspapers [ 107 ]

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emphasising the image indexes which would allow soldiers’ families to find them in the photographs. ‘By means of the indexes members of the A. I. F. and their relatives have been able to trace photographs which in many cases they did not know existed. In this way many a mother has secured her only photograph of a fallen soldier son.’23 Advertising fliers and posters emphasised the apparent authenticity of the photographs, as well as soldiers’ ability, through viewing the ‘official and uncensored’ photographs, to witness their own experiences: ‘Thousands of N. S. W. soldiers can see themselves in battle scenes in France and Palestine.’24 ‘Battle photographs’ were displayed with a selection of images of trench life and local scenery. Sports photographs were shown, both of participants in the Inter-Allied Games held at the front and of prominent local sportsmen who had enlisted.25 ‘Ordinary’ images such as these, and the ability to identify individual soldiers in photographs, both enable some connection with an otherwise alien experience and increase the pathos of the viewer. There exists a way ‘in’ to understanding, or at least some emotional connection with what the viewer might imagine the experience portrayed to be like. It was in moments of emotional connection like these, mixed with pride and grief, that official portrayals of the war and popular sentiment met.

Connection and memory: creating and responding to the Museum and its dioramas In October 1917, acting on the advice of official historian C. E. W. Bean, the Australian government committed itself to an Australian War Museum.26 At the end of the war, ships full of artefacts sailed back to Australia, most arriving during the course of 1919. Initially, these objects focused on the physical tools of war. Several thousand of these objects were guns – mostly German artillery pieces and machine guns captured by Australian troops in the course of the war. After preferred specimens were reserved for the Museum, a museum committee oversaw the distribution of the remaining 3,500 to municipalities throughout the country.27 Bean travelled to Gallipoli soon after the end of the war to collect what he termed ‘relics’ there. On his return to Australia, he set about working on his Official History of the war, bringing out volumes throughout the 1920s. By January 1931, eight of the twelve volumes were complete.28 Simultaneously, Bean was heavily involved in lobbying for the museum and designing its collections. The Australian War Museum opened its first exhibition – of aircraft – in Melbourne in 1920, its first photographic exhibition in the Melbourne Exhibition Building on 20 August 1921, and its first full exhibition on Anzac Day, or 25 April 1922.29 Bean wrote the guide[ 108 ]

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book for the exhibition, which throughout ‘tried to impress on visitors the sacred and memorial nature of the collection’.30 The museum was named the ‘Memorial’ in the authorising Act of Parliament in 1925, and that same year the Melbourne exhibition was moved to Sydney and reopened on 3 April as the ‘Australian War Memorial Museum’.31 The exhibition was consistently popular. Having received over 780,000 visitors in Melbourne between 1922 and 1925, it attracted over 10,000 on its first weekend in Sydney. Staff kept meticulous attendance figures and created tables that demonstrated the Australian museum’s greater popularity than the Imperial War Museum in London.32 The exhibition remained in Sydney until 1935, when it was dismantled and moved to Canberra prior to the 1941 opening of the newly completed Australian War Memorial.33 The move to Canberra made the memorial character of the institution markedly more pronounced: now, the museum was disposed around a commemorative court containing a Roll of Honour that listed the Australian dead (its earlier iterations were of a more strictly ‘museum’ character); there was room for the inclusion of much more art and more dioramas than in Sydney and Melbourne; and the specially designed Memorial and museum were prominent among the new buildings of a purpose-built national capital.34 The Melbourne and Sydney exhibitions, and the War Memorial’s permanent exhibition space in Canberra all featured ‘picture-models’, or dioramas, of different battles in which Australians had fought. The idea for their construction again came from Bean, who had been deeply impressed as a child by the ‘plan-models’ (or sculpted maps) and ‘picture-models’ (dioramas) of the Battle of Waterloo his militaryhistory buff father had taken him to see at the Royal United Services Institution in London.35 In 1918, Bean sent artists to France to survey important battlefields as preparation for constructing dioramas, or ‘picture models’ for the Australian War Museum.36 Two of the artists, the sculptor C. Webb Gilbert and the painter Louis McCubbin, began to make preliminary models of scenes along the line in France as early as mid-1918.37 As they were originally arrayed, they were supposed to have an educational purpose. Bean entered into correspondence with various artists regarding the subject matter of the dioramas (and directed the artists where to go in order to make preliminary sketches and models), and he also substantially composed the text for the descriptive cards displayed with them when they were exhibited. Along with John Treloar, the Museum’s director, who co-ordinated the administrative details in the creation of the Memorial’s exhibits, Bean in many ways performed the functions of a curator, conceiving the idea for the dioramas and controlling their narrative and content.38 [ 109 ]

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5.1  Interior view of the Australian War Memorial, c. 1925–35, part of the temporary War Museum, Sydney, New South Wales.

The dioramas were also originally displayed in close proximity to ‘plan models’ or large, sculpted maps of where battles had occurred. The 1922, 1925 and 1941 guides to the Melbourne, Sydney and finally Canberra museums (composed by Bean) instructed visitors to begin their exploration of the Western Front galleries at the scale ‘plan model’ of the Somme battlefield for a ‘comprehensive presentation’.39 (There was also a scale model of Mont St Quentin and Péronne.) Bean had originally wanted more of these for educational purposes, but in light of an unfavourable view toward some exhibits by the Memorial Committee, he agreed to compromise by sacrificing some of these sculpted maps. The interest in models of more topographical and tactical interest, he conceded in a 1922 letter to John Treloar, was ‘less obvious, and if military leaders like Chauvel think that they are worthless to students, I would let them go, except possibly in the case of very important battles’.40 The dioramas would stay, as Bean believed that ‘they appeal[ed] to the public as showing the sacrifice of and sufferings of the men whose memorial this [wa]s’, showing ‘phases of war which the civilian c[ould] not possibly recognise for himself’.41 Bean had conceived of the dioramas in this way as early as 1918, when he wrote to [ 110 ]

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Treloar: ‘[dioramas] could be made to explain [war] to your sensibility as well – to give you the impression of the utter fatigue, or danger, the feverish unreality which comes over everyday landscapes during battle times’.42 The need to understand ‘the sacrifice and sufferings’ of soldiers in an experiential sense, to empathise with the conditions in which Australian soldiers found themselves, was more important than explaining the broader tactical picture. From Bean’s point of view, ‘memory’, or the museum’s memorial purpose, trumped ‘history’, or the need to educate the public about the ‘bird’s eye’ narrative of the war. Interestingly, visitors appeared to focus on the memory of the dead and on empathy with the soldier’s experience without necessarily being guided in that direction by any museum-editorial input. People spontaneously used the ‘educational’ floor maps for memorialising and grieving purposes: when the plan models were on display in Melbourne and Sydney in the 1920s and 30s, ‘from time to time, […] a returned man would bring along the mother of a fallen mate and would show her on the model not only where her son was hit but where he was buried’.43 Looking at a map could substitute for visiting a grave. Seeing a representation understood to be accurate could be a kind of knowing crucial to healing. The emphasis on the memorial over the educational, or of emotion over context, is even more pronounced today: the dioramas or picture models have endured and are still on display, but other forms, like the floor maps, have vanished.

The dioramas as memory sites The large dioramas all depict sites of violence and death. They are geographically explicit depictions of the location of mass deaths, paused in the midst of an event (usually a battle). They relied on ‘the theatrical trick of perspective to create a three-dimensional illusion so that the viewer was not so much a spectator but became part of the action’.44 Within that ‘captured’ moment, the viewer’s eyes are able to range, not hurried along by narrative structure. They may pause on the face of each figure, or none. The viewer might imagine what happens next, or might stay in the moment: the scene, perpetually frozen at a particular moment, does not really direct a specific movement for the action. This effect is quite visceral, enhanced by the remarkable specificity of the location: these hills, those trees, these ruins seemingly illustrate a place where the war happened, where people struggled and died. The viewer, placed by the artists as ‘part of the action’, is involved in it, not merely a spectator. These scenes prompt emotional connection [ 111 ]

5.2  Mont St Quentin (diorama detail) by Louis McCubbin, 1920–23, Australian War Memorial,Canberra (AWM ART41018).

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rather than intellectually understanding the causal flow of the event, the ‘what happened’, the ‘then what’, the ‘how did that come about?’. That is, in attempting to capture a particular moment and place, the sculptors and artists act in some ways like a camera: attempting to record the reality of an instant. Susan Sontag’s criticism of photography may, then, be applied:

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In contrast to the amorous relation, which is based on how something looks, understanding is based on how it functions. And functioning takes place in time. Only that which narrates can make us understand.45

The diorama stimulates the viewer to emote, but not to understand. In order to discover the context of the instant displayed before them, the visitor resorts to text: to captions explaining what is going on positioned below the scene, to guidebooks, to the spoken words of tour guides, to written histories. The diorama, rather than inviting historical enquiry, commands its viewer to remember. While all the dioramas are concerned with war, with the soldier’s physical experience, and with death, each diorama has a specific emotional charge behind its construction and inclusion in the War Memorial’s collection. Generally, these may be traced back to one or both of the elements which (in different proportions, but usually entangled in some way) informed both the official and broader public reaction to the war: grief and mourning, and patriotic pride which construed the ‘struggle’ as having ‘a powerful agency in moulding the people of Australia’.46 The first diorama to be constructed, for example, portrayed the fighting at Mont St Quentin – an Australian victory in August–September 1918. Its construction began with preliminary sketches and a proto-model in 1918, and it went on display in the original Melbourne exhibition in 1922, due to the popular demands of returned servicemen. Soldiers at the front of the diorama are depicted in the act of ‘going over the top’. Poised on the edge of the trench, some turn around to help others climb out. The moment of victory still lies ahead; the scene is filled with possibility. The possibility of death is not denied – a man with a stomach wound lies propped up against the trench wall at the front of the diorama, and there are other dead figures in the scene. The scene, however, is still open to the possibility of victory (‘timed’ as it is in a moment of something’s about to happen), and immediate post-war audiences in particular would have been aware that an Australian victory was what happened. This victory-oriented view of the war was the dominant one in the War Museums’ presentation of the war in the early 1920s: in Melbourne in 1922, nine of the twentyone campaign display cases were devoted to the successes of 1918.47 A [ 113 ]

5.3  Pozières (diorama detail) by Louis McCubbin and FrankLynch, 1928–29, Australian War Memorial, Canberra (AWM ART41019).

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‘patriotic’ ­reaction, then, might have been expected by the servicemen who insisted on its expedited construction, and by immediate post-war visitors. This assumption of audience knowledge, however, changed as the war receded further into the past. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 1958 that of the 250,000 people who visited the War Memorial that year, the ‘great majority’ had never heard of Mont St Quentin.48 Without an understood and commonly known surrounding narrative, the diorama becomes a memory cipher, unable to form an imaginative link in the recitation of a specific historical event. Viewers observing it now are unable simply to see it, and associate it with the (victory, pride) narrative its original viewers would have immediately placed it within. Its meaning becomes more and more purely evocative: do you see the destroyed trees, can you imagine how it felt to climb out of a trench and run toward barbed wire, toward machine guns? The later 1920s saw a more solemnly commemorative mood take hold in the museum – seen, for example, in the 1929 removal or re­writing of placards containing the word ‘Hun’.49 Tellingly, some dioramas and artworks created in the later 1920s were also more dominated by simple emotional charge, not asking their viewers to place them within a battle narrative, but more simply inviting the viewer to feel sorrow and desolation. (That is not to say that all elements of heroism and endurance were absent from these later representations; rather, their primary emphasis was altered.) One such example is the Pozières diorama, created in 1928–29, but not put on display until the Memorial opened in Canberra in 1941. Despite the lengthy narrative Bean wrote in 1929 to be displayed alongside it, the impact is one of a static moment, where the broader ‘action’ is invisible but the horrific effects of artillery and gunfire are evident. The only troops visible are Australian soldiers in and around a crater in the middle of the conflict. Most of these soldiers are clearly dead. The rest of the fighting is invisible, but clouds above out-of-vision explosions are painted on to the background. Of the soldiers, four are still alive: two crouched in the hole and two leaning against the front slope of the crater. Two of the dead soldiers to the left of the crater lie in a kind of embrace, the arms of the soldier on the left-hand side thrown over the other, his hand resting on his comrade’s thigh. Another, lying head-down on the right-hand side of the hole, has had a leg and an arm blown off, and is shirtless, revealing a young, healthylooking torso. All of this appears to be taking place in some kind of moonscape, a monotonous sea of earth and hints of the remains of items that might have been there before (there is some evidence of fence-posts for example). The impact of war is clear without recourse [ 115 ]

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to narrative, or need of broader explanation: war, the diorama says, is awful. It destroys. Mourn these men. This emotive punch was created through the deliberate refusal of narrative. The scene depicted is one referred to in the third volume of Bean’s Official History.50 Bean, however, insisted that although the place depicted could be plotted to precise co-ordinates, narrowed to an exact time and date (early morning, 6 August 1916), and verified through the testimony of specific people (Sergeant D. A. Twining, pictured leaning up against the front of the crater in shirtsleeves), these facts should be used only selectively, and any details which detracted from the ‘feeling of mystery which No-man’s Land used to inspire’ ignored.51 Bean’s own official history describes the same time and place as a succession of events, of tactical decisions, as well as of destruction. The presence of time – the narration of events over time – and an engagement with the broader pattern of events create a crucially dif­ferent vision of Pozières than does the diorama. The independent action of the soldiers depicted in the diorama is emphasised: This day, however, German stretcher-bearers again came out from the Baupaume Road. The movements of one pair, who persisted in approaching the line near the windmill, strongly aroused the suspicion of Sergeant Twining. After signalling to them in vain to retire, he shot one bearer and there dropped from the stretcher, not a wounded German, but a bag. This afforded some evidence that the enemy stretcher-bearers were not all genuine, but that some were scouting.52

These descriptions have the cumulative effect of asserting the utility of the attack: the methods, plans and location seem, above all, to be logical. Australian soldiers move, decide, have agency. That is not to say that Bean eschews the reality of danger and death, simply that deaths are made, through the structure of the narrative, to appear instrumental, part of a useful cause, in a way that the bleak, isolated scene of the diorama does not. Bean, however, specifically instructed Lynch not to include a number of things in the Pozières diorama he knew to have occurred at that time and place. The director of the Memorial, John Treloar, suggested that Twining (the man in shirtsleeves) be contacted in order to provide Lynch with factual details for his sculpture. In June 1929, Twining supplied a number of details, including Australian blunders which resulted in the deaths of the men pictured in the diorama: A square piece of tin was attached to each man’s back for the purpose of allowing our airmen to pick out our troops easily. This particularly stupid idea allowed enemy airmen to pick us up and the artillery of the enemy promptly caused the casualties.53

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This fact appears in neither the official history nor the diorama. So, the diorama emphasises memory, rather than narrating the history – the ‘what happened’ – of battle. But whose memory? Since the 1970s, the diorama has been displayed above a plaque stating that the diorama was constructed with the assistance of one of the men pictured in it, David Twining, who advised the artists of what the area looked like from his memory. It does not mention that in August 1931 at Keswick Barracks in Adelaide, Twining pulled his army greatcoat over his head, placed his face over a gas ring, and committed suicide.54 The dioramas are all deliberate evocations of sites where combat, hardship, suffering and death occurred. Through tricks of construction and perspective, viewers are invited to immerse themselves imaginatively in the scene and to connect with the moment portrayed. The apparent specificity of the sites the dioramas rendered, and the dominant impulse to remember and emote conveyed by them, meant that for Australians, coming to view them could be a stand-in for visiting distant battlefields and grave sites. Actual battlefields were transformed into sites of pilgrimage after the war; an encounter with a facsimile of the place where a visitor understood a relative or friend to have been killed had a similarly sacral quality.55 Both encouraged memory and connection with the idea of an event, both evoked loss and death, and neither really required narrative chronology in order to conjure emotion or prompt a conscious desire to remember the dead.

Conclusions The strength of the pathos and desolation generated by the Pozières diorama is derived in many ways from the isolation of the moment depicted from any sense of purpose. By contrast, Bean’s historical narrative reduces any sense of the ultimate futility and horror of war by placing such scenes in a causal arc culminating in Australian self-representation at the discussions which led to the Treaty of Versailles. The destruction of lives that Bean catalogues is thus purposeful – central to the emergence of an independent, post-colonial Australia. The Australian War Memorial is both a monument to that narrative and, at the same time, a place where that narrative is overwhelmed by memory. Visitors find a narrative of nationhood in quotes, plaques, texts and guidebooks. Simultaneously, however, encountering the slices of place and time cut out from the narrative and displayed as dioramas, that narrative is engulfed by memory. In addition to Bean’s instruction that they be constructed to emphasise emotional impact, the dioramas as objects have been progressively removed from their original context, as general social knowledge has faded and the long explanatory placards [ 117 ]

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and floor maps once exhibited alongside them have been removed. The result is that the visitor is propelled insistently toward empathising with and actively recalling the dead: their existence, their lives, their pain, and their erasure.

Notes

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The author wishes to thank Jay Winter and Ute Frevert for their guidance on earlier drafts of this paper. She is also grateful to Anne-Marie Condé for her expertise and helpful advice, and to Sarah Longair and John McAleer for organising the conference, at which she received a great deal of valuable feedback, and for their helpful comments during the preparation of this chapter.

 1 In 2007–8, there were 1.12 million visits ‘to the Memorial in Canberra, our travelling exhibitions and promotional displays’. Australian War Memorial, Annual Report, 2007–2008, p. 14. In 2009, the Memorial recorded 970,000 visitors, including ‘807,000 visitors to the Memorial and its storage facility in Canberra’, and ‘over 163,000 visitors to travelling exhibitions’. Australian War Memorial, Annual Report 2008–2009, p. 14.  2 Throughout this chapter I use the terms ‘First World War’ and ‘Great War’ interchangeably.  3 This is obviously a very brief description made to distinguish the two terms for the purposes of this chapter. History and memory do, of course, have a significant overlap. As Jay Winter puts it: ‘History is memory seen through and criticised with the aid of documents of many kinds – written, aural, visual. Memory is history seen through affect. And since affect is subjective, it is difficult to examine the claims of memory in the same ways as we examine the claims of history. History is a discipline. We learn and teach its rules and limits. Memory is a faculty. We live with it, and at times are sustained by it. Less fortunate are people overwhelmed by it. But this set of distinctions ought not to lead us to conclude, along with a number of French scholars from Halbwachs to Nora, that history and memory are set in isolation, each on its separate peak.’ Jay Winter, ‘The performance of the past: Memory, history, identity’, in Karin Tilmans, Frank van Vree and Jay Winter (eds), Performing the Past: Memory, History, and Identity in Modern Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), p. 12. The Halbwachs and Nora pieces Winter refers to are: Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992) and Pierra Nora, ‘Between memory and history. Les lieux de mémoire’, Representations. Special Issue: Memory and Counter-memory, 26 (Spring 1989), 7–24.  4 The term ‘site of memory’ was coined by Pierre Nora in Nora (ed.) Les lieux de mémoire, 7 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1984–92). I use the term as developed by Jay Winter in Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Winter’s usage encompasses specific physical locations imbued with cultural significance regarding the remembrance of the past and especially war and the dead – sites such as memorials and monuments, and cultural objects like war art and images d’Epinal.  5 Canadian War Records Office, ‘Report submitted by Officer in Charge to the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert L. Borden, K.C.M.G., M.P., Prime Minster of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. 11 January, 1917’. Copy in Australian War Memorial (AWM), 12/212/1 Part 2.  6 On 1 January 1901. Bean also makes this point at the beginning of the Official History, noting that at the start of the war individual loyalties were still mainly for individual states (Queensland, New South Wales and so on), or Britain and the British Empire, rather than for ‘Australia’. C. E. W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, vol. I: The Story of Anzac from the Outbreak of War to the End of the First Phase of the Gallipoli Campaign, May 4, 1915 (Sydney, NSW: Angus &

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Robertson, 1921), p. 7.  7 This quotation is displayed prominently on the wall in the orientation gallery of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, over a landing boat used in the Gallipoli landing of 25 April 1915. The viewer is left in no doubt as to the cultural significance of the event, and the link between (official) Australian nationalism and the First World War. Billy Hughes represented five political parties in parliament and was expelled from three (including expulsion from the Labor Party in 1916 over the issue of conscription). See Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia (Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 160ff.  8 Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, ‘The landing’, The Argus (Melbourne), 8 May 1915.  9 Similar sentiments about Gallipoli’s significance for national identity can be found in a range of papers on the anniversary of the attack/landing – for example, the New­ castle Morning Herald on 25 April 1916 opined that ‘Anzac Day, therefore, marks the date on which the value and grit of the young Australian soldiery astonished and startled the world’. For more contemporary government attempts to explain and promote this concept of national identity, see, for example, Department of ­Veterans’ Affairs, ‘Gallipoli and Australian Identity: 1915–2000’ from the pamphlet series ‘Their Service, Our Heritage’ (2000). 10 Though countries with a conscript army lost a higher proportion of the total population. See Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, p. 163. 11 Ashmead-Bartlett, ‘The landing’, The Argus, 8 May 1915. 12 It is important to bear in mind that in this period, the term ‘patriotic cause’ was interchangeable with ‘imperial cause’ and ‘country’ was frequently synonymous with ‘empire’. 13 Pat Jalland, Changing Ways of Death in Twentieth-Century Australia: War, Medi­ cine and the Funeral Business (Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press, 2006), pp. 52–3. 14 Ibid. 15 C. E. W. Bean, Anzac to Amiens: A Shorter History of the Australian Fighting Ser­ vices in the First World War (Canberra, ACT: Australian War Memorial, 1946), p. 535. 16 C. E. W. Bean, ‘The writing of the Australian Official History of the Great War – Sources, methods and some conclusions’, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings, 24:2 (938), 85–112, pp. 91, 92. 17 The Australian War Records Section (AWRS) commenced operations on 16 May 1917, when John Treloar began his posting as its Officer-in-Charge. Michael McKernan, Here is Their Spirit: A History of the Australian War Memorial, 1917–1990 (St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press in association with the Australian War ­Memorial, 1991), p. 37. For an account of the AWRS’s early collecting efforts, see AWM 38 DRL 6673/66, C. E. W. Bean, ‘Report on the formation and operations of the B. E. F. subsection Aust. War Records Section. From March 10th, 1918 to October 31st, 1918, and embracing the period from August 7th, 1917 to March 9th, 1918, prior to the formation of the subsection’. 18 ‘Some Australian commanders have appealed to each man to give at least one souvenir to the collection, and a letter was issued at Capt. Treloar’s suggestion, by General Birdwood asking each man in the Force if he would do this.’ AWM, 93 12/12/1, C. E. W. Bean, memorandum, ‘The Australian War Records. An account of the present development Overseas and suggestions of course necessary to be taken at the end of the war’ (March 1918), p. 19. The government, in addition to sponsoring the collection of official documents and exhibits, also ‘particularly desired to add to the collection souvenirs that ha[d] been obtained by soldiers, their relatives and friends, and other members of the Community’. Department of Defence circular, ‘War Museum’, signed by G. F. Pearce, Minister of State for Defence, Melbourne, 20 April 1918. 19 AWM, 93 12/12/1, Bean, ‘The Australian War Records’, p. 19. 20 K. S. Inglis, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 2001), p. 334. 21 Jane Carmichael, First World War Photographers (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), p. 56.

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22 By ‘experience’, I refer to ‘lived experience’, or simply the physical fact of living one’s life in a specific place and time. I am aware that the possibility of understanding the soldier’s experience was certainly contested at the time – many soldiers believing that it was impossible for civilians to comprehend the experience of the soldier. George Mosse eloquently describes this and its political manipulation as the ‘Myth of the War Experience’ in Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). Regardless of the possibility of achieving this, understanding what it was like to experience battle was precisely what the civilians going to war exhibitions were trying to do. The concept of experience itself has been further probed by such scholars as Joan Wallach Scott and Martin Jay. For a summary of these debates, see the introduction to Martin Jay, Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005). The twelfth volume of the official history is all photography: C. E. W. Bean and H. S. Gullett (eds), Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Vol. XII, Photographic Record of the War: Repro­ ductions of Pictures Taken by the Australian Official Photographers (Sydney, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1923). 23 AWM, 93 6/1/61, Publicity paragraph attached to letter from John Treloar to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 13 February 1922. 24 AWM 93 6/1/60, Advertising flier for Official War Photographs exhibition in the Town Hall basement, Sydney, 1922. 25 AWM, 93 6/1/60, ‘Exhibition of War Photographs in Sydney’. 26 Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 334. 27 For the committee’s activities in distributing the trophies, see AWM, 170 1/1. This process is also described in detail in R. S. (Bill) Billett, War Trophies: From the First World War (East Roseville, NSW: Kangaroo Press, 1999). The Memorial also kept a cutting book of public references to the distribution of trophies: AWM, 93 12/12/4. 28 McKernan, Here is Their Spirit, p. 130. 29 Ibid., p. 69. 30 AWM, 38 3DRL 6673/712, Arthur Bazley to John Treloar, 30 April 1922, covering Bean’s draft of the 1922 guidebook: MS of ‘Short Guide to the AWM’ by C. E. W. Bean and covering letters, 1922. 31 Inglis, Sacred Places p. 334; McKernan, Here is Their Spirit, pp. 83–91. The name of the Act was the Australian War Memorial Act 1925 (Cth). 32 See, for example, AWM, 265 17/2/2, which contains a report to the AWM Board by John Treloar, 8 November 1926, which compares AWM attendance figures with those of the Ninth Annual Report of the Imperial War Museum (IWM annual attendance: 224,683; AWM: 333,857). 33 See McKernan, Here is Their Spirit, for the dates and statistics. 34 By ‘a more strictly “museum”’ character’, I refer to the ninteenth-century conceptualisation of the museum as an educational institution in which collected objects were to be displayed in an organised fashion according to categories of ‘scientific’ knowledge. See, for example, the discussion of the development of natural-history museums in this manner in Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century (Kingston, ON, and Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988). Some of the relevant files relating to the architectural competition and design para­ meters for the Australian War Memorial are: AWM, 38 3DRL 6673/624; AWM, 93 2/5/4 Part 2[A]; AWM, 93 2/5/4 Part 2[B]; AWM, 93 2/5/4 Part 2[C]; AWM, 2/4/4 Part 3. 35 Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 335. 36 Caption to photograph of ‘modellers’ camped at Messines in McKernan, Here is Their Spirit, p. 67. 37 Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 335. For accounts of the processes of creating the dioramas, see Laura Back and Laura Webster, Moments in Time: Dioramas at the Australian War Memorial (Sydney: New Holland Publishers, 2008); Anne-Marie Condé, ‘“War’s wrinkled front”: Battle dioramas and Australian military memory’, conference paper

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given at ‘The Digger and the Larrikin live on: Anzac Weekend at the Imperial War Museum’, 26–27 April 2008; and Tom Hewitt, ‘Diorama presentation’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, 5 (October 1984), 29–35. 38 On John Treloar’s role in the creation of the Australian War Memorial’s art collection and exhibits, see Anne-Marie Condé, ‘John Treloar, official war art and the Australian War Memorial’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53 (2007), 451–64; and Anne-Marie Condé, ‘Capturing the records of war: Collecting at the Mitchell Library and the Australian War Memorial’, Australian Historical Studies, 125 (2005), 134–52. 39 For an example of these guidebooks, see Australian War Memorial, Australian War Memorial Museum: The Relics and Records of Australia’s Effort in the Defence of the Empire, 1914–1918, 2nd edn (Sydney, NSW: Australian Government Printers, 1925). 40 AWM, 38 3DRL 6673/802, C. E. W. Bean to John Treloar, 28 June 1922. 41 Ibid. 42 AWM, 16 4372/21/3, Bean to Treloar, 14 May 1918. I would like to thank Anne-Marie Condé for bringing this letter to my attention. 43 McKernan, Here is Their Spirit, pp. 23–4. 44 Ibid., p. 23. 45 Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Picador, 1977), p. 23. 46 Bean, Official History, Vol. I, p. xxv. 47 Craig Melrose, ‘“A praise that never ages”: The Australian War Memorial and the “national” interpretation of the First World War, 1922–35’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2005, p. 353. 48 McKernan, Here is Their Spirit, p. 251; Sydney Morning Herald, 16 May 1958. 49 See AWM, 265 21/4/5 Pt 7, Bean to Treloar, 4 December 1929, and Treloar’s reply of 10 December 1929, in which he notes: ‘the mental attitude of 1920/21 is now out of date and undesirable’. 50 C. E. W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Vol. III: The Australian Imperial Force in France 1916 (Sydney, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1929), pp. 708–20. 51 AWM, 38 3DRL 6673/331. 52 Bean, Official History, Vol. III, p. 711. 53 AWM, 38 3DRL 6673/331, D. A. Twining to Treloar, 27 June 1929. 54 Peter Burness, ‘Pozières Hell’, Wartime, 22 (2003), 14–19, p. 19; Adelaide Advertiser, 28 August 1931. 55 On pilgrimages to battlefields in the interwar years, see David W. Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain, Australia and Canada, 1919–1939 (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1998).

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Chapter six

The experience of a ‘lady curator’: ­negotiating curatorial challenges in the Zanzibar Museum Sarah Longair

‘The life of a museum depends essentially on the curator.’1 Thus wrote Ailsa Nicol Smith at the time of her resignation as curator of the Zanzibar Museum in 1942 in an advisory memorandum for the Protectorate government.2 Nicol Smith arrived in Zanzibar in 1936 following the death of the first curator, Dr Alfred Henry Spurrier, in 1935. He had been a pillar of Zanzibar society since his arrival in 1892 and was a character known to all the island’s diverse communities. When searching for his successor, the government expressed a preference for a female curator to give Muslim girls access to the Museum’s successful education programmes.3 Tracing Nicol Smith’s tenure in Zanzibar sheds light upon the status of colonial museums, the challenges to maintain them and the wider perception of museums within society. In a museum in a small colony, individual personalities coloured the institution’s success – Spurrier’s legacy was both an inspiration and an unsustainable burden. The position of the Zanzibar Museum was itself ambiguous: it was an institution lauded with praise, yet its work was consistently undermined by the Zanzibar government. Nicol Smith’s experiences also highlight the struggle for women to gain professional acceptance in the male-dominated colonial sphere. This chapter will focus principally upon these two strands – the nature of curatorship in a colonial museum and the particular challenges for a female officer holding this post. As the chapters in this volume indicate, the literature assessing museum development within the British Empire is only in its infancy. Whilst the role of museums as part of the machinery of empire – one of Cohn’s ‘investigative modalities’4 – has been acknowledged, John MacKenzie’s Museums and Empire was the first to place museums in [ 122 ]

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the dominions and colonies and their complex, problematic histories at the heart of a study. His volume examines a wide range of museums in the settler colonies and India but does not include the East and West African territories.5 Studies of museums in Britain provide important comparative examples and theoretical frameworks, but analysis of colonial museums must acknowledge their specific social, cultural and environmental contexts. The period coinciding with the development of the Zanzibar Museum – between the First and Second World Wars – is particularly important for several reasons. In the museum context, museums in Britain were becoming increasingly professionalised and the Museums Association was carving out a niche for itself. The relationship between colonial museums – particularly those in Africa – and those in the UK is worthy of further examination. This network is linked closely to developments in the discipline of anthropology and the associated collecting of objects in the field.6 Increasing emphasis upon the educational role of museums was emerging in this period as an important factor in Great Britain and its empire.7 Museums offered another conduit for education, which became increasingly important in justifying the custodianship of colonial territories in the wake of the First World War. Interestingly, much of the language still current in museums today was used to articulate this relationship to the colonies – ‘trusteeship’ and its implication of custodianship were terms frequently used to describe Britain’s relationship with her subject territories, as articulated by Lord Lugard in The Dual Mandate.8 The relationship of Britain to her colonies was gradually reoriented during the 1930s towards one of welfare and development.9 As a female colonial officer, Nicol Smith was charged with a complex task – arguably more challenging than a male officer would have faced. Prior to the Second World War, there were few female colonial officers in government departments beyond the traditionally feminine fields of education and health, as has been shown in the work of Helen Callaway and Margaret Strobel.10 Officers’ wives formed the majority of European women in Zanzibar. Only female missionaries had forged their position outside of the government, and their religious devotion justified the presence of single British women in far-flung corners of the empire. After the Second World War, many more women were employed professionally in the Colonial Office. Nicol Smith’s tenure in Zanzibar was a pioneering example of a woman crossing the boundaries of colonial administration. The loosely defined curatorship, which required a combination of academic experience and educational practice, opened up a position for a woman which would not have been possible in other areas of colonial government. [ 123 ]

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6.1  Muslim school girls visiting the Zanzibar Museum.

The creation of the Zanzibar Museum The earliest records documenting proposals to build a museum in Zanzibar date to 1908. It was not until the government decided to create a memorial to the First World War that these ideas re-emerged in 1919. In contrast to museums created to record war-time activities, such as the Imperial War Museum in London and the Australian War ­Memorial discussed in Chapter 5, the need for a war memorial provided the justification for raising funds for a long-coveted public facility. The Memorial Committee proposed a Memorial Hall for the use of all communities, including a gymnasium and a museum.11 Public subscriptions were sought to fund the Memorial Hall and eventually Rs 57,866 was raised with donations from the wealthy European, [ 124 ]

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Arab and Indian communities, and the Swahili majority, the so-called ‘African’ community.12 Both these aspects of museum formation – the housing of several civic amenities in one building and funding through public subscription – were familiar in provincial Britain in the nineteenth century.13 The monumental and striking building was designed by John Sinclair, then acting British Resident who had for twenty years been the unofficial architect of the Protectorate.14 Construction problems caused delays and, six years after the initiation of the project, the Museum finally opened on Armistice Day, 11 November 1925. An annexe was added in 1930 to house the growing collections and offer a more appropriate space in which to show slide lectures and films used for the Museum’s education programme. Sir Henry Miers and S. F. Markham, in the Museums Association survey of the Museums of British Africa of 1931, were ‘impressed by the general excellence of this museum, particularly the exhibition methods, general arrangements and educational work’ and considered it to be ‘one of the best educational museums’ they encountered in Africa.15

Qualifications for curatorship Many of Nicol Smith’s challenges on her arrival as curator in 1936 can be traced to the personal interests and priorities of her predecessor, Alfred Spurrier, the Museum’s first curator, and his fellow enthusiasts, with their minimal museum experience. Comparing Spurrier’s and Nicol Smith’s qualifications for the role highlights the changing conception of the curator. Both in Great Britain and the colonies, ‘curator’ was a well-known term for someone who worked in a museum, but their actual daily work was somewhat mysterious for the majority of people. In Zanzibar in the early 1920s, Spurrier appeared the obvious candidate as curator. The nature of the role was one that Spurrier himself defined. His personal mission for the people of Zanzibar and his medical background determined the essence of the role. He had served throughout the 1890s and 1900s as Medical Officer for Health and was instrumental in limiting the effect of various plague epi­demics and in the treatment and prevention of malaria and hookworm. After his retirement from the Medical Department in 1912, he took on various temporary posts, including Director of Education. During the 1910s, Spurrier and his close friend Dr Aders, the Protectorate’s economic biologist, taught groups of local ‘Africans’ about the importance of public health measures with lectures, models and specimens in Aders’s small museum in his office.16 Like many administrators who arrived in the early days of the Protectorate, he took an avid interest in local culture, [ 125 ]

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collected many objects and became fluent in Swahili. Spurrier’s ability to straddle racial divides marked him out amongst administrators of the period – personal correspondence reveals that he was frequently approached by the local Swahili population, for whom he attempted to find jobs in the homes and departments of his colleagues and friends.17 Writing to the Secretary of State in 1922, John Sinclair, then British Resident and architect of the Museum, believed: ‘Zanzibar is fortunate in securing the services of an officer who combines with scientific attainments a deep knowledge of local history and a personal interest in the native.’18 The general consensus on the part of non-experts in museums was that a combination of historical memory and devotion to the well-being of all of Zanzibar’s communities was ideally suited to the role of curator. Ailsa Nicol Smith’s experience contrasted in virtually every respect to that of Spurrier – she was a woman, in her late twenties, trained in a museum, and undertaking her first overseas posting. After graduation from Newnham College, Cambridge, she was soon employed as an assistant to Dr Arthur Haddon at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (later, Anthropology) in Cambridge, where she worked from 1931 to 1935.19 She assisted Haddon in the cleaning, arranging and cataloguing of a large collection of objects from Papua New Guinea. She also worked on a refreshment of this material in the public gallery, wrote handbooks to accompany the collection and catalogued part of the Haddon photographic archive. Haddon described her as efficient, able and indefatigable in her work at the museum and missed her support after her departure. Whilst in Zanzibar, she maintained this connection by donating objects to ‘my old museum in Cambridge’ and corresponding with Haddon and Dr Louis Clarke.20 Although not a graduate in anthropology, she had four years’ experience in one of the principal centres of anthropological and archaeological study in Britain at this time. She arrived on the island in 1936 aged twenty-eight. She was reported to be ‘exceptionally keen on her work’ and devoted to the Zanzibar Museum and its staff.21 With the outbreak of the Second World War she took on additional duties as assistant information officer, spreading propaganda for the war effort. Following her resignation and departure from Zanzibar in 1942, she worked in various teaching positions across the empire. Her strength of character, which is evident from her experiences in Zanzibar, remained palpable – she was forced to resign as headmistress from a school in Rhodesia for her unconventional teaching styles and liberal attitudes to race which did not accord with those of the Southern Rhodesian parents.22 She died suddenly in February 1967 in Penang where she had been training teachers and helping to set [ 126 ]

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up a new museum.23 A few months before her death, she wrote that her personal mission had been ‘to foster a love of education’ and to make ‘constant effort on behalf of the African intellectual and good race relations between white and black’.24 In spite of the many differences in their background, she and Spurrier shared fundamental beliefs in the power of museums and in the potential of African communities.

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Spurrier’s vision for the Museum The Zanzibar Museum was created without an existing collection, unlike the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi which grew from the collections of the local natural history society and catered mainly to the settler community.25 In Zanzibar, the purpose of the museum informed the accumulation of its collection. As befitting his character, Spurrier’s underlying motivation was ‘to ameliorate the lot especially of the labouring classes in these Islands’.26 By this he meant the Swahili community, defined by the British as the ‘African’, who formed the majority of the island’s inhabitants prior to the arrival of the Omani Arab rulers in the eighteenth century (hereafter Swahili). He envi­saged an educational museum with a lecture hall and an ‘Institute for Native Development’ to preserve and foster native crafts and industries, particularly to inspire the young. Even prior to receiving a salary, he corresponded with other museums to establish it ‘on lines best calculated to afford instruction to the natives’.27 The nascent Museum Committee decided that the sections of the Museum were to be Public Health, Historical, Geological, Natural History and Native Industries.28 These categories were selected according to the existing knowledge and interests of colonial officers who were to become ‘keepers’ of the sections, modelled on roles at the British Museum.29 One of the most important volunteer officers was William Harold Ingrams, who curated the historical sections.30 He was the only member of the Zanzibar European community who had any previous museum experience from his time as assistant master at Shrewsbury School where he oversaw the small Darwin Museum.31 On his arrival in Zanzibar in 1919, Ingrams was posted to various rural districts and only became involved in the museum’s work when employed in Zanzibar town from 1926. This rural experience was formative, as he collected many objects and made amateur anthropological records of indigenous peoples, leading him to publish Zanzibar: Its History and its People in 1931.32 He thus provided the Museum with essential expertise combined with local knowledge. Together with L. W. Hollingsworth, the headmaster of the teacher training college, Ingrams co-authored the first schools’ history textbook in the late 1920s and they related the [ 127 ]

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text closely to the Museum’s collection. Hollingsworth, as a member of the Museum Committee, was a firm believer in the Museum’s educational role. He ensured that groups of school pupils and trainee teachers continually used the Museum from the time of its opening. By the 1920s, museum visits by school children were an established practice in European museums. In the East African colonial sphere, this is a very early example of non-European children actively being sought as museum visitors. Spurrier concentrated his academic efforts on public health education with Dr Aders using the Museum as their primary medium. In spite of their work of several years in this area, malaria was still endemic and hookworm rife in the Protectorate in 1922.33 Models on display were based on those at the Wellcome Medical Museum shown at the Wembley Exhibition and later in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.34 Together Aders and Spurrier developed a series of lectures and introduced films to support their teaching. The success of this educational programme led to an application to the Carnegie Foundation of New York in the early 1930s for the museum to expand public health and agricultural education to rural communities.35 Outreach programmes are a mainstay of twenty-first century museums, but at this time were in their infancy within Britain, and certainly this was pioneering activity for a small colonial museum.

Intervention of the Zanzibar government in the curatorship Of these volunteer enthusiasts and supporters, only Hollingsworth was alive or still in Zanzibar when Nicol Smith arrived in 1936. ­Spurrier’s death offered an opportunity for the government to decide how best to justify expenditure on the Museum in what had become a personal empire of the elderly doctor. A revealing file in the Zanzibar Archives records the debates surrounding the future of the Museum around the time of Spurrier’s death, particularly the opinions of Sir Richard Rankine, British Resident, and Samuel McElderry, Chief Secretary and enthusiastic Museum Committee member. Typical of the small Protectorate were the multiple roles of administrators as members of several committees, both governmental and social. Their personal enthusiasms and advocacy frequently influenced the level of government support and expenditure on the Museum. One of the curator’s tasks, therefore, was to sustain and nurture these important ­relationships. Rankine’s and McElderry’s analysis of the suitability of candidates discloses the genuine difficulties the government had in defining the [ 128 ]

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Museum’s role and the nature of the curatorship. They were aware that the salary was not very attractive nor was it permanent and pensionable. The absence of these standard Civil Service incentives added to the struggle to attract a professional curator to a remote colony. One prospective candidate, one Henry Andrews from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was considered a feasible option as he had ‘private means so that he [wa]s not wholly dependent on his salary’.36 The museum world was awash with such people who were able support museum work with their private incomes. Nicol Smith’s post in Cambridge had been paid for by the curator and later director, Dr Clarke. Colonel Stoneham ran his museum in Western Kenya entirely at his own expense.37 With this in mind, McElderry saw two options ahead. To restrict government expenditure, the Museum could be placed ‘on a care and maintenance basis’, as the responsibility of one of the ‘East African pensioners’ or ‘possibly a retired Asiatic officer of Gov[ernmen]t’.38 McElderry could only justify government expenditure on the salary of a curator at administrative officer level, £350 per annum, ‘on the extent to which the Museum in addition to its other functions c[ould] be made to assist these [social services, medical, educational and agricultural] Departments in their activities’.39 Other officers highlighted the incongruity of this situation. The Director of Medical Services felt that ‘the proposals regarding the Zanzibar Museum, [we]re however, rather different from the usual aims of a museum’.40 If this was indeed to be the Museum’s role in the future, he believed that a medical doctor would be the most appropriate person. To complicate the issue further, receipt of the Carnegie Grant was dependent upon the appointment of ‘a competent curator’.41 Rankine did not want to refuse the funds on these grounds. The job advertisement finally appeared in The Times in July 1935, stipulating: ‘Candidates must have Museum experience and be quali­fied to assist on the educational side of Museum’s activities, particularly in cooperation with Medical Department.’42 Candidates who placed undue emphasis on their curatorial experience were in fact distrusted – perhaps Andrews’s earlier correspondence raised concerns. He had stated emphatically: ‘Of course no curator purely museum trained could be expected to give actual instruction on a subject such as public health – he could but make provision for it in the scope of the museum.’43 Essential requirements of a colonial museum curator were an adaptability to a wide range of tasks and a readiness to learn new skills beyond the parameters of their existing subject knowledge. A combination of Nicol Smith’s experience, age and gender were deciding factors in her successful application. Rankine’s letter to the Secretary of State confirming her appointment reveals the ­government’s [ 129 ]

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preference for a female curator:

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2. One of the most promising lines of approach to the betterment of conditions of life in the Protectorate lies in the education of the women and girls, especially in matters relating to health and hygiene; and having regard particularly to the fact that the purdah system prevails to such an extent in this Protectorate it is obvious that the possibilities of the educational side of the Museum being used to the best advantage will be much enhanced by the appointment of a suitable woman to the post of Curator.44

At the time of Nicol Smith’s appointment, there was still no consensus amongst the Museum Committee, the various welfare departments and the Resident about exactly how the curator’s role fitted into the government’s work and to whom they would be answerable. These undetermined issues would plague Nicol Smith throughout her tenure in Zanzibar.

Nicol Smith’s professionalisation of the museum The Zanzibar Museum as encountered by Nicol Smith in 1936 was in need of close attention. In spite of Spurrier’s devotion, his lack of basic museum skills and his recent failing health presented her with many areas for renovation and reorganisation. The physical condition of the museum provided further challenges, with exhibits and activities housed in two adjacent buildings. The main museum, with its hexa­ gonal plan and large dome, was a difficult space for display cases and it frequently required repairs to leaks in the monsoon season. There was insufficient storage space for objects and only a small office and workshop. She rapidly learned of the vast range of duties and diverse skills she needed to employ. These included expanding and documenting the collections, managing the museum staff, devising new displays and creating exhibitions for outreach, conducting anthropological and archaeological research, writing academic articles, advising on restoration of antiquities and historical sites across the island, teaching groups of all ages and backgrounds, managing the library service and keeping close accounts of the inadequate museum budget. As well as coming to terms with this diverse and punishing workload, she had to adapt to the new surroundings. This was her first experience outside Great Britain and she needed quickly to learn basic kiSwahili and more generally to negotiate the nuances of colonial society as a single woman. Nicol Smith immediately made one of her first curatorial tasks to rewrite the object labels in less technical language, written as they had been by a medical doctor. She introduced bilingual labels in kiSwahili [ 130 ]

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for the first time. The greatest achievement of her first three years was to create a comprehensive card index for the collection of the objects. This thorough and exhaustive documentation is still used by the present curators of the Museum as the principal reference to its records. Throughout her work she was aware that her primary audience was the Swahili community. This was sanctioned by the authorities who could use this to demonstrate active ‘trusteeship’ of the local community. To design displays for this audience, she reported in the Museums Journal: ‘it has been borne in mind during its arrangement that many of its visitors will be people who have never been in a museum before, but to whom visual instruction makes a strong appeal’.45 She reorganised several of the displays, using the ‘modern museum method’ she had learned in Cambridge and giving careful consideration to the visual nature of the exhibits.46 By 1940, she felt she had achieved some progress: ‘They [Zanzibari visitors] respond vigorously to visual instruction and it makes concrete for them concepts, scientific and other, which the written and spoken word cannot convey, since they have not the necessary background.’47 Amongst her other duties, she acquired new objects for the collection and documented these in the annual Museum Reports which she introduced in 1937. The collection was theoretically forged to enhance the educational capacity of the museum. In reality, in the absence of an acquisition policy, she acquired objects from various sources and was forced to balance diplomacy with the donor with quality of the object and storage space. As well as receiving regular donations from the European, Arab and Indian communities, Nicol Smith and the Museum Committee also bought objects specifically for the museum collection. Nicol Smith’s purchases demonstrate her interest in anthropology and she appears to have focused on building up the collection of objects used locally in daily life. Researching the objects in the collection was one of Nicol Smith’s passions, but it came to be ‘a rare treat’ and she accepted that the ­public-facing work was of more importance.48 Researching the provenance of objects for the card catalogue formed the majority of the research that she had time to undertake. In this work, she sought the services of various members of the community. For example, in her research into the Arab silver-work, Chinese porcelain, copper-work from the Persian Gulf and the Orders of Zanzibar, she was assisted by ‘various Arab gentlemen who kindly gave their time to inform her of the provenance and function of the specimens’.49 In 1937, she received information about coins she sent to Cambridge to be identified by Louis Clarke, and her response shows her exasperation in conduct[ 131 ]

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ing research on the artefacts: ‘Such a treat to have exact information; there’s such an amount of waffle here.’50 Other research tended to be responsive – particularly in relation to the frequent requests to restore or survey antiquities around the island. Notably, her publications in international journals tended to be on museological issues rather than object-based research or historical findings.

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Education in the Museum Spurrier’s legacy was most significant in his success in establishing the Museum as an educational institution visited regularly by schools and local communities. Nicol Smith shared this conviction: a museum in Africa, she wrote, ‘can and should do more for the natives than concern itself with erudition only’ and ‘popular work makes a museum alive and is of immediate value to the community’.51 After consolidating the collections in her early years, Nicol Smith shifted the focus of her attention to the education section in 1939. This work fell into two areas: the programme located in the museum and the rural service. In the first case, Nicol Smith reinvigorated the relationship with schools to ‘supplement by visual information the work done in the classrooms’.52 For the first time, girls’ schools visited during hours when the Museum was closed to the public to observe purdah conditions, and the girls were taught directly by Nicol Smith. She was impressed by their ‘keen, intelligent interest’ and believed that the trip to the Museum was ‘something of an adventure for them’.53 Male pupils were guided by their own teachers, trained by Nicol Smith in advance. Lectures for adults were introduced in 1937 on various subjects of culture, history and natural history. Other groups, such as police recruits and health officers, visited regularly over this period, in addition to general visitors. From February 1939, a weekly slot from 4 pm to 6 pm on Mondays was especially reserved for women visitors when Nicol Smith was in attendance to explain the exhibits. Visitor figures indicate a large rise in numbers of school and general visitors to the Museum through her various efforts. The government conceded the importance of a dedicated museum educator when educational activities decreased considerably after her resignation in 1942.54 The rural museum service was funded by the aforementioned grant from the Carnegie Foundation ‘to exercise the educational capacity of the Museum to its fullest extent’ by taking public health education beyond the town.55 In 1936–37, Nicol Smith built up the necessary tools for this – portable models, slides and a projector. In 1937, the first slide shows were given in rural schools with a very positive response and the models were loaned to the Health Department.56 In 1939, the [ 132 ]

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6.2  Ailsa Nicol Smith teaching a women’s group in the Zanzibar Museum.

fund was used to purchase a film projector, which was trialled in the Museum. Nicol Smith had visited the Bantu Kinema Experiment at Vugiri in Tanganyika in 1937 to prepare for this expansion. Use of the film medium grew rapidly in 1940 within the Museum, with many British propaganda films obtained through Nicol Smith’s role as assistant information officer proving extremely popular. Appropriate films were hard to acquire and required commentary by Nicol Smith and her museum assistants in kiSwahili. In spite of experiments in taking these films into the rural areas, the scheme never became a fully functioning rural service. Documents in the archives show that Nicol Smith had made all the necessary preparations to purchase a suitable van for a portable film projector. The outbreak of war, however, made condi[ 133 ]

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tions unsuited to initiating a new scheme. More crucially, as will be shown, she lacked support of other government departments. In 1943, the balance of the grant was returned to the Carnegie Foundation.

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Curatorial consultancy in East Africa Nicol Smith’s professional expertise in the region was recognised in 1939 when she was asked to design the exhibits for the new King George V Memorial Museum in Dar es Salaam and train the museum assistants. Nicol Smith praised the overall layout of the museum, which was much more suitable than the problematic domed structure in Zanzibar. Two large rectangular halls were lit by windows seven feet from the floor and in the ceiling, and the simple design permitted future expansion.57 She highlighted two architectural shortcomings by the local architect, Boys-Hinderer – one aesthetic and one practical: There are only two defects – the unfortunate predilection of the architect for the Alhambra, which he has shown in tile-work ornamentation, and the insufficient storage room – in a building which should otherwise function very well as a museum.58

The first chairman, C. A. Gillman, admitted the Dar es Salaam Museum could only represent a ‘cross-section’ of so large a territory. It would include ‘[the territory’s] geological structure, its geographical relations, its fauna, and its flora, and through the activities, past and present, of its peoples, the latter with, perhaps, main emphasis on the two fundamentals of prosperity: Public Health and Agriculture’.59 These sections reflected the organisation of the Zanzibar Museum, confirming the continuing belief in the museum as a medium for public health propaganda. Gillman was insistent, though, that the displays remain flexible: they must not ‘lay down the law’ to allow for changes in the future. The collections at the time of opening consisted only of ‘nuclei’ [sic] representing the various tribes and must be added to systematically. Funds at the time of the opening did not stretch to a full-time curator, so a ‘lay lady’ oversaw the museum with occasional visits from Nicol Smith. When the post was finally advertised, Nicol Smith asked the Zanzibar Museum Committee if she might apply and curate both museums simultaneously, a suggestion which was turned down. Nicol Smith’s role was to design the internal layout, the furniture and displays, and to train the African museum assistants. These trainees stayed in Zanzibar for four months for instruction in theoretical and practical museum work, which Nicol Smith believed was the first such course given in East Africa to Africans.60 Their training included [ 134 ]

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caring for collections, working with visitors, cataloguing and labelling of objects and preparation of natural history specimens. They were also encouraged to study the history of the objects in the collections to ‘encourage an intelligent interest in their environment’.61 She chose to divide the two halls into cultural history and scientific collections. The former devoted the most space to the history of ‘the tribes in Tanganyika’. There were not yet sufficient numbers of objects collected to represent each tribe separately, as pioneered in the museum in Cambridge. It is notable that the most comprehensive collections lay in Cambridge, not in museums in the colony. The objects from different groups were therefore integrated together and compared by type. Nicol Smith hoped that with sufficient expansion of the collections and reorganisation on the Cambridge model, ‘a tribesman would at once see the material possessions of his tribe as a whole and be able to appreciate at a glance that aspect of his tribal history which nyika’s w[ould] soon be a past phase’.62 This concern about Tanga­ ‘tribal’ culture dying out was an underlying motivation in creating the museum. The scientific hall included geology, geography, nutrition and hygiene. She took great care over the design of the cases, ensuring displays could easily be accessed and changed, mounts removed and reorganised. The labels were entirely in English, although booklets in kiSwahili and Gujerati were planned for the near future.

An East African museum federation? During her tenure, Nicol Smith enthusiastically supported attempts to bring together curators of the East African museums. She felt keenly the challenge of working in isolation and the absence of a museum community as she had experienced in Cambridge. A South African Museums Association had existed since 1935. An enquiry from J. D. Clark, curator of the Rhodes-Livingstone Museum, received a lengthy and animated reply from Nicol Smith, including an invitation to visit Zanzibar as ‘a Curator is a rare treat in these parts’.63 With the ­Carnegie Grant, she felt she was undertaking pioneering work and hoped to provide useful evaluation for others in the region. Her attendance at the Museums Association meeting in 1937 in London underlined the importance of a museum community: It goes without saying that a concourse of museum workers was not only refreshing but abounding in practical help for coping with the problems of an isolated overseas museum, in which so many of the members were kindly interested.64

Dr van Someren, curator of the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi, sub[ 135 ]

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mitted a proposal for a regional approach to museum development to the East African Governors’ conference in July 1937.65 He advocated allocating a specialist research subject to each museum and that duplicate specimens be sent to the others. This system would prevent overlap in research between the institutions, which all suffered from a shortage of trained staff and researchers. Nicol Smith discussed these proposals with van Someren on a visit to Nairobi later in 1937.66 She was supportive of the principle, finding herself with limited time to undertake research, and also proposed the establishment of an East African film library and a research journal. If the system were adopted, she and van Someren agreed that the Zanzibar Museum should focus upon the history and archaeology of East Africa and marine biology of the coast. These proposals foundered in 1937 as they were deemed premature. The museum in Dar es Salaam was not yet open and the revitalisation of the Uganda Museum only just beginning. In 1941, Nicol Smith revived these proposals, initially in the Zanzibar Museum Report. She noted that in each of the East African territories, there was now a museum ‘of sufficient standard to justify the position of the museum service in East Africa being considered as a whole’.67 Together they could be recognised ‘as one social service’ and would all benefit from greater cooperation. She submitted a more detailed memorandum in 1942 to the Zanzibar government, which responded that it was unable to consider such a proposal in war-time, but allowed her to circulate it to her fellow curators.68 She recognised that the timing was inopportune but hoped that with the advent of peace, the proposal for a federation of East African museums with annual meetings might be considered seriously. Her resignation shortly after circulating this document ended her involvement, although the principle of federation gained momentum with the energies of Margaret Trowell of Makerere University in Kampala and Louis Leakey of the Coryndon Museum. The first conference of the Curators of Museums in Central and Eastern Africa took place in 1945 in Nairobi, although a curator from Zanzibar did not attend until 1957.

Sources of dispute The annual museum reports, publications introduced by Nicol Smith, are a key source of information about her work. Even these apparently innocuous official publications aroused debate by the government officials with whom she disagreed about their purpose. In 1941, she wished to report the details of a theft of an enamel miniature of Sultan Hamed bin Thwain from the 1890s and of money from the Museum’s donation box. Members of the Museum Committee did not see the [ 136 ]

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need to publicise such unsavoury events and felt she exaggerated the significance of the occurrence. She defended the inclusion: [It] discusses a matter of museum policy which will be of interest to the home Government in summing up the museum situation in E. Africa and also to my colleagues outside as well as within E. Africa. It is perhaps not known to the Committee that the exchange of ideas through annual reports between museums is their chief value.69

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She later reiterated: You are unaware, naturally, that thefts in museums are of considerable interest to curators and are usually recorded in our reports and journals with a view to exchanging suggestions as to their prevention. We are not ‘learned societies’ but workers with a number of practical administrative problems.70

The British Resident in fact supported the inclusion – he did not believe ‘that a report on the working of a Museum should be dealt with in the same manner as that of a strictly Govt Dept [sic]’.71 He agreed that others might usefully learn from the Museum’s unfortunate experience. In this same report, the inclusion of her note on the proposed federation of East African museums was brought into question by the committee. Its members felt that her opinion on such a matter should not be reported in a government publication, but again the Resident intervened and permitted its inclusion if clearly stated that this was a personal opinion. These instances are typical of her relationship with the government. When she was contradicted at committee level, the Resident on several occasions mediated and often supported Nicol Smith’s suggestions. It might be inferred that her passion and style of communication blighted her dealings with these all-male committees upon whose advocacy and benefaction the museum was dependent. When examining the arguments on paper rather than during the committee meetings, as the Resident was able to do, the rationality of her proposals became clear. The issue of her campaign to make her post permanent and pensionable provides another example of her problematic relationship with the government. She made her first request to improve the conditions of the post in 1938.72 By proposing that her role be made permanent and pensionable, Nicol Smith revived the dialogue initiated by ­Spurrier’s death in 1935 amongst the government about the exact nature of the association between the Museum and the Medical and Educational departments, and ultimately about the essential function of the Museum. As McElderry wrote in 1938, ‘it never seems to have [ 137 ]

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been made clear to what extent the utilisation of the Museum under a trained Curator, to forward the aims of these Depts, fits in with the organisation of these Depts’.73 Nicol Smith continued to reiterate the same reasons to alter the conditions of the post for several years. Officers at the British Museum had permanent and pensionable posts and she saw colonial museums as an extension of this ‘same service’. She argued that the Carnegie Grant required a permanent curator and the government would be breaching the terms of the grant by refusing. Above all, she felt a lack of recognition of the curator’s role: ‘The work of Curator involves scientific, educational and administrative activities with more influence through outside contacts than is perhaps realised.’74 She believed the holder of the post was ‘no less worthy of financial security than any other Government Official’. Sir Charles Law, then Chief Justice and chairman of the Museum Committee, was extremely supportive of this application, describing her as ‘an efficient curator’ who ‘through her industry and experience, ha[d] put the Museum on a sound basis’.75 Her confident approach prompted the Provincial Commissioner to point out to the Chief Secretary: ‘Government has, in Miss Nicol Smith, a real “live wire”’.76 Her boldness was sustained by her genuine belief in the inherent value of the Museum’s mission but may also have been spurred by a sense of inequality as a female officer. That this approach was perceived as somewhat audacious by the government suggests they had a more submissive sort of woman in mind when appointing a female curator. The subsequent debates in effect became an analysis of her worth and value to the government. McElderry believed that when the Museum was established, the intention was that a trained curator should come in once in ten years to ‘clean up’ the museum as the government could not afford a curator at £800 per annum ‘just to keep the Museum up to scratch as an amenity’.77 If she could be used ‘to advance social welfare in co-operation with the social service departments’ then it might be possible. Rankine asked the social welfare departments how Nicol Smith’s work could be used to further their work. The Senior Medical Officer felt she had little to offer in the field of medical education and that his African sanitary inspectors [SIs] were much more valuable to the government: I fear she would not be of any great use as an exponent of public health in the district. She is a woman and is likely to be disregarded on that count and also because she is unlikely to develop the personality to ‘put it across’ to her audience. Anyhow an African S. I. on £54 a year does much more than Miss N-S could ever hope to achieve. Miss N-S is willing enough and would do anything I asked her to do, I feel sure, and in fact

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has given some lectures on the history of Z/bar to my learner S. Inspectors. The trouble is that there is really no place for an untrained woman of her type in the departmental activities. The Africa S. I.s carry out better propaganda, very cheaply, and nursing sisters and W. M. O.s do the same with women and children and have the knowledge to ‘do something about’ the conditions they encounter not just give advice – which few people would dream of taking!78

The Director of Education agreed – and felt that even though the work was useful, it was something of a luxury: ‘There are essentials which should have priority.’79 These discussions coincided with the increasing emphasis upon welfare and community development by the Colonial Office in the 1920s and 1930s, concurrent with similar concern over welfare provision in Great Britain. The publication of Hailey’s African Survey in 1939 crystallised these lines of thinking, and became legislation in 1940 in the Colonial Welfare and Development Act.80 In Zanzibar, a Social Welfare Coordination Committee was created in 1938. Its members questioned the Museum’s role in welfare education. In an attempt to resolve the situation, the Resident appointed Nicol Smith as the secretary of this committee in order to bring together the work of these two bodies and to justify further the maintenance of the position of curator. After a year, she wrote that she took this job ‘against [her] will’ and requested to the Resident to be released from this secretarial position in 1940. She had found her reports to the Social Welfare Committee edited beyond recognition, and stated: ‘other people do my work’.81 The Resident accepted this in spite of her ‘hysterical correspondence’ and ‘silly’ letters, which he asked to be struck from the records. This patronising and belittling language exposes the blatant chauvinism in the government’s attitude. While forcefulness and anger might be seen as confident and even prompt respect for male officers, even a justifiably angry woman was deemed ‘hysterical’. Early in 1941, the then Acting British Resident finally succeeded in making the post permanent and pensionable. The two main reasons given were firstly that there was much scope for further development in the educational work. He also stated the Zanzibar government’s intention to carry out an anthropological survey under the auspices of the Development Committee, the new incarnation of the Social Welfare Coordination Committee, in particular into the conditions under which the poorer communities lived. The Resident proposed that the curator oversee this research and thus become the government anthropologist.82 Nicol Smith spent only a few months as a permanent member of staff and resigned in August 1942 after further deterioration of relations with government. Upon her departure, she wrote a detailed [ 139 ]

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report on the Museum with advice on managing the collections, future projects for the staff and the importance of maintaining the curatorship after the war. In typically condescending fashion, which begrudgingly acknowledged her expertise, the Chief Secretary commented:

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With regard to the lady curator’s letter and memorandum at (64), while it is true that she has a somewhat unattractive method of approach and is almost early Victorian in her methods of emphasis, she is an experienced professional and due consideration should, I feel, be given to her views.83

In her resignation memorandum, Nicol Smith recommended that an Arab Museum Committee member, Sheikh Muhammed Abdurahman, assume the curatorial duties. He, of all those she had worked with in the Protectorate, had demonstrated a long-term commitment to the Museum over seven years. He was ‘gifted with a scientific outlook and … experienced as a teacher’, which Nicol Smith deemed were the ‘qualities … needed in the Curator of the Museum’.84 This advice was disregarded, and part-time curators were used for the next thirteen years until the demands of preserving the archives through the continuous lobbying by Sir John Gray, Chief Justice and historian of East Africa in the 1940s and 1950s, led to creation of the full-time post of archivist-curator in 1956.

Conclusion The career of Ailsa Nicol Smith in Zanzibar reveals the substantial challenges of curating a colonial museum. Whilst dealing with extensive professional duties, she was continually forced to justify her role and that of the Museum. Although she was well-qualified and experienced, this was only sporadically recognised by the authorities. The absence of a specific museum qualification exacerbated her difficulties with the Zanzibar government, which was on the whole ignorant of the skills involved in museum management. Her predecessor, Spurrier, as a medical doctor and long-term resident, and a man, was treated as a natural authority. A reading of the correspondence suggests that the government officials deemed curatorial work that which anyone could do if they had time and inclination, an opinion doubtless evinced by the fact that several administrators had in the past devoted much of their spare time to the museum. Nicol Smith was unfortunate that her involvement in the area of social welfare coincided with the nascent stages of implementing the Colonial Welfare and Development Act, when colonial governments were still defining the development priorities in their territories. The continual debates surrounding the Museum and its relationship to [ 140 ]

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public health education are symptomatic of the wider struggle to deal with this significant problem for the government in its capacity as trustee of the Zanzibari community. In order to survive, the Zanzibar Museum promoted its role in public health, which in fact undermined its position, as that area of work itself became increasingly professionalised. By the 1940s and 1950s, museums in Africa were frequent applicants to the Colonial Development Fund as can be seen in Paul Basu’s chapter in this volume. At this late stage, cultural preservation was viewed as a component of development strategy. Colonial contexts brought with them inherent environmental, social and political challenges. One such underlying issue revealed in this chapter was the rapid turnover of government staff, many of whom stayed only up to two years. A long-term project, such as the ­Carnegie Grant, had therefore lost all its original champions by 1942, and the government was content to return the funds and leave the project unfulfilled. Socially, Nicol Smith had to negotiate the predominantly masculine European society. Inevitably, her infrequent attendance at the English Club, where government business often informally occurred and working relationships were nurtured, further inhibited her work – as it did for those of other races. She threw herself into her work at the Museum, establishing strong rapports with the museum staff and local community, and succeeded in making it a relevant local institution. Her lack of deference towards, or deft diplomacy with, government officials, and in turn their lack of understanding of museum work, ultimately led to her resignation. The Museum’s rapid decline after her departure only served to prove that the life of a museum did indeed rely upon the energy and commitment of a full-time curator.

Notes  1 ZNA, DF 9/1, Ailsa Nicol Smith ‘Memorandum on the Management of the Museum’, 27 July 1942.  2 The Museum in Zanzibar was named the Peace Memorial Museum or Beit el Amani at its opening but was increasingly referred to over the period as the Zanzibar Museum. For clarity, I shall refer to this throughout as the Zanzibar Museum.  3 ZNA, AB 86/323, British Resident to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 4 December 1935.  4 Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 5.  5 John M. MacKenzie, Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), p. 16.  6 Lynn Schumaker, Africanising Anthropology (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 17, 255.  7 Gaynor Kavanagh, ‘The First World War and its implications for education in British museums’, History of Education, 17:2 (1988), 163–76, pp. 165–6.  8 Ronald Hyam, ‘Bureaucracy and “Trusteeship” in the colonial empire’, in Judith Brown and William Louis Brown (eds), Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume

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4: The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 255–79, pp. 265–8.  9 Peter Kallaway, ‘Welfare and education in British Colonial Africa and South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s’, Paedagogica Historica, 41:3 (2005), 337–56, p. 348. 10 Margaret Strobel, European Women and the Second British Empire (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991); Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992); Helen Callaway, Gender, Culture and Empire: Euro­ pean Women in Colonial Nigeria (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987). 11 The Official Gazette of the Government of Zanzibar: Supplement, 28:1432 (7 July 1919), p. 1. 12 ZNA, AB 41/2, Museum Committee Treasurer to Chief Secretary, 18 October 1934. 13 Amy Woodson-Boulton, ‘Victorian museums and Victorian society’, History Compass, 6:1 (2008), 109–46, p. 119. 14 An article on the architecture of the museum is in preparation by the author. 15 Sir Henry A. Miers and S. F. Markham, Report on the Museums and Art Galleries of British Africa (Edinburgh: T & A Constable, 1932), p. 58. 16 ZNA, BA 18/11, Administrative report of the Zanzibar Government, 1922, p. 63. 17 ZNA, CA 1, Spurrier Papers. 18 ZNA, AB 41/1, Sinclair cited in Edward Northey, Zanzibar High Commissioner to Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 9 June 1922. 19 Annual Report of the Faculty Board of Archaeology and Anthropology on the Museum of Archaeology and of Ethnology and its Library, 1931 (Cambridge: s.n., 1932), p. 1. 20 National Museum of Tanzania archive, AM101.D33 R46, ‘Reporting Thirty Years’ Work: Reports, papers, reviews etc covering the year from 1936 to 1966 in the life of the King George V Memorial Museum, National Museum of Tanganyika’; Ailsa Nicol Smith, ‘Two East African Museums’, paper for the Annual Meeting of the South African Museums Association in July 1941, pp. 14–18, p. 17, later published in South African Museums Association Bulletin. 21 ZNA, AB 86/324, Ailsa Nicol Smith personal file, annual confidential report, 3 November 1937. 22 Newnham College, University of Cambridge (NC), Newnham College Roll, printed Cambridge, January 1968, Ailsa Nicol Smith obituary, pp. 57–8, p. 58. My thanks to Martin Walsh for sharing information about Nicol Smith from the history of Arundel School: Dorothy Twiss and Rosemary Cochrane, Grace and Learning from Africa: Arundel – The First Fifty Years (Arundel School: Harare, 2005), pp. 36–8. 23 NC, Nicol Smith to Barbara White, 26 January 1967. 24 NC, Nicol Smith to White, 9 August 1967. 25 R. H. Carcasson, ‘The Coryndon Museum, Nairobi and the role of natural history museums in Tropical Africa’, Museum 16:3 (1963), 182–7, p. 183; Merrick Posnansky, ‘The Uganda Museum, Kampala’, Museum 16:3 (1963), 149–55, p. 149. 26 ZNA, AB 41/1, Memorandum on the Peace Memorial Research and Education Museum by Spurrier, 31 January 1923. 27 ZNA, AB 41/1, Northey to Churchill, 9 June 1922. 28 ZNA, AB 41/1, Report of the Peace Memorial Hall Committee, November 1924. 29 ZNA, AB 41/4, R. H. Crofton, Chief Secretary, to Attorney General, 28 October 1925. 30 Ingrams was posted in 1927 to Mauritius, then to Aden in 1934. He continued to publish on political and social issues. R. S. G. Fletcher has researched his role as a ‘desert officer’ (‘Running “the Corridor”: The desert frontier of oceanic empire, 1919– 1936’, paper presented at ‘That mighty and vast sea’ conference, National Maritime Museum, July 2010). On influences on Ingrams’s writing on Bedouin martial races, see R. S. G. Fletcher, ‘No “cheap weapon”: Patronage, politics, raiding and recruitment on the Iraq–Nejd frontier, c.1920–1930’, in R. Johnson (ed.), The Auxiliary at War, 1900–2010 (forthcoming). 31 ZNA, AB 86/293, W. H. Ingrams personal file. 32 W. H. Ingrams, Zanzibar: Its History and its People (London: Witherby & Co., 1931). 33 ZNA, BA 18/11, Administrative report of the Zanzibar Government, 1922, pp. 34, 60.

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34 ZNA, DF 9/1, Dr A. H. Spurrier to Justice C. E. Law, Chief Justice and Chairman of the Museum Committee, 26 June 1935. 35 For further information on the Carnegie Corporation in Africa, see Elda Grobler and Fransjohan Pretorius, ‘The British Museums Association, the Carnegie Corporation and museums in South Africa, 1932–1938: An overview’, S. A. Tydskrif virt Kultuur­ geskiedenis, 22:2 (2008), 45–65. 36 ZNA, AB 41/3, Samuel McElderry, Chief Secretary, to Richard Rankine, British Resident, 13 July 1935. 37 See ZNA, BB 57, Annual reports of the Stoneham Museum, 1926–1965. 38 ZNA, AB 41/3, McElderry’s note on Henry Andrews’s application, 13 July 1935. 39 ZNA, AB 41/3, McElderry to Andrews, 15 July 1935. 40 ZNA, AB 41/3, Dr Webb to McElderry, 27 July 1935. 41 ZNA, AB 41/3, Rankine to McElderry, 13 July 1935. 42 ZNA, AB 41/3, Extract from The Times, n.d., 1935. 43 ZNA, AB 41/3, Andrews to McElderry, 4 June 1935. 44 ZNA, AB 86/323, Rankine to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 4 December 1935. 45 C. Gillman and A. Nicol Smith, ‘A museum in Tanganyika: King George V Memorial Museum, Dar Es Salaam’ Museums Journal, 41:8 (1941), 169–73, p. 171. 46 Ibid. 47 ZNA, DF 9/1, Nicol Smith to J. D. Clark, Curator, Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 17 June 1940. 48 Ailsa Nicol Smith, ‘An educational museum’, Oversea Education, 12:2 (1941), 105–6, p. 106. 49 ZNA, BA 98/2, Zanzibar Museum Report 1936 (Zanzibar: s.n., 1937), p. 5. 50 Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge (CUMAA), Ailsa Nicol Smith to Louis Clark, 3 March 1937. 51 Nicol Smith, ‘An educational museum’, p. 106. 52 ZNA, BA 98/2, Zanzibar Museum Report 1936, p. 6. 53 ZNA, BA 98/2, Zanzibar Museum Report 1936, p. 7. 54 ZNA, AB 41/5, Chairman of Museum Committee to Chief Secretary, 27 July 1943. 55 ZNA, BA 98/5, Zanzibar Museum Report 1939 (Zanzibar: s.n., 1940), p. 1. 56 ZNA, BA 98/3, Zanzibar Museum Report 1937 (Zanzibar: s.n., 1938), p. 9. 57 Gillman and Nicol Smith, ‘A museum in Tanganyika’, p. 170. 58 Ibid., p. 171. 59 Ibid., p. 170. 60 ZNA, BA 98/5, Zanzibar Museum Report 1939 (Zanzibar: s.n., 1940), p. 4. 61 Ibid., p 5. 62 Gillman and Nicol Smith, ‘A museum in Tanganyika’, p. 172. 63 ZNA, DF 9/1, Nicol Smith to Clark, 17 June 1940. 64 ZNA, BA 98/4, Zanzibar Museum Report 1938 (Zanzibar: s.n., 1939), p. 3. 65 ZNA, AB 41/19, Memorandum by Dr van Someren, 15 July 1937. 66 ZNA, BA 98/3, Zanzibar Museum Report 1937 (Zanzibar: s.n., 1938), p. 7. 67 ZNA, AB 41/5, Zanzibar Museum Report 1941 (Zanzibar: s.n., 1942), p. 6. 68 ZNA, AB 41/9, Provincial Commissioner to Nicol Smith, 9 September 1942. 69 ZNA, AB 41/6, Nicol Smith to Museum Committee, 2 June 1942. 70 ZNA, AB 41/6, Nicol Smith to R. S. Foster, Director of Education, 3 June 1942. 71 ZNA, AB 41/6, British Resident to Chief Secretary, 12 June 1942. 72 ZNA, AB 86/323, Nicol Smith to Law, 14 April 1938. 73 ZNA, AB 86/323, McElderry to Assistant Secretary, 6 May 1938. 74 ZNA, AB 86/323, Nicol Smith to Law, 14 April 1938. 75 ZNA, AB 86/323, Law to Provincial Commissioner, 14 April 1938. 76 ZNA, AB 86/323, Provincial Commissioner to Chief Secretary, 17 April 1938. 77 ZNA, AB 86/323, McElderry to Assistant Secretary, 6 May 1938. 78 ZNA, AB 86/324, Senior Medical Officer to McElderry, 1 August 1939. 79 ZNA, AB 86/324, note by McElderry, 18 August 1939. 80 Peter Kallaway, ‘Welfare and education in British Colonial Africa and South Africa’, p. 346.

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81 ZNA, AB 86/324, Nicol Smith to British Resident, 8 May 1940. 82 ZNA, AB 86/323, Acting British Resident to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 19 April 1941. 83 ZNA, AB 41/2, Chief Secretary to British Resident, 1 September 1942. 84 ZNA, DF 9/1, Nicol Smith, ‘Memorandum on the Management of the Museum’, 27 July 1942.

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Chapter seven

A museum for Sierra Leone? Amateur ­enthusiasms and colonial museum policy in British West Africa Paul Basu

As one gazes up at the monumental cotton tree that stands at the symbolic centre of Freetown it is easy to miss the unprepossessing little bungalow that it both literally and metaphorically overshadows. Once a telephone exchange, and before that a railway station, since 1957 this inconspicuous building has housed Sierra Leone’s National Museum. With its antiquated displays and chaotic storerooms, the museum is little visited today and barely has resources to pay the meagre salaries of its few staff members, let alone refurbish its galleries or modernise its facilities. For a country emerging from civil conflict and beset with many more pressing problems, the museum seems something of an irrelevance. And yet such a place raises questions. How did this institution come into being in the first place? What functions has it performed in the past? What legacies or burdens does it carry into the present? What, in particular, accounts for its current state of neglect? Bernard Cohn’s collection of essays, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, remains influential in our understanding of the colonial museum. As Nicholas Dirks writes in the foreword to the collection, ‘Colonial conquest was not just the result of the power of superior arms, military organisation, political power, or economic wealth. … Colonialism was made possible, and then sustained and strengthened, as much by cultural technologies of rule.’1 The museum was one such technology through which the British, on a continental scale, were able to transform the unknown into the known: that which could be collected, classified, categorised, and thereby commandeered and controlled. In the context of mid-nineteenth-century India, the establishment of the Archaeological Survey of India, and the building of a [ 145 ]

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7.1  Freetown’s Cotton Tree c. 1958, pictured soon after the establishment of the Sierra Leone Museum (later Sierra Leone National Museum) in the ­bungalow in the right foreground.

vast national collection of archaeological specimens, Cohn argues that ‘the power to define the nature of the past and establish priorities in the creation of a monumental record of a civilization … are among the most significant instrumentalities of rulership’.2 In light of such arguments, the neglect of Sierra Leone’s National Museum in the post-colonial era might be regarded as purposeful in intent: a tacit act of resistance against the hegemonic forces of colonialism, against even the memory of colonialism. There is, no doubt, some truth in this. And yet this interpretation relies on a number of assumptions: an assumption, for example, that these cultural technologies of rule were applied evenly across different territories in the British Empire and at different periods, or that the establishment of museums in colonial contexts necessarily served colonial agendas. By examining the institutional histories of colonial-era museums in British West Africa, and of Sierra Leone’s National Museum in particular, it is possible to interrogate some of these received wisdoms and refine our understanding of the relationship between museums [ 146 ]

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and colonial rule in the region. In place of grand narratives of colonial subjugation and cultural imperialism, a closer reading of the colonial archive reveals a different story in which the significance of the agency of a small number of individuals, whose personal enthusiasms and activities had a more ambiguous relationship to the colonial project, becomes apparent.

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Activating the authorities The introduction of museums and legislation to protect monuments, antiquities and artworks came late to British West Africa in relation to many other territories of the British Empire. Although small museums had been established earlier at elite educational institutions such as Achimota College in the Gold Coast and the Bo School in Sierra Leone, it was not until the eve of decolonisation that national (or proto-national) museums were established in the region. The highwater mark of this movement was undoubtedly 1957, the year of the Gold Coast/Ghana’s independence, when national museums were opened in Accra, Freetown and Lagos. This period of museum-building followed on from a period, between 1938 and 1948, during which the Colonial Office sporadically considered adopting a more formal policy of museum development in West Africa. In the event, however, the implementation of such schemes was regarded as too low a priority for the cost to be justified, and the development of these museums was not ultimately a consequence of any coherent colonial policy. While this chapter is primarily concerned with the Sierra Leonean context, it should be noted that by the late 1930s the Colonial Office often sought to develop common policies across Britain’s West African territories. It is therefore necessary to consider the history of Sierra Leone’s national museum in the context of policy debates relating to the region more widely. Although Sierra Leone was Britain’s oldest and once most prestigious West African territory, by the mid-twentieth century its importance had long been eclipsed by the larger and more economically significant territories of Nigeria and the Gold Coast. Interestingly, a corresponding hierarchy of values was also apparent with regard to perceptions of each territory’s archaeological and artistic heritage. Thus, the focus of museological attention in the region was directed primarily to Nigeria, then the Gold Coast, with Sierra Leone included, one suspects, as a matter of courtesy. Britain’s smallest West African colony, the Gambia, was often excluded from these considerations altogether.3 Insofar as British West Africa lacked a European settler population or the monumental traces of past civilisations that precipitated [ 147 ]

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museological advances elsewhere in the British Empire, the fact that a policy of museum development was considered at all in the region resulted from the convergence of a number of significant factors in the late 1930s. These included a significant reform of Britain’s overarching colonial policies;4 changes in European appreciation of African art;5 chance archaeological discoveries that challenged prejudices concerning West African civilisation;6 and, not least, the presence in the colonies of a number of middle-ranking colonial officers, mostly in the education service, who had personal, amateur interests in indigenous West African art, antiquities and ethnology. Among these figures was E. H. Duckworth, Inspector of Education in Nigeria and editor of Nigeria, Kenneth Murray, an art teacher in Nigeria who would go on to become Nigeria’s first Surveyor of Antiquities, and H. V. Meyerowitz, Supervisor of Arts and Crafts at Achimota College in the Gold Coast. Although Duckworth and Murray had long been advocates of traditional Nigerian art and had already begun lobbying for a museum, it was the discovery in 1938–39 of seventeen remarkable cast-bronze heads at Ife in southwestern Nigeria that forced the issue. The bronzes, reckoned to date to the mid-fifteenth century, caused a sensation in the international art and museum world and, in the absence of any effective legislation to prohibit the exportation of antiquities from Nigeria, Duckworth and Murray became increasingly concerned that they would be smuggled out of the country. Frustrated at the seeming indifference of the colonial authorities in Nigeria, they appealed, through various interlocutors in the British intelligentsia, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Malcolm MacDonald, to intervene.7 MacDonald duly sent a despatch to the Governor of Nigeria.8 But, despite the consequent passing of a customs order prohibiting the export of ‘antique African sculptural works of art’ and the Governor’s assurances that provisions for a museum were under consideration, at least three of the Ife heads were indeed smuggled out of the country.9 In April 1939, after further lobbying from Duckworth and Murray, a deputation including John Rothenstein, Director of the Tate Gallery, Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery, Julian Huxley, and H. V. Meyerowitz (on leave from the Gold Coast) visited the Colonial Office to press the case for further action. This resulted in a more decisive despatch from MacDonald, this time addressed to each of the governors of Nigeria, the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone, requesting that urgent action be taken ‘to exercise government control over the exportation of objects of historical or cultural interest’ and to ‘secure for the Government itself the means of acquiring, under appropriate conditions, such objects as may be thought desirable to prevent the wilful injury to such objects’.10 [ 148 ]

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The significance of MacDonald’s interventions is evident from a letter from Duckworth. ‘It is amazing how dead the Nigerian Government are about the constant loss of antiquities’, he wrote. ‘These communications from London are of the greatest value in activating the authorities here. The Governor was doing nothing.’11 While stopping short of insisting on the establishment of museums, MacDonald’s despatch did indeed ‘activate’ the colonial authorities, prompting the Governor of Nigeria to support an application to the Carnegie Corporation for a grant to construct a modest museum at Ife, and eventually leading to the passing of ordinances providing ‘for the preservation of monuments, relics and objects of archaeological, ethnographical or historical interest’ in the Gold Coast (1945), Sierra Leone (1946) and Nigeria (1953).12 Without Colonial Office intervention at this time it is doubtful whether an Antiquities Service would have been established in Nigeria in 1943, with Murray appointed as Nigeria’s first Surveyor of Antiquities. This remained a unique position within British West Africa and was fundamental in determining the direction of museum development in Nigeria.

West African museum palaver In the early years of the Second World War, under the influence of figures such as Arthur Creech Jones, a founding member of the Fabian Society Colonial Bureau, a new ‘developmental’ paradigm in British colonial policy began to be implemented. This sought to reconfigure the relationship between metropole and colony as one of ‘partnership’, and envisaged Britain’s role as a paternalistic one of guiding colonial peoples along the road to self-government through social and economic development. As the historian John Hargreaves notes, the planners of decolonisation in West Africa ‘hoped to synchronize a gradual devolution of political authority with progress in building more modern forms of civil society … above all through progress in education’.13 Thus, as well as the passing of the Colonial Development and Welfare Act in 1940 – which created the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund and the Colonial Research Fund – and the appointment, in 1943, of the Asquith and Elliot Commissions to guide colonial policy with regard to the development of higher education, there was a renewed interest in the role of regional research institutes such as the RhodesLivingstone Institute in British Central Africa (RLI, established 1938), and the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (IFAN, established 1936) with its network of regional museums and headquarters in Dakar, Senegal.14 In British West Africa there was an attempt to create a similar research institute, based at Achimota College near Accra in the Gold [ 149 ]

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Coast. The Institute of West African Arts, Industries and Social Science (IWAAISS) was first proposed in 1937 by the artist-educator H. V. Meyerowitz and the anthropologist Meyer Fortes, and was eventually established in 1943 with a grant from the Colonial Welfare and Development Fund.15 Meyerowitz’s vision for the Institute was that it should contribute to the development of a new post-colonial West African society that was less dependent on European capital through fostering indigenous crafts and industries in a process of ‘humane industrialisation’.16 In contrast to the strong sociological turn of the RLI under the directorship of Max Gluckman, which led to the separation of the research institute from its museum, the work of IWAAISS was envisaged to embrace economic, sociological and cultural aspects of society more holistically. Recognising the significance of ‘social happiness and stability, as well as material wealth’ in the improvement of the standard of living in West Africa, emphasis was to be placed equally on the arts and industries in the development of a ‘diversified’ economy.17 A museum, it was argued, was ‘as important as a record office is in administration’, and it was anticipated that the Institute would house ‘a permanent and efficient exhibit and reference-collection of the material arts’ of the region.18 The collection and display of ‘surviving masterpieces of metal-work, wood carving, ceramic, and textiles’ was thus envisaged as a core activity of the Institute, providing ‘tangible proof of past proficiency, local initiative, and continuous [artistic and technological] development’.19 In 1944 two proposals – both linked with IWAAISS – were received by the Colonial Research Committee, which administered the Colonial Research Fund, concerning the development of museums in British West Africa. The first was written by the biologist and public intellectual Julian Huxley, and was evidently submitted to the Committee on the advice of its chairman, Lord Hailey.20 Huxley was a founder of the influential policy think tank, Political and Economic Planning, and, with Arthur Creech Jones, was also a member of the Fabian Colonial Bureau. With Creech Jones as vice-chairman, Huxley served on the Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa and spent ten weeks touring West Africa with the Commission in early 1944. During this tour, Huxley met Murray and Duckworth in Nigeria, and H. V. Meyerowitz and his wife, Eva, in the Gold Coast. Having formed part of the delegation that appealed for intervention over the Ife bronzes in 1939, he remained convinced of the need to establish a network of museums in the region. In his memorandum, Huxley remarked on the great wealth of West Africa’s archaeological, ethnological and artistic heritage, but argued that it has been ‘shockingly neglected’ by the British administration.21 [ 150 ]

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As well as stressing the need for research, collection and conservation, it is clear that Huxley saw the development of museums in West Africa as an integral part of Britain’s long-term decolonisation process, in which first a sense of national identity needed to be inculcated in each territory and a new ruling class formed that would share European sensibilities and values: ‘Knowledge of and interest in the history and cultural achievements of the region will be of great importance in fostering national and regional pride and self-respect, and in providing a common ground on which educated Africans and Europeans can meet and cooperate.’22 Huxley’s proposals were evidently modelled on IFAN and, indeed, his papers contain detailed notes on the French institution taken from an article written by its director, Théodore Monod, published in 1942.23 Huxley thus advocates a federated institutional structure with its headquarters at IWAAISS, national museums in the capital cities of each of Britain’s West African territories, and a further ten to twelve local museums in significant provincial locations. IWAAISS would take the lead in developing the ‘general direction of policy’, providing expertise and training, and publishing research findings, while the governments of the individual territories would take over the maintenance of the national and local museums, and employ additional researchers and curators if desired.24 Huxley estimated that the likely cost for the scheme over ten years would be in the region of £250,000 to £400,000, which would be found through a combination of grants from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund, the Colonial Research Fund, and the respective colonial governments.25 Huxley had similar ideas for the development of higher education in the region and he seems to have envisaged an increasingly federalised British West Africa, perhaps more akin to the federal structure of French West Africa. That such grandiose schemes were still thinkable in 1944 demonstrates how little anticipated it was that the actual process of decolonisation would be so swift, and that, within a mere twenty years, Britain would no longer have any West African colonies. The second proposal received by the Colonial Office in 1944 relating to museums in West Africa was drafted by Heiner Meinhard, a German anthropologist who had worked at the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin prior to fleeing to Britain in the lead up to the Second World War, and who was temporarily working as an assistant curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.26 Meinhard was a friend of Meyer Fortes, and one wonders whether Fortes – who was then Head of Sociology at IWAAISS – had encouraged him to draft the proposal. In contrast to Huxley’s multisited network of national and local museums, Meinhard’s recommendation was for the creation of a single ‘Central Museum of [ 151 ]

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West African Ethnology and Archaeology’. Although IWAAISS is not explicitly mentioned in Meinhard’s memorandum, it is likely that this was the intended location of the central museum (reference is made, for example, to collaboration with ‘sister institutes’ such as IFAN and RLI).27 As might be expected of someone with his professional background, Meinhard’s proposal was better informed on matters of anthropological and museological practice than Huxley’s. He went into some detail about the technical requirements of the building, providing a sketch plan of its proposed layout, and citing recent innovations in museum planning at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris and in museums in Leipzig, Hamburg, and the USA.28 Significantly, Meinhard argued that, since ‘modern political boundaries are artificial from an ethnological point of view’, the museum’s research and collecting activities should not be geographically restricted to British dependencies in West Africa but should encompass the wider ‘West African cultural area’ as far south as Angola, regardless of sovereign power.29 While presenting a more academically robust proposal (though, of course, still mired in the ‘tribal paradigm’ typical of the period 30), Meinhard lacked Huxley’s political acumen and the proposal failed to link the museum’s ‘threefold task of preservation, research, and teaching’ with the objectives of Britain’s colonial policy, which would surely have been necessary to attract support under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act.31 Given the straitened economic context of the Second World War and the ambitious scale of Huxley’s and Meinhard’s proposals, it is perhaps not surprising that they received a cool reception at the Colonial Office. Criticisms were not, however, limited to matters of cost. As well as feeling that a large programme of museum building would be ‘out of proportion’ given more pressing claims for funds, Lord Hailey cast doubt on the value of museums and archaeological research to local populations. ‘A sense of history, guided by scientific method’, was, he reasoned, ‘a very late development even in western civilization’, and he believed that there was ‘little or nothing in local sentiment about these matters which might make it politically desirable to follow such a course’ of museum development.32 Hailey did, however, express concern that critics might have grounds for claiming that other nations, such as the USA and Germany, were being allowed to take a lead in archaeological and ethnological research in British territories in West Africa, and that Britain was lagging behind in these matters – a charge that had been made by Northcote Thomas as early as 1906 and reiterated in Huxley’s proposal.33 Despite his reservations, Hailey therefore recommended that the issue be further explored when resources permitted. In March 1945 the Colonial Office forwarded copies of Huxley’s [ 152 ]

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and Meinhard’s proposals to the respective governors of Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and the Gambia, together with a letter outlining Hailey’s views, inviting their responses, and proposing that the ­Colonial Office commission a further study into the situation after the war.34 The proposals received a mixed response from the governors. ­Generally, they supported the idea that museums should be established in their respective territories, but they also agreed with Hailey that such an expensive programme could not be justified at the time. Gerald Whiteley, writing on behalf of the Governor of Nigeria, suggested that ‘Huxley’s scheme … [wa]s more of an ideal to be aimed at than a practicable proposition which [they had] any hope of carrying out’.35 Both he and Sir Hubert Stevenson, Governor of Sierra Leone, took exception to the proposal that such initiatives should fall under the control of IWAAISS in the Gold Coast. Whiteley put this most forcefully: ‘I consider Nigeria large enough to formulate its own museum policy and I consider it necessary that we should be left unfettered to direct our research to our own needs.’36 Indeed, by the time Whiteley’s letter was sent in September 1945, Meyerowitz had committed suicide and the future of IWAAISS, which had been faltering anyway, was thrown into doubt.37 It was the anthropologist Raymond Firth, in his capacity as secretary of the Colonial Social Science Research Council, who recommended that Hermann Braunholtz be approached to undertake a further study ‘on the preservation of antiquities and establishment of museums in British West Africa’ on behalf of the Colonial Office. Braunholtz was Keeper of Ethnography at the British Museum and had twice served as President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Firth reasoned that he was ‘well fitted, by his knowledge and his judicial temperament, to give valuable advice’.38 Due to war-time staff shortages at the British Museum, it was not until February 1946 that Braunholtz was able to undertake the mission. The amount of attention Braunholtz paid to each territory during his survey reflects the size of the territories, of course, but is also another indicator of their perceived archaeological and ethnological value. Thus, during the eleven weeks of his tour, Braunholtz spent six weeks in Nigeria, twelve days in the Gold Coast, five days in the Gambia, and just four days in Sierra Leone. In the last two territories, he did not venture beyond the capital cities of Bathurst and Freetown.39 In Nigeria, Murray was responsible for co-ordinating Braunholtz’s more extensive itinerary, and the two travelled together for most of the time, visiting archaeological sites, attending cultural performances, meeting artists, and reconnoitring the locations of proposed museum developments. Murray had by this time been in post as Surveyor of [ 153 ]

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Antiquities for three years, and it is fair to surmise that he had a strong influence on the recommendations that Braunholtz eventually put forward in his report. In addition to Murray, Braunholtz spent six days with Bernard Fagg in northern Nigeria. Fagg was a trained archaeologist who had been working in the colonial administration at Jos in Plateau Province since 1943. Fagg devoted much of his spare time to archaeological research in the region and would become Assistant Surveyor of Antiquities in Nigeria in 1947.40 He was also the brother of William Fagg, who, as Assistant Keeper of Ethnography at the British Museum and Secretary of the Royal Anthropological Institute, was a close colleague of Braunholtz. After the tour, Braunholtz was slow to complete his report, sending it in sections to the Research Department at the Colonial Office between March and December 1948.41 The report includes a general section that was intended to be sent to all territories in British West Africa (nine pages), and three further sections with specific recommendations for Nigeria (fifteen pages), the Gold Coast (eleven pages), and Sierra Leone and the Gambia (six pages covering both). In his report, Braunholtz drew on Huxley’s 1944 proposal as well as scholarly publications by Murray, Fagg and A. J. Arkell to reiterate the significance of West Africa’s ‘antiquities and arts’ and to argue for their ‘scientific, historic, aesthetic and … educational value’ from general, local and national perspectives. ‘In its totality’, he argued, ‘it constitutes a cultural heritage, the destruction or disappearance of which would be a grievous loss to the world as well as to West Africa in particular’.42 Braunholtz went on to argue for the significance of material culture in the West African context where there are few written records of pre-colonial life: these material traces were to be regarded as ‘historical and cultural documents of the first importance’, ‘the only tangible evidence of the past that remains’.43 It is worth quoting from Braunholtz’s report at greater length, since this provides perhaps the fullest expression of colonial museology on the eve of decolonisation: In the political and educational spheres [artefacts or antiquities] are the indispensable means of creating in the African a balanced perspective of his own place in history. Properly interpreted they should be the means to give him a sense of pride in and continuity with his own past, from which will spring confidence in his future progress. The realisation that he has a solid background of indigenous culture should help to counteract the bewilderment and instability engendered by the sudden impact of alien values and ideals.44

Under this rationale, Braunholtz argued that ‘a long term policy should be prepared without delay to provide the framework for the eventual development of archaeological services and museums on a [ 154 ]

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scale commensurate with the importance of the Colonies and the value of their cultural possessions’.45 He then went on to debate whether these plans should be ‘co-ordinated under a central direction’ for all four West African colonies: If federation and centralisation become keynotes of Colonial policy, the unified direction of the educational and scientific services provided by museums may eventually be desirable for the whole of West Africa. But for the present there is a very strong case on several grounds, such as local sentiment and special knowledge of local conditions, for independently planned archaeological and Museum services for each of the Colonies, or at any rate for the Gold Coast and Nigeria.46

To these ends, Braunholtz expressed his ‘substantial agreement’ with the recommendations of Huxley’s 1944 memorandum, excepting those sections addressing the role of IWAAISS, the activities of which were by then suspended anyway. Thus, Braunholtz concluded: For the present it would seem best for each Government to frame its own programme, and to make its own application for grants from the [Colonial Development and Welfare Fund] towards the capital cost of museums and other buildings, and from the [Colonial Research Fund] for specific research projects.47

Finally, Braunholtz made it clear that Nigeria, ‘being by far the largest of the West African colonies’, containing ‘more numerous antiquities and works of art of importance’, and having best preserved ‘its traditional culture and craftwork’, should be prioritised when it came to the implementation of such proposals.48 Indeed, this was the topic of the very first letter that Creech Jones, who had become Colonial Secretary in 1946, sent to Sir John Macpherson when he assumed the governorship of Nigeria – a matter that he admitted was ‘rather outside the range of ordinary administration’.49 Aware of the resource implications of implementing a museum development programme, Creech Jones was nevertheless quite insistent: I am convinced that we cannot afford to continue neglecting our responsibilities in the matter of arts and antiquities in Nigeria, as I am afraid that they have been neglected in the past. The cultural importance of the whole subject is in my belief very great. But it seems to me to have a wider importance than that. I believe that we have much to gain politically in Nigeria itself by making as much as we possibly can of the remaining cultural riches and also by encouraging the development of arts among people who have so much aptitude for them. I very much hope that you will be able to give this subject the stimulus which I am sure that it needs.50

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Despite this remarkable expression of support from the most senior figure in the Colonial Office, Macpherson promised little more in his reply than ‘to review the whole field in co-operation with all concerned, including particularly the new University College and other non-Governmental organisations interested in such matters’.51 It is interesting to note here how Macpherson deflected responsibility for such matters away from central government towards the newly reorgan­ised higher education sector and non-governmental organisations such as UNESCO, the first director-general of which was, of course, none other than Huxley. As the sections of Braunholtz’s report gradually assembled on the desk of J. G. Hibbert, Head of Research at the Colonial Office, Britain faced a deepening economic crisis and was confronted with a new wave of anti-colonial agitation, particularly in the Gold Coast. This was clearly not an auspicious moment to be proposing ambitious Fabianinflected colonial development programmes so far outside the scope of ‘ordinary administration’. Indeed, a letter dated 29 December 1948, from William Monson, Chief Secretary to the West African Council (a high-level forum on which each of the West African colonial governors sat), to Leslie Gorsuch, Head of the West African Department at the Colonial Office, effectively provided the last word on more than a decade of bureaucratic machinations concerning the development and implementation of a colonial museum policy in British West Africa. Having reread Braunholtz’s report and noting the demonstrable lack of sustained interest in the collection and preservation of antiquities in the region outside Nigeria, Monson concludes: In these circumstances I have not made any approach to the West African Governments, nor do I believe that the conditions which would make such an approach profitable are likely to arise in the near future. Resources are scarce and inevitably antiquities and ancient monuments come very near the bottom of the priority list. If the African members of Finance Committees had that sense of history and veneration for ancient material objects which is a part of the culture of the older civilizations, we would be on much firmer ground, but I fear that they will not acquire that feeling for a long time to come.52

Monson’s pronouncements displayed little concern for the progressive, if paternalistic, agenda of the lobbyists, and they signal a changing political landscape in the colonies in which African representation on government committees and councils had increased considerably, thereby shifting the balance of power. Following ­Monson’s rebuff, Colonial Office interest in promoting the establishment of museums in the region came to an abrupt closure, and thus ended what Eva M ­ eyerowitz had earlier described in a letter to Braunholtz as the ‘museum palaver’ [ 156 ]

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in British West Africa – much ado about nothing, one might conclude.53 And yet, of course, the museums did get built – but this was largely in spite of, rather than because of, official colonial policy.

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A museum for Sierra Leone? In the decade or so between 1948 and the time they became independent post-colonial nations in 1957, 1960 and 1961 respectively, national or ‘proto-national’ museums had been established in each of the Gold Coast/Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Since there was no higher-level policy co-ordinating these initiatives, each must be understood in relation to local actors and contexts. Indeed, the relationships between government, nation and museum were very differently configured in each colonial context. In Nigeria, Murray remained a stalwart of the Department of Antiquities long into the post-colonial era until his death in 1972. Under his and Bernard Fagg’s direction a core network of national museums was established at Esie (1948), Ife (1948), Jos (1952), Lagos (1957) and Oron (1959). After independence, this network continued to expand under the directorship of Ekpo Eyo to form what is today the largest and most extensive museum system in Africa. According to Flora Kaplan, Eyo and his successor, Yaro Gella, advocated a strong role for culture in political and economic development and saw Nigeria’s museums as ‘pivotal places for envisaging collective identity and national goals’.54 In the Gold Coast, the development of a national museum in Accra became a joint endeavour of the new University College of the Gold Coast and the Gold Coast’s Monuments and Relics Commission, which had been established by the 1945 Monuments and Relics Ordinance. Plans for a new museum building were in place by 1952, and the institution was eventually opened under the auspices of a new Museums and Monuments Board as part of Ghana’s independence celebrations in 1957. As Crinson argues, issues of national identity and regional loyalties were critical throughout the period of the museum’s development, and the idea of a national museum was by no means consistent with Nkrumah’s more radical post-colonial politics.55 Here, then, the museum represented a novel, but highly contested, intervention in the profound negotiations of identity, modernity and history that accompanied the colonial Gold Coast’s transition into post-colonial Ghana. In the Sierra Leonean context, a Monuments and Relics Commission had also been established, in 1946, by ordinance. The Commission was very active in the late 1940s and early 1950s, due to the diligence of its first chairman, a retired Krio physician and amateur historian named M. C. F. Easmon.56 Although the Commission was not expli­ [ 157 ]

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citly charged with developing a museum, this was identified as one of the priorities of the organisation in its first annual report. Subsequent reports show how a collection was gradually assembled and a temporary display set up in the British Council’s library. This collection was envisaged as ‘the nucleus of a future Museum’.57 It was, however, largely thanks to the personal enthusiasms of Sir Robert Hall, Governor of Sierra Leone between 1952 and 1956, that these museum plans materialised. In 1953, Hall promoted the establishment of a Sierra Leone Society, the stated aim of which was to encourage ‘the advancement of knowledge about the Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone’.58 In his address to the inaugural meeting of the society in 1954, however, Hall cited the museological advances made in Nigeria, the Gold Coast and French West Africa, and challenged the membership to ‘undertake the task which Government c[ould] not yet afford’ – that task being to establish a national museum in Sierra Leone.59 Outlining his vision for such a museum, Hall lamented the loss of Sierra Leone’s traditional arts and crafts which, he argued, were being ‘obliterated’ under the ‘constant impact of foreign imports and foreign skills’.60 The Governor admitted that the existence of a museum could do nothing in itself to arrest this decline in indigenous crafts, but, he argued, it could ‘contribute towards the growth of a national pride in what is past and what is traditional, by collecting and preserving objects and making them available for contemplation and study’.61 Thus, in a contradictory manner not untypical of the colonial mentality, Hall promoted a kind of ‘salvage ethnology’ characteristic of anthropological museums of the day, while failing to acknowledge the forces of colonialism, which he himself represented, as the primary agent of rapid social and cultural transformation. It is worth noting that in his previous posting in the Tanganyikan colonial service, where he served between 1926 and 1952, Hall had also been involved in the establishment of the Tanganyika Society and its journal, Tanganyika Notes and Queries. On retirement from the colonial service he acted as the secretary and later president of the Vernacular Architecture Group, at which time he edited A Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture.62 He later emigrated to New Zealand where he became associated with the Gisborne Museum, building up its historical resources and conducting a study into early Pakeha-Ma¯ori relations in the region. Hall’s tenure of office in Sierra Leone was a troubled one, and it has been suggested that he may have been a more effective historian than he was a colonial governor.63 Toward the end of his speech to the Sierra Leone Society, Hall acknowledged the need to explain why his challenge to create a national museum was addressed to a group of amateur enthusiasts rather than [ 158 ]

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to government:

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There is an obvious retort; why, if in Nigeria and the Gold Coast there are museums set up by the State, should not the same happen here? The main answer to that is that the State has not acted here: it has not seen its way to find the finance in competition with other pressing needs, and in any case it has not been subjected to the force of public opinion on the matter.64

In another era, a colonial governor might have carried the authority of ‘the State’ and cared less about ‘public opinion’. Here, however, one detects Hall’s frustration at the lack of values shared between Sierra Leone’s Legislative Council, which was by then dominated by indi­ genous interests (notably representatives of the Mende-dominated Sierra Leone People’s Party), and himself as Governor, an office which was becoming progressively more symbolic in nature. Thus, Hall’s characteristically English concern to safeguard disappearing arts, crafts and traditions seems increasingly incongruous with the aspirations of Sierra Leone’s new political elite as they anticipated self-rule and embraced a forward-looking, modern vision for their new independent nation.65 Hall’s museological sensibilities were, however, shared by the members of the newly formed Sierra Leone Society whom he was addressing. Alongside British expatriates in the colonial service, this society also included members of Freetown’s Krio elite, who were often Western-educated professionals and strongly Anglophilic in outlook. While the Krio elite were robbed of political influence at the national level by constitutional reforms that had favoured up-country elites, they did retain pockets of symbolic power, not least in institutions such as Freetown’s City Council, Fourah Bay College and, indeed, the Monuments and Relics Commission. It would be this Krio elite, headed by the figure of M. C. F. Easmon, that would carry forward a vision for Sierra Leone’s National Museum into the post-colonial era. In addition to Easmon, among the council members who directed the activities of the Sierra Leone Society were Ernest Jenner Wright (a distinguished medical doctor, who was the Society’s first chairman), Christopher Okoro Cole (a senior lawyer who became Chief Justice and later Acting Governor-General of Sierra Leone), Arthur Porter (an historian who later became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone), and Wilmot Dillsworth (a town clerk on Freetown City Council who succeeded Easmon as chair of the Monuments and Relics Commission). All of these men were prominent members of Freetown’s Krio elite. Despite being Krio-led, it is clear, however, that Hall’s patronage of the Sierra Leone Society remained critical to achieving its [ 159 ]

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7. 2  Dr McCormack Charles Farrell Easmon delivering a speech at the opening of the Sierra Leone Museum on 10 December 1957. Alongside Easmon are Sir Milton Margai (third from left), Mr Kandeh Bureh (fourth from left), and Mrs Janet Taylor-Cummings (second from left).

objectives, particularly with regard to establishing a museum. Thus, the minutes of the Council for the Sierra Leone Society for 16 March 1955 report that the government had offered to lease the old Cotton Tree Telephone Exchange to the Sierra Leone Society for its museum for a nominal £1 a year and, furthermore, to renovate the building and maintain it for an initial period.66 The Council duly accepted this offer, and the minutes of the subsequent meeting report that a decision had been taken to name the museum ‘the sierra leone museum’, with the hope expressed ‘that this w[ould] in due course develop into a true National Museum of Sierra Leone’.67 Through 1956 and 1957 the disused telephone exchange was gradually refurbished, the collections assembled by the Monuments and Relics Commission were donated, and the new museum’s displays organised (the latter task largely undertaken by A. P. Kup, a British historian who was then lecturing at Fourah Bay College). Easmon’s [ 160 ]

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7.3  The Sierra Leone Museum at the time of its opening in 1957.

adept facilitation at this time was crucial and his ability to co-­ordinate input across the Monuments and Relics Commission, the Sierra Leone Society, and the Sierra Leone Society’s Museum Committee was facilitated by the fact that he was then serving as chairman of all three entities simultaneously. Indeed, to these roles he would also add that of curator, since the Museum Committee’s attempts to raise sponsorship funds to employ a trained curator for the museum were not successful and the task inevitably fell on his shoulders. The Sierra Leone Museum was officially opened on 10 December 1957 by Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister (soon to become Prime Minister), Sir Milton Margai (Figure 7.2). As Easmon noted in an article entitled ‘Sierra Leone’s Own Museum’, published in the West African Review, this was the same year ‘in which the larger modern museums at Accra and Lagos were opened’ – a notable fact given the diverging routes along which these initiatives had been forced to develop.68 According to the Monuments and Relics Commission report for 1957, a staggering ten thousand people visited the museum in its first week of opening, and subsequent museum reports show that annual attendance figures in excess of 250,000 were sustained into the mid-1970s.69 Photographs of the museum from this time show visitors peering at displays of stone [ 161 ]

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nomoli and mahen yafe carvings, ceremonial regalia, initiation society masks, country cloths, and other historical and ethnological artefacts. They also show how little has changed in the intervening years, since the displays are more or less the same today, if a little more cluttered. And so we return to that unprepossessing little bungalow standing in the shade of Freetown’s Cotton Tree. Only ever intended as a temporary location for the museum, the inadequacies of the Cotton Tree Building were evident from the very start and the desire to build or move into a more suitable museum building have remained on the agenda throughout the museum’s history. The most elaborate of these schemes, for which architectural drawings survive, dates to 1967. This envisaged a new six-storey building on the existing museum plot, complete with lecture theatre, library, laboratories, stores, offices, exhibition halls and a roof-top restaurant that would compete with the ‘modern’ national museums developed in Nigeria, Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. Needless to say, the costs of such a development were regarded as being ‘far in excess of what the country could justifiably afford for building a museum’, and there was little hope of receiving external financial aid for a scheme of this nature.70 It was, however, also in 1967 that the Sierra Leone Museum finally became Sierra Leone’s national museum. The Sierra Leone Society had gone into decline after independence and had become defunct by 1964, its academic activities being superseded the same year by the establishment of a new Institute of African Studies at Fourah Bay College.71 Through an amendment of the Monuments and Relics Act in 1967, Sierra Leone’s Monuments and Relics Commission was given the authority to ‘acquire, maintain and administer the Sierra Leone Museum founded by the Sierra Leone Society’.72 At that time, the Commission itself fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, but was transferred, in 1973, to the Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs following a reorganisation of government departments.

A national museum in ruins? The sorry state in which Sierra Leone’s National Museum is to be found today is sometimes attributed to the civil war that beset the country between 1991 and 2002. This is not the case, however, as a magazine article entitled ‘A national museum in ruins’, published before the war, makes clear. The author remarked: A casual glance at Sierra Leone’s national museum … presents a picture of a sadly neglected edifice … [I]t appears Sierra Leoneans have no interest in the museum. Said an observer, ‘there is nothing in there for me to see… Our past has been emptied, ravaged and distorted’.73

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Indeed, after the buoyant attendance figures of the 1960s and 1970s, the number of visitors to the museum dropped considerably. The author of the article attributed this lack of interest to the impoverished nature of the museum’s collections and noted that the museum had no resources to acquire new artefacts to replace those which, he implied, had been sold off. He did not hold the government itself to blame for underfunding the institution, citing an official source that ‘the annual subvention is fairly reasonable in the light of the country’s economic problems’.74 Instead, he alluded to the ‘intricate web of political, economic and aesthetic threads’ in which the history of the museum was entangled, and the ‘hegemony of European and predominantly British interests which determined collection policies until recently’.75 This is a curious piece of journalism, which makes the common mistake of supposing that the British had significant interest in such a museum and, indeed, that there was any kind of policy in ­operation in the colonial era (whether a collections policy or a policy of museum development). As I have shown in this chapter, despite the efforts of a few dedicated individuals, no such policies were adopted in British West Africa. From a Colonial Office perspective, museums were regarded as indulgences of limited value, the expense of which simply could not be justified. In the West African context, therefore, colonialera museums could hardly be described as ‘cultural technologies of rule’: they were, rather, the pet projects of museum-minded individuals at various tiers of the colonial service (from education officers such as Murray to governors such as Hall or, indeed, the Colonial Secretary himself in the figure of Creech Jones). The enthusiasms of these individuals were often academic in nature and they were convinced of the social value of preserving traditional crafts and skills in the countries where they originated. These interests and convictions were not widely shared, however, among either the British colonial administration or the emerging local elites. In the words of Monson, this agenda came ‘very near the bottom of the priority list’, and, in Sierra Leone at least, it has rarely been anywhere else. As Hall noted in 1954, ‘the State has not acted here’. In the post-colonial era, it has still not acted. The likes of Murray, Duckworth and Meyerowitz, who tirelessly campaigned for a colonial museum policy in the 1930s and 1940s, were only too aware that West Africa’s past was being emptied out by the very hegemonic forces they represented. One of their primary motivations for arguing for the establishment of museums in West Africa was to stem the flow of African artworks and antiquities into European and North American museums and art markets. Indeed, they were among the earliest proponents of the repatriation of cultural property in these contexts. [ 163 ]

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However, while these advocates of museums in West Africa may have had the best of intentions, their ideas also manifested a paternalism that did not question the appropriateness of the cultural institutions for which they lobbied. In his letters and articles, even Murray admitted: ‘at present there are not many Africans who will patronise a Museum but, as education spreads, the demand will grow’.76 For all their respect for local populations, these educationalists did not doubt – even less so figures such as Huxley and Creech Jones – the superiority of contemporary European values, or that West Africans would inevitably aspire to these same values once they had been educated out of their ‘primitive’ state. This logic remained fundamental to the developmental doctrine of Fabian colonial policy, revealing its ideological rootedness in Victorian cultural evolutionist thinking. The value of museums was taken for granted in Europe and, as some of the more odious correspondence quoted in this chapter reveals, was even regarded as a trait only to be found in the ‘older [i. e. more advanced] civilisations’ and therefore unlikely to emerge in West Africa. Thankfully such linear notions of progress have now been discredited. We have come to understand that there are different ways of relating to the past and that museum-mindedness, with its peculiar obsessions with collecting, preserving, ordering and displaying, is merely the product of a particular historical context and not of universal utility or relevance. Thus, as is so evident in the case of Sierra Leone, the value of the institution of the museum in West Africa cannot be taken for granted. And yet the museums exist and, against the odds, they persist – not as ruins, but as unfinished projects. Colonial legacies of doubtful relevance and uncertain usefulness, they nevertheless form part of the creolising palimpsest of mnemonic forms localised in this particular part of the post-colonial world.77

Notes  1 Nicholas Dirks, ‘Foreword’, in Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Know­ ledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. ix–xvii, p. ix.  2 Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, p. 10.  3 It was not until 1985, twenty years after independence, that a national museum was inaugurated in the Gambia. Alice Bellagamba, ‘Before it is too late: Constructing an archive of oral sources and a national museum in independent Gambia’, Africa Today, 52:4 (2006), 29–52, p. 41.  4 R. D. Pearce, The Turning Point in Africa: British Colonial Policy, 1938–1948 (London: Frank Cass, 1982).  5 Robert Goldwater, Primitivism in Modern Painting (New York: Harper, 1938).  6 E. H. Duckworth, ‘Recent archaeological discoveries in the ancient city of Ife’, Nigeria, 14 (1938), 101–5; William Bascom, ‘The legacy of an unknown Nigerian “Donatello”’, Illustrated London News, 8 April 1939, 592–4.  7 The National Archives, Public Record Office, London (TNA), Colonial Office (CO)

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583/234/13, John Rothenstein to Lord Harlech, 10 November 1938; Lord Harlech to Malcolm MacDonald, 11 November 1938.  8 TNA, CO 583/234/13, Malcolm MacDonald to B. H. Bourdillon, 6 December 1938.  9 TNA, CO 554/121/8, Order in Council made under the Customs Ordinance, No. 2 of 1939; Bourdillon to MacDonald, 29 March 1939. See also Robert L. Tignor, ‘W. R. Bascom and the Ife bronzes’, Africa, 60:3 (1990), 425–34; Simon Ottenberg, ‘Further light on W. R. Bascom and the Ife bronzes’, Africa, 64:4 (1994), 561–8. 10 TNA, CO 554/121/8, Malcolm MacDonald to B. H. Bourdillon, A. W. Hodson, D. J. Jardine, 30 May 1939. 11 TNA, CO 554/121/8, Extract from a letter from E. H. Duckworth, Lagos, 28 June 1939. 12 The Carnegie application was successful and a grant of $4,000 was made in 1941 ‘for the purpose of erecting a small local museum at Ife’. However, the project soon ran into difficulties and, after a war-time review of funding for ‘agencies and institutions in the British Dominions and Colonies’, Carnegie later revoked the award. See TNA, CO 583/261/5. Regarding the antiquities ordinances, it is ironic that Nigeria’s legislation was the last to be enacted. A bill had been drafted in 1940, but its progress again stalled due to war-time circumstances. See British Museum (BM), Eth Doc 261, ‘A Bill entitled An Ordinance to provide for the better preservation of objects of aesthetic, historical, archaeological or scientific interest’, sent by O. G. R. Williams, Colonial Office, 27 April 1940. 13 John Hargreaves, Decolonization in Africa (London: Longman, 1996), p. 107. 14 David Mills, ‘British anthropology at the end of empire: The rise and fall of the Colonial Social Science Research Council, 1944–1962’, Revue d’Histoire des Sciences Humaines, 6 (2002), 161–88; Agbenyega Adedze, ‘Symbols of triumph: IFAN and the colonial museum complex in French West Africa (1938–60)’, Museum Anthropology, 25:2 (2002), 50–60. 15 F. Meyerowitz, ‘The Institute of West African Arts, Industries, and Social Science’, Man, 43 (1943), 112–14. 16 TNA, CO 859/172/2, Henry Morris, ‘West African Institute of Industries, Arts and Social Science: Report of investigator’ (1947), p. 3. 17 Meyerowitz, ‘Institute of West African Arts’, p. 113. 18 Ibid., p. 114. 19 Ibid. 20 TNA, CO 927/5/5, Julian Huxley, ‘Research and Development in Archaeology, Ethnology, African Art and Museums in West Africa’ (1944), in Julian Huxley to C. Y. Carstairs, 14 May 1944. 21 TNA, CO 927/5/5, Huxley, ‘Research and Development’, p. 2. 22 Ibid., p. 3. 23 Rice University, Huxley Papers, Box 65, Folder 13, ‘Summary of relevant points of an introduction by Professor Monod to a chapter on the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (I.F.A.N.) to a volume published in 1942 by the Hautcommissariat de l’Afrique Française’. In 1944 Huxley visited Monod at IFAN while touring West Africa with the Elliot Commission. 24 TNA, CO 927/5/5, Huxley, ‘Research and Development’, p. 3. 25 Ibid., p. 1. 26 TNA, CO 927/5/5, Heiner Meinhard, ‘Suggestions for a Central Museum of West African Ethnology and Archaeology’ (1944), in O. G. R. Williams to G. H. Creasy, 15 November 1944. 27 Ibid., p. 7. 28 Ibid., p. 3; annexe. 29 Ibid., p. 1. 30 Philip L. Ravenhill, ‘The passive objects and the tribal paradigm: Colonial museo­ graphy in French West Africa’, in Mary Jo Arnoldi, Christraud M. Geary and Kris L. Hardin (eds), African Material Culture (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 265–82. 31 In his discussion of the National Museum of Ghana, Crinson makes the mistake of conflating Huxley’s and Meinhard’s proposals, attributing both, including Meinhard’s

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sketch plan, to Huxley. See Mark Crinson, ‘Nation-building, collecting and the politics of display: The National Museum, Ghana’, Journal of the History of Collections, 13:4 (2002), 231–50. 32 TNA, CO 927/5/5, C. Y. Carstairs to G. H. Creasy, 9 January 1945. 33 See Paul Basu, ‘Material culture: Ancestries and trajectories in material culture studies’, in James Carrier and Deborah Gewertz (eds), Handbook of Sociocultural Anthropology (Oxford: Berg, forthcoming). 34 TNA, CO 927/5/5, G. H. Creasy to A. R. Richards, A. C. M. Burns, H. C. Stevenson, H. R. R. Blood, 19 March 1945. 35 TNA, CO 927/5/5, Gerald Whiteley to G. H. Creasy, 20 September 1945. 36 Ibid. 37 After Meyerowitz’s death the majority of IWAAISS activities were suspended. In 1947 a report was commissioned to make recommendations for the Institute’s future. See TNA, CO 859/172/2, Henry Morris, ‘West African Institute of Industries, Arts and Social Science: Report of Investigator’ (1947). With the expansion of higher education provision in West Africa following the recommendations of the Elliot Commission, it was proposed that some of the research activity associated with IWAAISS be incorporated into the new university system. Thus, a West African Institute of Social and Economic Research was established at the University College of Nigeria and a Department of Archaeology was created at the University College of the Gold Coast. 38 TNA, CO 927/5/5, Raymond Firth to C. Y. Carstairs, 26 March 1945. 39 BM, Eth Doc 172, H. J. Braunholtz, ‘Special report: Visit of the Keeper to West Africa’, 8 July 1946. 40 Bernard Fagg later became director of Nigeria’s Department of Antiquities when Murray retired in 1957. 41 TNA, CO 927/31/5, Hermann J. Braunholtz, ‘Report on the preservation of antiquities and on the establishment of museums in British West Africa’ (1948). See also TNA, CO 927/31/4, correspondence between J. G. Hibbert and H. J. Braunholtz. 42 TNA, CO 927/31/5, Braunholtz, ‘Report’, p. 3. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., p. 7. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., p. 8. 48 Ibid., p. 9. 49 TNA, CO 859/172/2, Arthur Creech Jones to Sir John Macpherson, 13 April 1948. 50 Ibid. 51 TNA, CO 859/172/2, Macpherson to Creech Jones, 29 April 1948. 52 TNA, CO 927/31/4, William Monson to Leslie Gorsuch, 29 December 1948. 53 BM, Eth Doc 172, E. L. R. Meyerowitz to H. J. Braunholtz, 26 July 1945. 54 Flora Kaplan, ‘Nigerian museums: Envisaging culture as national identity’, in Flora Kaplan (ed.), Museums and the Making of Ourselves: The Role of Objects in National Identity (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1994), pp. 45–78, p. 45. 55 Crinson, ‘Nation-building, collecting and the politics of display’. 56 Christopher Fyfe, ‘Easmon, McCormack Charles Farrell (1890–1972)’, in H. C. G. Matthews and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 61 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 17, pp. 580–1. 57 Monuments and Relics Commission (MRC), Annual Report of the Monuments and Relics Commission for the Year 1949 (Freetown: Government Printer, 1951), p. 10. 58 A. T. Porter, ‘The Sierra Leone Society’, Sierra Leone Studies, NS 3 (1954), p. 193. 59 Robert Hall, ‘A museum for Sierra Leone?’, Sierra Leone Studies, NS 3 (1954), 130–5, p. 131. 60 Ibid., p. 132. 61 Ibid., p. 133. 62 Robert Hall, A Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1972). 63 John Hargreaves, personal communication with the author, 2007. 64 Hall, ‘A museum for Sierra Leone?’, p. 134.

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65 John Cartwright, Politics in Sierra Leone, 1947–67 (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1970). 66 Sierra Leone National Museum (SLNM), ‘Minutes of Meeting of Council of the Sierra Leone Society held at the British Council on Wednesday March 16 1955 at 5 p.m.’. 67 SLNM, ‘Minutes of Meeting of Council of the Sierra Leone Society held at the Office of H. E.’s Private Secretary on Friday April 29 1955 at 6.30 p.m.’. 68 M. C. F. Easmon, ‘Sierra Leone’s Own Museum’, West African Review, 29:373 (1958), 820–1, p. 820. 69 MRC, Report of the Monuments and Relics Commission 1957 (Freetown: Government Printer, 1958), p. 3. See also Janet L. Stone and H. U. Cole, ‘The Sierra Leone Museum, Freetown’, Museum, 18:3 (1965), 38–40, p. 38; Louise Metzger, ‘Indigenous art forms in Sierra Leone: The museum as an educational resource’, unpublished manuscript, 1982. 70 SLNM, ‘Minutes of the combined meeting of the Monuments and Relics Commission and the Sierra Leone Museum Committee held in the Conference Room, Department of Communications, Departmental Block, George Street, on Thursday 22nd February, 1968, at 4.30 p.m.’. An extension to the Cotton Tree Building was eventually financed in the mid-1980s by the German Embassy and opened to coincide with celebrations marking the bicentenary of the founding of Freetown in 1987. The extension provided much needed facilities for offices, storerooms and a temporary exhibition space, but was never fully fitted out, and the old Cotton Tree Building continues to house the main display gallery. A more detailed exploration of the postcolonial history of the Sierra Leone National Museum will be the subject of a future publication. 71 Michael Crowder, ‘Institute of African Studies, Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 4:1 (1966), 95–6. 72 Sierra Leone, Monuments and Relics (Amendment) Act, 1967. 73 Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, ‘Distorted past: A national museum in ruins’, West Africa, 3812 (1990), p. 2479. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 K. C. Murray, ‘Art in Nigeria: The need for a museum’, Journal of the Royal African Society, 41:165 (1942), 241–9, p. 248. 77 See Paul Basu, ‘Palimpsest memoryscapes: Materializing and mediating war and peace in Sierra Leone’, in Ferdinand de Jong and Michael Rowlands (eds), Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imaginations in West Africa (Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2007), pp. 231–59.

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Chapter eight

Edgar Thurston at the Madras Museum (1885–1909): the multiple careers of a colonial museum curator Savithri Preetha Nair

As a major site of scientific knowledge production, the public museum in the colonial setting has hardly received the attention it deserves.1 Rather than the university, it was the museum which played a dominant role in the shaping of the sciences in the colony, not only in the second half of the nineteenth century, but well into the twentieth. That the situation was not very different in nineteenth-century Europe has been demonstrated by a recent study, which argues that even German science typically understood ‘as being about university-elites producing knowledge was most fully developed outside the universities’; primarily at such institutions as museums.2 In the colonial non-Western context – the setting of this paper – the public museum was conceived primarily as an agent of economic progress, and not until the late nineteenth century did the social argument receive any serious consideration. Further, public museums exclusively devoted to natural history, ethnography or archaeology hardly existed in Asia and Africa as they did in Europe or the settled colonies of the Americas and Australia. Collections representative of the locality, ranging from natural history to art and antiquities, were all housed in one building and exhibited in separate galleries within it. As public museums, they were invariably funded by the local government.3 The interplay between economic and social enlightenment ideals, centered at the public museum, played a crucial role in the nature of knowledge produced in the colony. Knowledge produced at the museum was shaped not only by the setting, however, but also by the research interests of the curator. This chapter focuses on the Madras

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Museum in southeast India, under its first salaried superintendent Edgar Thurston (1855–1935), who headed the institution for a quarter of a century, transforming it from an economic appendage to a veritably civic and scientific institution.4 In his Essays on Museums, Sir William Henry Flower (1831–99) claimed that the success of a museum depended fundamentally upon its curator, and none exemplified this better in colonial India than Thurston.5 In fact, Flower was among those who strongly recommended Thurston for the post. In a speech delivered on the occasion of the opening of the new museum buildings in Madras in late 1896, Thurston cited Flower (to whom he owed ‘the fortunate accident of a very happy private and official Indian life’), to highlight the importance of the curator to a museum.6 As a colonial museum curator, Thurston’s career was many-sided; that he addressed multiple audiences is clearly reflected in his official correspondence and publications. He juggled several activities, straddling the realms of the public, the state and the university to fulfil economic, civic and scientific goals. Two years into his job as superintendent, Thurston remarked: ‘I have thoroughly settled down to my work, which has only one drawback that of diffuseness and I cannot stick systematically to one subject. But a little energy gets over many difficulties.’7 That this ‘diffused’ state of affairs was not atypical of his post as curator is evident from Thurston’s comment a few years later that he had ‘divided [himself] officially into many parts, with no time to stick to one subject’.8 On a later occasion he wrote, ‘I’m leading a busy life, but with of necessity, too many irons in the fire. I am utilized as a reference on all kinds of subjects.’9 And after twenty years at his job, he remarked: ‘But it is quite healthy, and we work, [play] Bridge and sleep.’10 These are telling statements on the nature of work performed by a colonial museum curator in the late nineteenth century. However, today Thurston has been reduced simply to an authority on South Indian anthropology, thanks to generations of historians and anthropologists who have portrayed him in this static and onedimensional manner.11 By so doing, they have conveniently ignored not only the history of anthropology as a discipline and the pre-history of ­Thurston’s avatar as anthropologist but most importantly the significance of his location, in a public museum in the empire. This chapter aims to deconstruct this monolithic image of ‘Thurston as anthropologist’, by recovering the multiple social and intellectual worlds he straddled as curator of a major public museum in nineteenth-century India. As a site for the production of new and useful knowledge, the colonial museum played a crucial role in linking the state, the university and the public. Although, Susan Sheets-Pyenson’s

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pioneering study on colonial natural history museums in the late nineteenth century considered the staffing of museums and the intellectual interests of the curators, given its diffusionist framework, it was hardly equipped to unravel the complex web of ‘translations’ involved in the making of knowledge at the museum. The argument made by sociologists of science that scientific work is heterogeneous in nature, involving the cooperation of a wide range of social worlds has been applied by scholars widely across disciplines.12 This chapter also reveals how activity around certain fields of enquiry, in some cases even new ones, intensified at the colonial museum at certain historical moments owing to a combination of factors: the curator’s research interests, his links to metropolitan science, his ability to effect ‘translations’ across diverse social worlds and the demands of the state. In the late nineteenth century, the Madras Museum under Thurston evolved into a centre of research and education in marine biology, ocean ecology and anthropology, new disciplines of the late nineteenth century.

Intellectual trajectory and professional networks An Etonian, Thurston studied at King’s College, London, winning the College’s Todd prize in clinical medicine and qualifying as a licen­ tiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1877.13 His early interest in evolutionary biology is revealed by his choice of books for the prize, consisting exclusively of the works of Charles Darwin.14 Thurston began his professional career as assistant medical officer at the Kent County Asylum, Barming Heath.15 He would have known Flower as a student of anatomy in the 1870s, and later on at a professional level as curator of the anatomy museum of King’s College, London.16 His passion for zoology and later for anthropology were also probably inspired by Flower. In 1884, Flower was appointed Director of the new British Museum (Natural History) with the support of Thomas Huxley, replacing the anti-Darwinist Richard Owen. That same year, Albert Günther (1830–1914), the German-born ichthyologist was chosen for the post of Keeper of Zoology; Thurston would become one of his regular Indian correspondents. Although Günther never really expressed his views on Darwin’s theory, he contributed much in favour of it and had several friends who were avowed evolutionary biologists.17 Günther’s staff included Francis Bell (1855–1924) working on lower invertebrates; George Boulenger, a Belgian who specialised in reptiles; Edgar Smith on molluscs; and Eduard von Martens, Arthur Dendy and Randolph Kirkpatrick on bryozoa and sponges. Thurston had requested them to work up specimens in exchange for duplicates. As for Bell, he also played an important part, along with Flower, in recommending him [ 170 ]

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for the Madras Museum. Although it is not known whether Thurston corresponded with the comparative anatomist and evolutionary biologist Ray Lankester (1847–1929), he certainly subscribed to the latter’s approach to economic biology. In Europe, Thurston corresponded with marine biologists such as the young Arnold Edward Ortmann, a student of Ernst Haeckel, who was a militant supporter of Darwin, and Emil Selenka, an expert invertebrate zoologist and explorer of the tropics. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew always held a special place in Thurston’s heart; he was born the second son of Charles Bosworth Thurston of Kew and spent his childhood and youth in the close proximity of the gardens. Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer, the third director of the Royal Botanic Gardens and son-in-law of Joseph Hooker, was a close friend, with whom he would frequently correspond on social and botanical subjects. In fact, on his retirement when he turned his attention entirely to botany, in particular the flora of Cornwall, his interactions with Thiselton-Dyer intensified. Thurston also enjoyed a close intellectual relationship with the Cambridge oceanographer John Stanley Gardiner and the members of the Cambridge Torres Strait Expedition, in particular Alfred C. Haddon and the experimental psychologists William H. R. Rivers and Charles S. Myers. The Madras government appointed Thurston in late 1885 as the Madras Museum’s first salaried curator. During his residence in the city, he was in regular communication with the Governor of Madras, Sir Mountstuart E. Grant Duff,18 the biologists Alfred Gibbs Bourne of the Presidency College (a student of Ray Lankester) and J. R. Henderson of the Madras Christian College, the state botanists, M. A. Lawson and C. A. Barber, and the artist and historian Ernest Binfield Havell of the School of Arts. Besides the large number of civil servants, ­government officials and museum staff, he also interacted closely with the local planters and businessmen. Thurston remarked that ‘it was necessary to invoke the assistance and proverbial hospitality of various planters, without which my researches would have been barren’.19 On a daily basis, Thurston worked alongside several educated and skilled ‘natives’. His chief collaborator in anthropological researches and coauthor of the multivolume Castes and Tribes of Southern India (1909) was Kadambi Rangachari (1868–1934), who succeeded Abhoy Naidu in 1897 as the museum’s herbarium keeper. Men like C. Hayavadana Rao, V. Govindan and L. K. Ananthakrishna Aiyar, who would later produce works in their own right, also contributed to his anthropological researches. Thurston had under his employ some excellent ‘native’ taxidermists, who were particularly skilful in the preservation of fish, and divers, experts on animal life of the coral reefs.

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Between the museum and the coral reefs

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Much in keeping with his medical background, Thurston’s first original piece of research as Curator of the Madras Museum was on a bacterium he named the Micrococcus madraspatansis. In the research note published in Nature, a journal to which he would often contribute during his career in India, he remarked: The sole charge of a Presidential Museum and the study of that highroad to pathological eminence bacteriology, are unfortunately not compatible, but I have not been able to resist the rough investigation of a phenomenon which stands prominently out before my eyes as I write.20

He was considered ‘highly competent in the difficult task of drawing minute organisms to scale’ by several of his medical contemporaries.21 One of the earliest projects he undertook as Superintendent was to cata­logue the Batrachia in the Madras Museum collection, ‘for the benefit of the people out here’.22 To accomplish this and several other taxonomic tasks, Thurston relied on his network of zoologist friends at the British Museum (Natural History) and elsewhere in Europe. During the first five years of his career at the Madras Museum he devoted his time predominantly to marine biology and ecology of the coral reefs for the benefit of the museum, the state and the university. Very importantly, the official reports he prepared also contained his views on evolutionary biology. What triggered Thurston’s interest in marine biology is not clear, but the study of marine fauna was the chief focus of zoological research in the second half of the nineteenth century. Günther, Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum and an expert ichthyologist, for instance, took pains to stress the importance of a systematic collection of marine life. His friends who went on off-shore fishing expeditions were asked to keep detailed records of the catches, the depth, the locality and the conditions on the ocean bottom.23 As soon as Thurston took charge of the Madras Museum, he was ordered to deliver lectures in biology at Madras University.24 Within six months, he delivered an evening public lecture on corals in the museum theatre.25 Later that year (August to September 1886) he was at the Rameswaram Island (situated at the very tip of the Indian peninsula and connected to mainland India by the Pamban bridge) to study the marine fauna of the region. In his preliminary report on the expedition, Thurston alluded to the travels to Ceylon of the evolutionary biologist, Ernest Haeckel, of Jena (Visit to Ceylon, 1883), to describe the difficulties attending ‘the labours of a zoologist beneath a tropical sun’.26 He was accompanied by geologist friend Robert Bruce-Foote, who described the Rameswaram Island as demonstrating such ‘a great variety of coast’, including a fossilised reef. [ 172 ]

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Thurston ‘reaped a splendid harvest of corals, sponges, fish, echinoderms and other marine treasures for his museum’ with the help of his Labbi divers.27 Early next year, Thurston seized an excellent opportunity to study the littoral fauna of the Presidency by joining government officials on a tour of inspection of lighthouses, ‘although the halts at the lighthouse stations were as a rule very short of forming a general idea as to the zoological capacity of the different parts of the coast’. However, by means of a visit to the fish bazaars and a cursory examination of specimens cast up on the shore, he managed to create an ‘index’ to the living and submerged fauna of the seas. Over the subsequent months, he several times visited the coast of the Gulf of Mannar, known through the centuries for its precious-pearl banks. With these expeditions, Thurston had thrown open the coral reefs of Rameswaram and neighbouring islands as a new and promising field for zoological research. The bungalow of the Raja of Ramnad, situated on the top of a sand-hill near the Pamban lighthouse, had been transformed into a zoological laboratory. He believed that it would make an excellent marine biological station, if only it were more accessible from Madras.28 Thurston was determined to study the region in great detail by visiting his ‘pet coral island’ on a regular basis, but given the demands on his time as a museum curator, he was unable to do so. That same year, he was engaged in poring over the records of the Madras Mint, ‘for which such information was extracted as [he] thought to be of value and interest’.29 He was also ordered to deliver lectures in comparative anatomy at the Madras Medical College.30 Over the next few years Thurston made several expeditions to the coral reefs, for the benefit of the government, which had pearl fishery interests in Tuticorin and Ceylon. He collected all that he could on the history of pearl fishery in the region, confessing his ignorance on the ‘cause of the failure of the pearl oysters to reach maturity on the banks in large numbers, in recent times, except after long intervals’. It dawned on Thurston that no records existed of the temperature of the water in the coral-bearing Gulf of Mannar. The importance of studying ‘the living conditions’ of pearl oysters, reminiscent of Möbius’s ‘living communities’ (or biocoenosis, which viewed ‘the organism as a living being embedded in nature’), struck him more strongly than ever.31 Studying the ‘carefully kept records’ of pearl banks, Thurston became more inclined to think it was the small mollusc killikay, which occupied large areas of the shallow sea bottom, that ‘crowded out’ the newly deposited ‘delicate young of the oyster’. He invoked Möbius’s theories on the formation of pearls, quoting a Swiss zoologist Humbert, who had worked on the Ceylon oysters in the 1850s in [ 173 ]

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the company of Edward Frederick Kelaart, a Ceylonese official.32 A few years later, in 1894, Thurston confirmed Kelaart’s observation that the larvae of a certain species of flatworm played an important role in the production of pearls.33 By the examination of the oyster shells brought up by his divers, Thurston was able to gather information on the conditions under which pearl oysters subsisted.34 Darwin’s discussion of the rate of growth of corals inspired Thurston to examine the coral-bearing shells by weighing and observing the size of the corals on oysters of different ages.35 The highly detailed government reports on pearl and chank fish­eries of the region, produced from as early as the 1850s, are rich sources on the shaping of ecological ideas in the second half of the nineteenth century and beyond. Thurston’s own reports included historical, economic, ecological and scientific material (such as detailed notes on the taxonomy and physiology of marine fauna). He had also begun work on an index collection of marine fauna, for the use of those engaged in teaching and for the students of the university. When it was eventually completed in 1894, he exhibited it in the zoological gallery, as Günther had done at the British Museum, with descriptive labels to illustrate by means of specimens, ‘the principal types of Indian fishes, their external anatomy, dentition, adaptation to different modes of life, weapons of defence etc’. The collections were organised on a geographical and ecological basis, with reference to the southern portion of India, rather than on the basis of morphology and evolution, which as an evolutionary biologist he would have much preferred. The large and beautiful collection of ‘reef-building corals’ from the fringe-reefs of the Gulf of Mannar were arranged in ‘wall and table series in the marine gallery’.36 The index collection of marine fauna begun for the benefit of university students also drew the attention of visitors who came to the museum as ‘sight-seers, with no definite intention of being instructed’.37 Returning to the Madras Museum from the expedition, he wrote to his friend Günther of the British Museum: I have managed to arrange all the specimens, which I took home with me, and consider this a useful piece of work not that my crowds of native visitors appreciate the importance of specific names. I had my baptism of experience in [the] Cholera scare at the Ceylon pearl Fishery and it was not cheery. 1 July, I shall probably visit my pet coral reef again. My Annual report is on my mind. Last year I spent only 3 months in Madras, and did more good work than in any previous year.38

One of the earliest descriptions of sponges from the coral reefs in the Gulf of Mannar was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History in late 1887.39 The author of the note, Arthur Dendy – assistant in the Zoological Department of the British Museum and friend [ 174 ]

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of Thurston – remarked: ‘This little known field [marine zoology] will probably yield a rich harvest to whoever has the good luck to ­thoroughly investigate it; and this statement is amply borne out by Mr. Thurston’s researches.’40 Sponges, echinoderms, crustaceans, molluscs and bryozoa continued to be sent out to experts on marine invertebrates in London and Germany for identification.41 They included Bell, Kirkpatrick, Dendy, Smith, von Martens, Ortmann, and Selenka.42 In late 1889, Thurston wrote to Bell: Are you dead or alive, and did you receive some echinoderms from our pearl banks? … I am off at once to Ceylon to learn how to conduct a pearl bank inspection and then give the Govt. the benefit of my experi­ ence by inspecting our own banks. I was recently at the coral island [Rameswaram], but was making notes more than collecting. Found no new Echinoderms, so I imagine they are getting played out. I have just been through the coolly work of reporting to Govt. on a treasure of 30,000 rupees. … Three publications in the Press keep me from loafing.43

In the following year he was again looking forward to visiting his ‘pet coral island’ which a coasting steamer now touched, saving him the ordeal of travelling long hours by train. He had now begun to adopt the glycerine method developed by Amyrald Haly of the Colombo Museum to preserve the brightly coloured ‘“coral-fishes” which abound over the fringing coral-reefs’.44 He also used the opportunity to visit Tuticorin ‘so as to work out some doubtful points in connection with the anatomy of the pearl oyster’.45 In another letter, Thurston observed that he was being utilised as a referee on all kinds of subjects and had to even involve himself in ‘the subject of sugar-cultivation’.46 In 1894, Thurston commenced a series of bulletins on behalf of the Madras Museum, incorporating the results of his ‘wanderings’. The first of these was devoted to the pearl and chank fisheries of the Gulf of Mannar, which included some fresh material on the subject. The next bulletin again dealt with the fauna of the Gulf, in addition to that of the Rameswaram Island. Thurston earnestly hoped that ‘both the l­ittoral and deep-sea fauna of the Gulf w[ould] some day receive through the medium of a biological station worked on lines similar to those of the Naples and Plymouth Stations, the exhaustive investigation which they richly deserve[d]’. He regretted not being able to devote more time to his marine biological researches because of ‘the diffused work of Museum direction’ and the limited time at his disposal. As Super­ intendent, Thurston was expected to be in residence at Madras ‘during the greater part of the year’ and was allowed ‘only an occasional flying visit [to] such [people] as vendors’. Therefore, ‘any attempt at exhaustive observations [on the marine biology of the region was] wholly out [ 175 ]

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of [the] question’. As a result, he complained that he was only able to ‘place on record lists, with some details’.47 Thurston established a marine aquarium on the marina of the city of Madras in 1906, ‘not only for educational and scientific purposes as an extension of the Museum and an annexe to the Presidency College’ but also as a popular and instructive institution for the public.48 His coral-reef researches eventually led to the establishment of a marine-biological station at the Krusadai Island in the Gulf of Mannar. Under J. R. Henderson and Frederic Henry Gravely, the Madras Museum played a crucial role in the 1920s to found this institution, a discussion of which is, however, beyond the scope of this chapter. In her study on modern German biology, Lynn Nyhart introduces the term, ‘civic zoology’ to describe a kind of science best practised outside universities by men like Karl Möbius in the second half of the nineteenth century. They were involved with zoos, aquaria and other popular civic institutions but also made substantial scientific contributions of the empirical kind. In their world, the task of tackling taxonomic problems went hand in hand with concerns about biogeography and ecology. Civic zoology was also tied up with the production of useful knowledge for the benefit of the state as in the fields of agriculture and fisheries and to universities addressing ‘biological’ or ‘ecological’ questions.49 Thurston’s case reveals striking similarities with the notion of ‘civic zoology’ discussed in Nyhart’s study, but it also differs in certain respects. Thurston, unlike Möbius – who incidentally belonged to an earlier generation of biologists – was based at a public museum in a colonial/imperial setting throughout his career, and his practice involved not only a constant circulation between the realms of state, civic establishment and university but also an engagement with the world of metropolitan science. Also, the medically trained Thurston did not confine himself to zoology like Möbius but extended his interests to new fields of enquiry such as anthropology, which colonialism made possible.

From zoology to material culture: the road to ­anthropology (1890–94) By the end of the nineteenth century, ethnographic museums began to be founded in Europe and these provided the institutional base for the nascent discipline of anthropology. With the discipline’s emphasis on material culture, ethnologists began to enjoy a ‘new kind of intellectual authority’, something that had been acquired by virtue of their practical knowledge rather than a university degree. In addition, the [ 176 ]

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location of ethnology in public museums helped gain state support for the discipline, not only in the European context but also in colonial settings.50 Thurston’s pearl-fisheries report prepared for the government contained scientific, economic and ecological data, and also stray ethnological remarks; it described in detail the improvised village and its inhabitants at the pearl-fishery camps. The art gallery of the Madras Museum was filled with objects collected on what he called ‘ethnological tours’.51 Thurston’s approach to material culture and his turn to anthropology through zoology were strikingly similar to the route taken by his friend and exact contemporary, the Cambridge anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon (1855–1940). Both were evolutionists, but their museum-based scientific work was of a taxonomic nature rather than physiological, which was reminiscent of the earlier generation of zoologists. At the same time, both Thurston and Haddon used field and laboratory methods, which rightfully belonged to the ‘major tradition of late nineteenth century zoology in which careful observation and the sorting of basic “facts” into ordered systems took priority over the expression of grand theories’.52 Contemporaneous with Thurston’s expeditions to the Rameswaram Island and the Gulf of Mannar, Haddon undertook marine zoological expeditions to the southwest of Ireland and the coral reefs of the Torres Strait. And like Thurston, it was during his marine and coral research that Haddon had begun recording the ‘manners and customs’ of the islanders. Further, they also shared a similar approach to an object-oriented material culture, which was reflective of their natural science background and, very importantly, indicated the dominant place that museums occupied in the production of scientific knowledge in the late nineteenth century. Both showed great interest in ethnographic art such as tattoos, and their evolutionist understanding of biology was extended to ‘primitive’ or tribal art. Haddon believed that decorative art could be studied ‘much in the same way as a zoologist would study a group of its fauna’.53 In addition to the central importance of museums for academic teaching and research, Haddon, like Günther and Thurston, was adamant in championing the role of the museum in public education. Very typically, as the curator of a major public museum, Thurston was unable to devote himself exclusively to any one subject of interest. His priorities included rendering the museum instructive and its collections illustrative of the science syllabus taught at the university. He was also obliged to deal with economic queries from the government. That the museum was indeed used by those seeking ‘solid information’ was evident by the numbers visiting to study its natural history, economic and other collections. As a guide to the university students, [ 177 ]

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Thurston arranged the index collection in the botanical and economic sections as per American botanist Asa Gray’s highly popular botany textbook Structural Botany.54 During his brief tenure at Calcutta in 1892–93, Thurston found himself busy tackling several economic issues, including collecting data ‘on the subject of dried locusts as food for cage birds’ with the help of the entomologist Everard Charles Cotes of the Indian Museum (Calcutta) for the agricultural department. The nature of his movements was, in his own words, ‘so migratory in Calcutta’; he travelled extensively ‘from Simla to Madras’ in search of economic products.55 At the Coimbatore bazaar for instance, he was struck by the excellent quality of the fibre of the Agave americana being sold, a sample of which was sent to the Imperial Institute.56 He observed in a letter to Günther: ‘I have been busy “developing the economic resources of the country” and seeing a great deal which I should not have seen had I stuck to Madras’ but complained that the Imperial Institute had given him a lot of work, and it was too late to send anything in time for the opening ceremony.57

Madras Museum as a ‘bureau of anthropology’ (1894–1901) In 1894, ‘an entirely new departure was made’ at the Madras Museum.58 In London on furlough, Thurston enquired into the facilities available for the study of man and about the new scheme for the establishment of ‘a bureau of ethnology for the British Empire’. In London itself, there was a severe lack of centralisation with respect to its study. In fact, Thurston wondered ‘why the deserted galleries of the Imperial Institute could not be converted into a great National Museum of Ethno­logy’. Francis Galton’s anthropometric laboratory was located in the British Museum (Natural History) at South Kensington, and as for the British Museum in Bloomsbury, there was no systematic scheme for the expansion of the collection of ‘man as a social and intellectual being’. Skulls required for the study had to be consulted at the Royal College of Surgeons at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, while lectures and literature were only available at the Anthropological Institute in Hanover Square. During his visit, ‘those concerned in developing anthropological research in Britain’ had enquired into what was being done in the Madras Presidency by way of the study of man. It was this that had prompted Thurston to take upon himself the task of conducting ‘a detailed anthropological “survey” of the races, castes and tribes which inhabit Southern India’.59 From this time on, the Madras Census Report of 1891 prepared by the Census Commissioner would become an indispensable companion for Thurston. This first phase of anthro[ 178 ]

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pological research at the Madras Museum, initiated by Thurston and which lasted about seven years from 1894, deserves to be considered separately from the one undertaken as part of the government ethnographical survey from 1901, resulting in the multivolume production, Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Thurston began his researches by undertaking a long tour of the Nilgiris, Wynad and Calicut to investigate tribes by means of anthropometry and a study of their ‘manners and customs’. He warned, however, that the progress in this direction would be ‘slow and spasmodic’ as his duties necessitated residence at the headquarters in Madras for the greater part of the year.60 Very importantly, Thurston envisaged the Madras Museum as a centralised bureau of anthropology (an aspect he found wanting in London) and the Madras public as part and parcel of his anthropological project. With instruments borrowed from the Asiatic Society of Bengal (a set of Topinard instruments), he began to collect measurements from the city’s Brahmans, Pariahs, Pallis and the Kammalas, hoping to publish the results of his ‘survey’ periodically in the series of bulletins.61 Thurston also took photographs and collected ‘specimens of their jewellery, clothing, domestic utensils and musical instruments acquired for the ethnological section of the museum, which blended with the art section’.62 His first bulletin on the subject of anthropology aroused much interest in Europe. His Cambridge friend Alfred Haddon observed: Mr Edgar Thurston, the energetic Superintendent of the Madras Govern­ ment Museum has recently turned his attention from zoology to anthropology, and in his fourth Bulletin has published the first of what we may hope will be a series of investigations on the ethnography of the Madras Presidency. Thanks to the example set by Mr Risley, the reproach of lack of interest in the natives of India on the part of residents is now being removed, and we hope that Mr Thurston and others will continue this extremely important line of study.63

A member of the Indian Civil Service, Herbert Hope Risley (1851–1911), had published his Tribes and Castes of Bengal in 1891, containing two volumes of anthropometric measurements. As a civil servant, Risley saw anthropometry as a useful tool for state control. Thurston’s aim, on the other hand, was to crack the ‘South Indian anthropological puzzle’. For purposes of classification and correlation, he recorded measurements of the ‘stature, length and breadth of head, and height and breadth of nose’ and believed that the data could be used to ‘fit any community approximately into its proper place in the South Indian anthropological puzzle’.64 [ 179 ]

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Anthropologists in Britain were at this time, however, aiming to understand ‘all of the world’s peoples’ rather than just people in the territories of the British Empire. It was primarily a scientific enterprise, largely located outside universities, and it appealed to a wide range of social groups.65 The discipline was understood by men like Galton and Haddon as a natural science and data were to be collected using scientific methods.66 As mentioned above, Thurston’s social and intellectual network included members of the Cambridge Torres Strait Expedition, in particular Alfred Haddon, William Rivers and Charles Myers. He was also abreast of the proceedings of the Anthropological Institute and adhered to Haddon’s definition of anthropology in his lectures and publications. The Madras Museum anthropological laboratory was being gradually fitted up, and for this purpose he borrowed a series of skulls from the Madras Medical College. In addition, he planned to acquire ‘a set of meaningful appliances’ to make it up to date. That Thurston was not satisfied with merely recording linear measurements using the Topinard instruments is certain. In England in 1897, he visited his anthropologist friends at Cambridge before they set out on their landmark Torres Strait Expedition. He also purchased instruments from the Cambridge Scientific Instruments Company, which had been designed and improved by Galton over the years.67 Among them were devices for obtaining various types of measurement such as divisions of a line, colour perception, acuity of eyesight, keenness of hearing – including ability to detect difference in musical pitch and the highest audible note – reaction time, and weight. Also included were a spirometer and hand dynamometer.68 A set of similar instruments was carried to the Torres Strait islands by the members of the Cambridge Expedition in early 1898. Unlike Risley, Thurston approached anthropometry as a comparative anatomist and a museum curator.69 One might describe his approach as more Galtonian than Topinardian. One of Galton’s chief interests was heredity.70 It was Thurston’s interest in heredity that motivated him to study ‘mixed races’. Updating his friend Thiselton-Dyer of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Thurston wrote: ‘For the moment I am bunged up with miscellanea and measuring Eurasians – a miserable result of crossing’.71 Thurston was also keen to study individual constitutions and in this he was inspired by the social Darwinist speculations of the medical practitioner Charles Roberts.72 That the Cambridge instruments were a great success is evident from Thurston’s remark that the ‘men entered heartily into the spirit of anthropometric research, which they termed Museum Gymnastic Sports’. For a small fee, visitors to the museum lent themselves for the purpose of anthropometry, but when

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in the field among the ‘wilds’, Thurston recommended ‘tact, patience, 4 anna pieces, cheap cheroots, and as a final means, raw whiskey or brandy’.73 In 1898, using his newly purchased instruments, Thurston began a series of records of Europeans (in particular of forty-eight civil servants) visiting the museum and of ‘the educated Native community’, which be believed would be of interest if compared. The register of measurements, which included signatures of the individuals investigated, provide us with a spectrum of the educated society of the period, including women, who visited the museum. The cases included Madras residents or those visiting the museum from elsewhere, like the geologist Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and the Maharaja of Mysore. Thurston would have been particularly excited about obtaining measurements from Coomaraswamy, given his ‘Eurasian’ origins. That Thurston did not spare himself from being measured, is evident from the register. As per his analysis of the measurements, which he published in 1901, the ‘finest head among members of the Civil Service’ was that of a Judge of the High Court.74 By mid-1899, Thurston was proud to report to the government that he had investigated several classes which inhabited the city of Madras, that he had gone on regular tours to various parts of the Presidency, ‘with a view to study the more important tribes and classes’ and was also able to publish the results of his investigations in the museum bulletin.75 He had almost completed organising the anthropological laboratory. Printed instructions for measuring heads and skulls were prepared. The anthropomorphic series of skulls he had obtained on loan from the Medical College, where he delivered occasional lectures in comparative anatomy, were labelled to indicate the ‘essential measurements relative of brain to face in man and apes’. The skull and ear of a young orangutan, photographs of a chimpanzee and an articulated human skeleton were also exhibited. He had also added to the museum collection a great number of lantern slides of ‘Native tribes and classes’, which he hoped would become valuable for lectures and exhibitions. A few years later, he would present a lantern-slide lecture at the Anthropological Institute in London entitled ‘Illustration of native types from southern India’.76 As usual, however, Thurston was forced to devote time to other tasks as well. In the early 1890s, the government had instituted an inquiry into the decline of the cotton fabric industry. Later he was also asked to undertake similar inquiries into the silk and woollen industries, which brought him into contact with Ernest Havell of the Madras School of Art. The reports were filled with economic data

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culled from trade reports but also contained ethnographic observations on the traditional communities engaged in the industries, and of design patterns and other artistic details. In a letter to William Flower, he complained: ‘My steps must turn in a direction opposite to that of the Gulf of Manaar and my coral reef. … For the moment my work is distinctly mixed.’77 Only a couple of months later he announced to Francis Bell that he was away from headquarters ‘anthropologising among a suspicious and superstitious tribe of people, who don’t take kindly to my methods … must go off after breakfast and make notes of a Hindu festival on the top of a hill 5 miles off’.78 In between anthropological researches, Thurston had to move away again to undertake a fisheries investigation on behalf of the government. Inspired by zoologist Ray Lankester’s method for the study of fisheries, Thurston argued that ideally the economic investigation should involve ‘a detailed knowledge of the life history of those species of fishes which are valuable to man, and are the subject of fisheries … such knowledge may be termed the special biology of economic fishes’.79 Thurston remarked to Bell: ‘I am busy writing a note on the Fish curing industry of Malabar whither Govt. sent me recently, a very pleasant trip in “Applied Zoology” and Salt Revenue.’80 He also appeared as an examiner in connection with the medical examinations of the university.81 For the benefit of university students and interested members of the public, Thurston gave a course of practical demonstrations on anthropology and anthropometric methods at the museum theatre, which included a lantern-slide presentation. The demonstrations were chiefly aimed at supplementing the theory course prescribed for students reading for the Madras University degree in history, ‘which included ethnology in its historic bearing’. He deli­vered a lecture at the local college on the ‘Madras Government Museum as an aid to General and Technical Education’. He believed that the museum was also ‘taking its share in the provision of female education and enlightenment’.82

Thurston becomes ‘an authority on man (and woman) in South India’ From 1897, Kadambi Rangachari, would become Thurston’s ablest collaborator in anthropological researches, interpreting, photographing and recording songs on phonographs.83 About Rangachari, Thurston wrote to Thiselton Dyer: ‘I have a very good type of Native graduate as herbarium keeper, who is a hardworker, and beginning to understand the work. Moreover he doesn’t mind roughing it in camp.’84 A formal ethnographical survey of India was sanctioned in 1901 for collecting [ 182 ]

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physical measurements of selected castes and tribes using anthropo­ metry. In South India, Thurston was the obvious choice for the post of Superintendent of Ethnography. He believed that the survey operations blended beautifully with his own job of directing a ‘large local museum’, as he was able to combine the work of collecting for the ethnological section with that of investigation. Thurston remarked to Bell: ‘I’m busy over the Ethnographic Survey and really begin to be an authority on man (and woman) in South India. … My institution flourishes, and for brightness would give 50 in 100 to many of the English provincial Museums.’85 He would soon join his friend William Rivers, of the Cambridge Torres Strait Expedition, in Coimbatore and the Nilgiri Hills to study the Todas from a physiological point of view. In late 1904, Thurston was back in London visiting his Cambridge friends, and it was probably at the behest of Charles Myers that he began recording indigenous music on a phonograph.86 With his publication of the multivolume Castes and Tribes of Southern India in 1909, Thurston became the undisputed authority on South Indian anthropology, although he forewarned that it was impossible for him and his assistant ‘to do more than carry out permanent investigations over a small portion of the vast area’, as routine ‘work at the head-quarters unhappily’ kept him ‘a close prisoner in the office chair for nine months in the year’. He hoped, however, that it would provide ‘ample scope for research by many trained explorers’ like his friends Drs William Rivers and Louis Lapicque, who had studied ‘Man in Southern India from an anthropological and physiological point of view’. As a museum curator, he promised to provide such researchers with ‘every facility of carrying out their work under the most favourable conditions for research, if not climate’.87 In 1910, Bell received a note from Thurston: ‘Just read the first Indian notice of my Caste book. It says I deserve immortality!’88 He devoted the rest of his life to the study of the flora of Cornwall.

Conclusion The career of a colonial museum curator was necessarily multidimensional, straddling the realms of the public, the state and the university to fulfil economic, civic and scientific goals. Knowledge produced at the museum was shaped by the curator’s research interests, his links to metropolitan science, his ability to effect ‘translations’ across diverse social worlds and the demands of the state. In the late nineteenth century, Edgar Thurston transformed the Madras Museum into a centre of research and education, laying the foundation for the new disciplines of marine biology, ocean ecology and anthropology. [ 183 ]

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Notes

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The author would like to thank the staff of the Anthropology Department, Government Museum, Chennai.

 1 For exceptions, see the pioneering study by Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century (Kingston, ON, and Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988); Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, ‘International exchange in the natural history enterprise: Museums in Australia and the United States’, in Roderick Weir Home and Sally Gregory Kohlstedt (eds), International Science and National Scientific Identity (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), pp. 121–49; Maira Margaret Lopes and Irina Podgorny, ‘The shaping of Latin American museums of natural history, 1850–1900’, Osiris, 15 (2000), 108–18; Savithri Preetha Nair, ‘Science and the politics of colonial collecting: The case of Indian meteorites, 1856–1870’, British Journal for the History of Science, 39:1 (2006), 97–119.  2 Lynn K. Nyhart, ‘Civic and economic zoology in nineteenth-century Germany: The “living communities” of Karl Möbius’, Isis, 89 (1998), 605–30; see also Simon J. Knell, ‘Museums, fossils and the cultural revolution of science: Mapping change in the politics of knowledge in early nineteenth-century Britain’, in Simon J. Knell, Suzanne MacLeod and Sheila Watson (eds), Museum Revolutions: How Museums Change and Are Changed (Routledge, London, 2007), pp. 28–47, and S. J. Knell, The Culture of English Geology, 1815–1851: A Science Revealed Through its Collecting (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).  3 In its early years, the Bombay Museum (founded in the late 1850s) was funded chiefly through public subscription.  4 For an official history of the Madras Museum, see Madras Government Museum, Centenary Souvenir (1851–1951) (Madras: Government Museum, 1951).  5 Cited in Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science, p. 26.  6 British Library (BL), India Office Records (IOR), V/24/3044, Administration Report of the Madras Government Museum, 1896–97, Appendix E.  7 Natural History Museum, Official Archives (NHM), DF Zoo/200/31/403, Edgar Thurston to Albert Günther, 27 April 1887.  8 NHM, DF200/36, letter no. 423, Thurston to Günther, 12 May 1889.  9 NHM, DF200/38, letter no. 413, Thurston to Günther, 8 July 1890. 10 NHM, DF250/05, fo 106, Edgar Thurston to F. J. Bell, 25 June 1905. 11 For a sample see Crispin Bates, ‘Race, caste and tribe in central India: The early origins of Indian anthropometry’, in Peter Robb (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 219–59; Nicholas Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 183–92; Kayita Philip, Civilizing Nature: Race, Resources and Modernity in Colonial South India (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2003), pp. 148–51; Simon Schaffer, ‘Astrology, anthropology and other imperial pursuits’, in Jeanette Edwards, Penelope Harvey and Peter Wade (eds), Anthropology and Science: Epistemologies in Practice (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2008), pp. 19–38. 12 See Michel Callon, ‘Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay’, in John Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986); Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987); John Law, ‘Technology and heterogeneous engineering: The case of Portuguese expansion’, in Wieber E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Trevor J. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technologi­ cal Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987). At least one study has employed this framework to analyse the making of a natural history research museum. See Susan L. Star and James R. Griesemer, ‘Institutional ecology, “translations” and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39’, Social Studies of Science, 19 (1989), 387–420.

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13 ‘Prizes in medical schools’, The British Medical Journal, 2:822 (30 September 1876), p. 441. 14 Archives of the King’s College London (KCL), KA/1C/T61. 15 Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Superintendent’s Annual Report for the Barming Asylum, 1877. 16 KCL, KA/1C/T70. 17 A. E. Günther, A Century of Zoology at the British Museum Through the Lives of Two Keepers, 1815–1914 (London: Dawson & Son Ltd, 1975), pp. 459–65. 18 Although Grant Duff left Madras within a year of Thurston’s arrival, the two enjoyed a close relationship. 19 Edgar Thurston, ‘Badagas and Irulas of the Nilgiris’, in Anthropology, Madras Government Museum Bulletin, 2:1 (1897), p. 10. 20 Edgar Thurston, ‘Note on a Madras micrococcus’, Nature, 37:79 (24 November 1887), 79. 21 See for instance George Thin, ‘On the bacillus of leprosy’, p. 324, www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121456/pdf (accessed 1 October 2010). 22 Edgar Thurston, Catalogue of the Batrachia, Salientia and Apoda of Southern India, 1888, Introduction. See also, NHM, DF200/33, Thurston to Günther, letter no. 359, 17 January 1888. 23 Günther, A Century of Zoology, p. 385. 24 Tamilnadu State Archives, Chennai (TNSA), Public Department, 31 December 1885/3005/Mis. 25 Madras Mail, 18 January 1886. 26 Edgar Thurston, Preliminary Report on the Marine Fauna of Rameswaram and the Neighbouring Islands (Madras: Government Press, 1887). 27 Robert Bruce Foote, ‘Notes on Rameswaram Island, I’, Madras Christian College Magazine, 6:11 (May 1889), 828–40 and Robert Bruce Foote, ‘Notes on Rameswaram Island, II’, Madras Christian College Magazine, 6:11 (July 1889), 43–56. 28 Edgar Thurston, Notes on the Pearl and Chank Fisheries and Marine Fauna of the Gulf of Manaar (Madras: Government Press, 1890), pp. 45–62. 29 The results of this work took the form: History of the Coinage of the Territories of the East India Company in the Indian Peninsula and Catalogue of the Coins in the Madras Museum (Madras: Government Press, 1890). 30 TNSA, Education Department, 11 March 1887/125 and 13 August 1887/4191. 31 For Möbius, the dwindling North Sea oyster beds ‘provided the material foundation for his ecological community model’. See Nyhart, ‘Civic and economic zoology’, pp. 2, 14. 32 Thurston, Notes on the Pearl and Chank Fisheries, p. 16. 33 William Abbott Herdman, Report to the Government of Ceylon on the Pearl Oyster Fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar (London: Royal Society, 1904), part II, p. 78. 34 Thurston, Notes on the Pearl and Chank Fisheries, pp. 20–2. 35 Charles Robert Darwin, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the First Part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle Under the Command of Capt. Fitzroy During the Years 1832 to 1836 (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1842), pp. 71–9. 36 Thurston was only able to complete the index collection in 1894. See his Adminis­ tration Report of the Government Central Museum, 1893–94 (Madras: Government Press, 1894). 37 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Government Museum, Madras, 1893–94. 38 NHM, DF200/36, letter no. 423, Thurston to Günther, 12 May 1889. 39 Ibid., p. 29; See also KCL, K/P66, Edgar Thurston to Arthur Dendy, 11 October 1887, enclosing a list of sponges despatched from the neighbourhood of the Tuticorin pearl banks in the Gulf of Mannar ‘for the most part from 6–9 fathoms’. 40 Dendy obtained a DSc for his marine biological researches done at Melbourne and became a Professor of Biology at King’s College and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Among his books is Outlines of Evolutionary Biology (London: Constable & Company, 1912).

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41 Specimens were also sent to the zoological laboratory of University College London and these were analysed by a microscopist, Florence Buchanan, working under the evolutionary biologist Ray Lankester. See Florence Buchanan, ‘Peculiarities in the segmentation of certain polychaetes’, Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 34, 529–44, p. 531. 42 KCL, K/PP6, Thurston to Dendy, 24 August 1888; Dendy published a note several years later on some of the specimens sent by Thurston from the Gulf of Mannar in the Journal of the Linnaean Society, 1898. 43 NHM, DF 250/89, fo 10, Thurston to Bell, 28 September 1889. 44 Amyrald Haly, ‘Preservation of delicately colored specimens’, Popular Science Monthly (April 1892), 854. 45 NHM, DF Zoo/200/37/466, 6 April 1890. 46 NHM, DF Zoo/200/38/413, 8 July 1890. 47 Edgar Thurston, Rameswaram Island and Fauna of the Gulf of Manaar (second edn, revised with additions), Madras Museum Bulletin, 3 (1895), p. 87. 48 TNSA, Educational Department, GO, no. 66, 6 February 1906. 49 Nyhart, ‘Civic and economic zoology’, pp. 628–9. 50 H. Glenn Penny, ‘The civic uses of science: Ethnology and civil society in Imperial Germany’, Osiris (2002), 228–52, p. 228. 51 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Government Central Museum, Madras, 1890–91. 52 My understanding of A. C. Haddon’s anthropological turn is based on an excellent essay by John Urry. See his Before Social Anthropology: Essays on the History of British Anthropology (Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1993), pp. 61–82. 53 A. Herle, ‘The life-histories of objects: Collections of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait’, in Anita Herle and Sandra Rouse (eds), Cambridge and the Torres Strait: Centenary Essays in the 1898 Anthropological Expedition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 77–105, p. 77. 54 Asa Gray, The Botanical Text-book. Part I. Structural Botany Or, Organography on the Basis of Morphology, 6th edn (s.l.: Macmillan, 1879). 55 NHM, DF Zoo/200/42/407, 28 June 1892. 56 BL, IOR, V/25/500/273, no. 30, pp. 295–6, ‘Note on the extraction of Agave ameri­ cana fibre at Coimbatore’, 1894, Department of Land Records and Agriculture, Madras Agricultural Branch Bulletin, no. 30. 57 NHM, DF Zoo 200/43/442, Thurston to Günther, 17 April 1893. The Imperial Institute was established in 1887 as the result of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. 58 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Government Museum, Madras, 1898–99, Appendix F, ‘Anthropology in Madras’. 59 Ibid. 60 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Government Museum, Madras, 1894–95. 61 Edgar Thurston, ‘The Todas and Kotas of the Nilgiri Hills and of the Brahmans, Kammalans, Pallis and Pariahs of Madras City’, Anthropology, Madras Government Museum Bulletin, 1:4 (1896), 20–206. 62 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Government Museum, Madras, 1894–95. 63 Alfred Cort Haddon, ‘Contributions to the anthropology of British India’, Nature, 54 (27 August 1896), 404–5. 64 Edgar Thurston, ‘Summary of results’, Anthropology, Madras Government Museum Bulletin, 2:1 (1897), p. 44. 65 Henrika Kuklick, The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 5–6. 66 John Urry, ‘Notes and queries in anthropology and the development of field methods in British anthropology, 1870–1900’, Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1972, pp. 45–57; for a history of the Anthropometric Committee founded in 1875 by several members of the British Association,

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see Simon Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and for a history of anthropometry in India, see Bates, ‘Race, caste and tribe in central India’. 67 The first anthropometric laboratory to be set up in England was Galton’s psychological laboratory established in 1884, where he measured the differences in physical energy, sensory discrimination and reaction time between individuals. 68 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Madras Government Museum, 1897–98. 69 By not considering the intellectual history of anthropology, and by not bothering to examine the nature of scientific activity undertaken by Thurston at the museum and on the field, Bates highhandedly dismisses his anthropological researches as one of the ‘most ludicrous’ and reduces the work of a colonial museum curator to a prejudicial ‘labelling and pinning butterflies, and of collecting and categorising the varieties of plants’. See Bates, ‘Race, caste and tribe in central India’, pp. 245–6. 70 Angelo Albrizio, ‘Biometry and anthropometry: From Galton to constitutional medicine’, Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 85 (2007), 101–23. 71 Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew Archive, Madras-Botanical Department, 1859–98, fo 110, Thurston to Thiselton Dyer, 24 February 1898. 72 Roberts was one of the five doctors appointed to take anthropometric surveys of factory children for the Parliamentary Commission of 1872. See Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender, p. 132. 73 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Madras Government Museum, 1897–98. 74 Edgar Thurston, ‘Todas of the Nilgiris’, Anthropology, Madras Government Museum Bulletin, 4:1 (1901), p. 4. 75 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Madras Government Museum, 1898–99, Appendix F, ‘Anthropology in Madras’. 76 ‘Proceedings of the Anthropological Institute’, Man, 5 (1905), 32. 77 NHM, DF Zoo/250/98/19, Thurston to Flower, 12 February 1898. 78 NHM, DF Zoo/250/98/28, Thurston to Bell, 5 May 1898. 79 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Madras Government Museum, 1898–99, Appendix G, ‘Fishery investigation’. 80 NHM, DF Zoo/250/00/39, Thurston to Bell, 3 April 1900. 81 TNSA, Education Department, 16 February 1901, no. 83 (Mis). 82 BL, IOR, V/24/3044, Administration report of the Madras Government Museum, 1895–96, pp. 14–17. 83 Ibid., p. 4. 84 RBG, Kew Archive, Madras-Botanical Department, 1859–98, fo 193, Thurston to Thiselton Dyer, 24 February 1898. 85 NHM, DF 250/01, fo 60, Thurston to Bell, 26 May 1901. 86 The Madras Museum ethnographic cylinders are held at the National Sound Archives, located at the British Library. Also see M. Clayton, ‘Ethnographic wax cylinders at the British Library National Sound Archives: A brief history and description of the collection’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 5 (1996), 67–92. 87 Edgar Thurston, Castes and Tibes of Southern India, 7 vols (Madras: Government Press, 1909), vol. 1, p. xiv. 88 NHM, DF Zoo/250/10/9, Thurston to Bell, 25 January 1910.

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Chapter nine

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Sir William Gregory and the origins and foundation of the Colombo Museum Philip McEvansoneya

When he arrived in Colombo in 1872 as the new governor of Ceylon, one of the first things to confront William Gregory was the plan to establish a public museum in the colony. Indeed, it may already have been on his mind; since the 1850s such a plan had been advanced more than once, principally by colonists but with some support from burgher and native interests.1 Gregory was a museum-minded man who, over the preceding twenty years, had visited the major European institutions and taken an increasingly close interest in the principal collections in London: the British Museum and the National Gallery.2 Gregory was a great believer in the social and educational power of museums, and his comments in the early days of his governorship show his conviction that this power could be harnessed to economic considerations for the benefit of the colony. The combination of pre-existing local demand and gubernatorial enthusiasm was to prove highly successful; the Colombo Museum, subsequently the National Museum of Sri Lanka, designed in and funded by the colony, was built and opened by the end of his tenure in office in 1877.3 This was achieved in spite of the opposition of Gregory’s superiors in Whitehall who objected to his impetuous tendency to side-step the role of the Colonial Office and to make decisions without following normal procedures. In political and museum circles in London there was a view that Ceylon should contribute instead to a general colonial museum within the South Kensington complex. It was even suspected that Gregory’s museum plan was premeditated; nevertheless, the Colonial Office minister, the Earl of Kimberley, indulged what he called Gregory’s ‘hobby’.4 In guiding the project to fruition Gregory drew on the knowledge he had acquired through travel and close contact with museum curators; the experience he gained in Ceylon was useful to him when he returned [ 188 ]

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9.1  The original building of the Colombo Museum, now the central block of the National Museum of Sri Lanka, Colombo, with Joseph Boehm’s statue of Sir William Gregory in the foreground.

to Europe. His ambitions for the museum were heavily influenced by prevailing European concepts and practices, some of which he would have been most familiar with in their Irish manifestations. Gregory brought to his role in Ceylon the power of what might be termed the cultural arbiter – that is, someone who used public office and private influence to shape the conduct of a national institution, establishing and moulding policy, demonstrating the capacity to initiate, decide and realise. It was Gregory’s policy that the museum should be built; he was central to the conception of its remit and methods; while the museum was in gestation he mediated between the expert curatorial advice he sought from Europe and the input of the able amateurs he found in Colombo; his tenure in office was long enough to be present at the birth of the institution.

William Gregory: politics and culture Nowadays, Sir William Gregory (1817–92), of Coole Park, Co. Galway, is much less well known than Lady Gregory (1852–1932), his second wife Augusta Persse, one of the most notable figures in the Irish literary scene of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, Sir William (he gained his title during the visit of the Prince of Wales to Ceylon in 1875) was an important politician and an influential figure, albeit usually behind the scenes, in British and Irish cultural life. Gregory grew up in high political circles so it is not surprising [ 189 ]

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that he entered politics in 1842, sitting at Westminster as a Conservative member for Dublin until 1847 and as a progressively more Liberal member for Co. Galway from 1857 to 1871. He remained a staunch unionist throughout his life. Soon after his defeat at the ballot he was appointed governor of Ceylon, which position he held from March 1872 until September 1877. Although he did not thereafter return to the front line of public service, Gregory remained active in the cultural sphere until his death. In the ten years between his two spells in the Commons, Gregory travelled widely in Europe, north Africa and Egypt, and the United States. There is little evidence that Gregory showed much concern for cultural life before the 1850s, but the travels he then undertook allowed him to develop a wide political awareness and broad cultural interests. Gregory studied long in the principal museums and art galleries of continental Europe as well as in British ones, which experience was fundamental to his later contributions to British, Irish and Ceylonese museums. By the time of his re-election in 1857, Gregory’s outlook had been transformed – it is as if he had decided to make himself useful. As a result, during his second period in Parliament, Gregory’s interests blossomed and he developed what was to become a sustained involvement in the national cultural institutions. His friends included Frederic Burton, the Irish artist and Director of the National Gallery in London from 1874; Austen Henry Layard, the excavator of Nineveh, a Member of Parliament and junior minister who coincidentally had important family links with Ceylon; and the collector, connoisseur and writer, John Charles Robinson, who was highly important in the development of the collections at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in the 1860s.5 Gregory exploited his political status and insinuated himself into various influential positions. This culminated in 1867 when, through the intervention of Benjamin Disraeli, the Chancellor the Exchequer, Gregory secured nomination as a trustee of the National Gallery in London, which role he very much enjoyed for the rest of his life. During Gregory’s second spell in Parliament he was integral to official enquiries into the future of the British Museum (1860) and the scientific institutions of Dublin (1864). The latter he sought to defend from interference from London, and he also argued for more generous treatment of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) which was de facto the official repository of Irish historical material of national significance until the establishment in 1890 of the Museum of Science and Art. With his museum-building experience from Ceylon, Gregory later served on the committee which oversaw the design of that museum, [ 190 ]

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in Kildare Street, Dublin, which was renamed the National Museum of Ireland in 1908. Gregory was closely aware of the practical difficulties of museum design and display. He held strong views on museum acquisitions and their display to the general public. Moreover he was, on occasion, prepared to put his money where his mouth was in pursuit of his ideals. In 1884 Gregory was one of a number of connoisseurs and men of influence known as ‘The Syndicate’. He was one of the group’s three managers, who contributed to a fund which bought especially important items from the sale of the notable collection of majolica in the Fountaine collection at Narford Hall in Norfolk. The Syndicate offered them, at cost, to the government for the national collections. As soon as he learnt that the shrine of St Lachtin’s arm, an important Irish relic, was to be sold from the same collection, Gregory joined with the Irish peer Lord Powerscourt in mounting a successful campaign for it to be purchased with public money for deposit in an Irish institution. In 1867–68 with equal success he had canvassed the government on behalf of the RIA to purchase the ‘Tara’ brooch, one of the most significant of all Irish antiquities.6 In Ceylon, Gregory revived his interest in natural history, especially Lepidoptera. He personally sponsored the production of watercolours of the island’s 350 species of butterfly, which were later used to illustrate Frederic Moore’s three-volume Lepidoptera of Ceylon (London, 1880–87), and donated ornithological specimens to the Colombo Museum.7 Gregory, though, was always a believer in the expenditure of public money for the public encouragement of the arts and sciences whether in Britain, Ireland or Ceylon.

To Ceylon Tiring of Parliament by about 1869, Gregory went in pursuit of a colonial appointment, and the governorship of Ceylon caught his eye. His appointment satisfied his desire for imperial service, but Gregory was also attracted by the chance to exercise power and it has to be said that he did not disguise the appeal that the £7,000 salary held for him, a consequence of a long indulgence in the turf.8 His nomination may have been part of the ebb and flow of public and colonial office, positions decided through political patronage which was exercised to induce, reward or console, but his qualifications for the post were acknow­ ledged. The cadre of governors and top administrators was usually filled by those who, like his immediate predecessor, Sir Hercules Robinson, had risen through the ranks of the civil and diplomatic services. But sometimes appointments were given to those who, like Gregory and his friend Layard who held a series of ambassadorial posts in the 1870s and 1880s, possessed political skill and administrative [ 191 ]

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experience which made them fit to be parachuted in as governors or ambassadors. Although he was briefed by Robinson, Lord Torrington (governor from 1847 to 1850) and others, Gregory received no specific training or formal preparation for his new role. However, his sense of imperial duty, great strength of character and resilience, clarity of vision, determination in execution, patience and man-management skills were all useful. As has been shown in relation to Robinson, nowhere could these abilities and characteristics be better learnt than in Ireland, although Gregory must have acquired his willingness to consult the local population elsewhere.9 Gregory could also draw on his inheritance, coming as he did from a family with a history of service in India in the eighteenth century, which had laid the foundations of the family fortune. He would certainly have had some familiarity with the history of the subcontinent, not least through the books in the library at Coole which allowed him to research and prepare for his role. Until the collections there were finally broken up in the 1930s, Coole is said to have held a collection of Indian art and Gregory is reported to have planned a collection of Ceylonese material there, but this has proved to be unverifiable.10 Ceylon, Gregory may have thought, was big enough but not too big. It posed numerous, varied and substantial challenges to a new governor, but since the rebellion of 1848 it had been stable with a growing economy, although potentially problematic religious and social sensitivities were always near the surface. Ceylon was an important staging-post for travellers and governors alike, the former en route to and from Australia and the Far East, and the latter as they (usually) ascended in the diplomatic hierarchy. Gregory was preceded there by many Irishmen. For example, Robinson, later Lord Rosmead of Rosmead, Co. Westmeath, was governor in 1865–72. On a lower rung was Henry Charles Sirr (1807–72), the Queen’s advocate for the southern circuit of Ceylon; Sirr was a son of the notorious Dublin police commander, Major Henry Sirr, and the author of Ceylon and the Cin­ galese.11 Perhaps Gregory’s most significant Irish predecessor was Sir James Emerson Tennent of Tempo Manor, Co. Fermanagh, who from 1845 to 1850 was civil secretary to the colonial government, between periods as a Member of Parliament. One of Tennent’s books on the country, Ceylon: An Account of the Island, was highly successful and contains a great deal of wide-ranging and carefully researched information. The Tennent collection of Ceylonese works of art and related material survived intact at Tempo Manor until 2006.12 During Robinson’s governorship, important steps were taken towards the preservation of the island’s cultural heritage. He set up [ 192 ]

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the Archaeological Committee in 1868 to locate and record by photo­ graphy the numerous surviving inscribed stones, and the following year set in progress the preparation of a descriptive catalogue of the Pali, Sinhalese and Sanskrit manuscripts in the pansalas (Buddhist monasteries) and elsewhere. It was also planned to establish a public library of works in those languages.13 Robinson laid valuable foundations on which Gregory built. Both governors were influenced by the broader tripartite phenomenon of research, collection and interpretation which was then in vogue in Europe and so recruited European experts to conduct fieldwork on the topics that inspired their personal enthusiasm. Robinson was also inspired by the increasing attention brought to researches in India by the establishment of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1861.

Some false starts and a new plan By the time of Gregory’s arrival in Colombo, where he was sworn in on 4 March 1872, momentum had been acquired by the long-standing plan to establish a public museum. The earliest suggestions came from within the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (CBRAS). Its museum eventually became the nucleus of the Colombo Museum, but it was not the earliest museum in the colony. Collecting ‘in illustration of the productions of the colony’ and for scientific study was first carried out by army medical officers, one of whom, John Davy (a brother of Sir Humphry), led the way during his service in 1816–20.14 Those collections, which included material obtained by exchange from India, became known as the Military Medical Museum (MMM). The MMM’s collection of natural history, mineral and human anatomy specimens was described in 1849 as being ‘well worthy of a visit’.15 In the 1820s Charles Edward Layard was one of several Europeans who had personal museums. His was said to have contained material from an excavated dagoba as well as Chinese, Japanese, Siamese and Pali books, maps, coins, images of Buddha and the Hindu deities.16 The Ceylon Literary Society, later the Ceylon Literary and Agricultural Society, had as one of its founding principles the establishment of a museum relevant to its intended multiple activities in geography, geology, mineralogy, botany and agriculture, zoology, history, customs, languages and antiquities. The Society was set up in 1820 with the support of the acting governor, Sir Edward Barnes, as a forum for the presentation of research of all types. It thrived into the 1830s but was defunct probably by 1845 and certainly by 1849; the extent and fate of any holdings it amassed are not known.17 It was succeeded by CBRAS which, within a few years of its establishment in 1845, was accumulating both a collection and [ 193 ]

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a library. As early as 1852 a plan for a separate ‘museum fund’ within the society’s accounts was proposed and the desirability of a specialised museum of ‘all the zoological productions of the island’, to match those in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, was put forward by Edward Frederick Kelaart, an army medical officer and pathfinding naturalist. He admitted the limitations of the CBRAS museum as it then stood, noting that visiting German naturalists would have to make do with ‘specimens of animated nature’ in the field rather than ‘Cabinets of preserved specimens’ in the museum.18 As the society’s holdings grew, the necessity of having a volunteer curator was accepted and the help of the government of the island in finding proper accommodation was sought. The society threw its collection open to the general public during the Christmas period in 1853 in the hope of encouraging interest in the natural history of the island and its own activities.19 Nevertheless, the society then fell into one of its periodic doldrums and little happened until 1858 when the then governor, Sir Henry Ward, supported by the colonial secretary, Sir Charles MacCarthy, granted £200 towards the costs of the library and museum and allocated two rooms in government buildings to accommodate the collections. This, and the other help given by Ward, for example by allowing official channels to be used to supply donations to the collection, was no doubt stimulated by the economic potential of ‘natural products’ such as gums, dyes, resins and tanning substances in the collections and the interest they held for scientists, traders and manufacturers. Ward’s support was sufficient for the society to make a claim to status and declare itself ‘a colonial institution’.20 In 1862 the society took over and eventually amalgamated the miscellaneous collections of the MMM with its own. It seems that a lot of the material in the MMM was in poor condition (as were, increasingly, the rooms allocated to the society) or was surplus to requirements. Any such items were eventually de-accessioned, although mounts and armatures were reused as new collections were started.21 Things seemed to be looking up when in 1863 MacCarthy allocated a sum of £513 to build additional space for the museum, but the money was never granted, it becoming his policy that nothing should be spent ‘that did not seem to be directly reproductive’, despite the growing surplus in the public funds of Ceylon at that time. This was a great disappointment to the society, which had almost exhausted its own funds by spending £500 on buying the cases and stands from the MMM in anti­ cipation of the financial contribution from the government. Reading between the lines of the society’s Proceedings, it seems that taking over the MMM turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.22 The society then fell into another period of stagnation from which [ 194 ]

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it emerged around 1870. This was largely due to the involvement of Colonel Amelius Fyers, who was appointed surveyor-general of Ceylon in 1866 and served as president of the society from 1870 to 1873, and Lieutenant W. Vincent Legge, who took over as honorary curator. Although both were to be of high importance in the development of the society and its holdings and museum, Fyers’s longer presence on the island and more influential position meant his contribution was the greater, not only in running the society but also in the conduct of the archaeological work already initiated by his department and later pursued by his son-in-law, Harry Charles Purvis Bell.23 Thanks to Legge, the museum was progressively reorganised and reclassified with great success.24 But no matter how assiduous Legge might have been during his posting, there was a growing realisation that the society’s objects could best be served if its holdings were put on to a proper scientific basis in suitable premises under the care of a qualified and resident curator. The society unsuccessfully petitioned the Governor for the provision of an extension to the society’s rooms and for the payment of permanent staff, hoping to support its case by drawing attention to the expanding interest of ‘Oriental scholars in the western world’ who were ‘investigating the languages, the literature, the religions and the antiquities of India in general, and Ceylon in particular’.25 Although it is not explicitly stated, it seems to have been from about this time that attention was increasingly devoted to indigenous flora, fauna, natural products and archaeology, to the exclusion of other material.26 The society’s museum was thus reconceived; no longer was it to be a collection of whatever had been given, but rather to be a study resource, centred on the island, of value for commercial and scientific purposes and supported by carefully selected written materials in the library. CBRAS had developed a remit and a purpose for its museum which were endorsed without change by Gregory.27 By the time of Gregory’s arrival it was generally accepted that Ceylon would benefit culturally and economically from a public museum and scientific library. As Gregory put it, ‘the want of a Museum, in which may be represented the natural history, antiquities, and industrial products of the Island, has been forcibly urged on me by persons of all classes’; the legislative council agreed that it was a ‘long-felt want’.28 It was also accepted that the CBRAS museum’s holdings would be its nucleus, and that the collections would most usefully be expanded and their potential fully achieved under the leadership of a scientifically trained and properly remunerated curator.29 Thus, Fyers was pleased to state, the society would be freed from responsibilities which it no longer wanted and allowed instead to concentrate on its real interests, research and publication.30 [ 195 ]

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Gregory and the Colombo Museum Gregory’s commitment to build a museum was given in his first official address to the legislative council of the island, a kind of colonial parliament, on 25 September 1872. No doubt some informal discussion with the CBRAS took place beforehand, and the announcement was sealed when the society sent a delegation to ask Gregory to become patron of the society as previous governors had done. Thus he gave the society his imprimatur while pulling the administrative strings.31 Motivated by his personal interests in museums, antiquities and natural history, Gregory refined the vague earlier plans into a viable new one. He emphasised the modesty of the enterprise, which he costed at no more than 80,000 rupees, far less than the 1,120,000 rupees which had by then been spent on the museum in Calcutta. The sum initially conceived was indeed quite modest, being about £8,000, which might be compared with the £7,000 allocated at the about same time for a new prison at Kandy.32 Gregory envisaged a rational collection underpinned by educational, historical and utilitarian motives, as he told the legislative council: For a comparatively small sum, considering the object in view, a museum may be constructed which shall not be a mere random collection of miscellaneous objects, but a scientific, teaching exhibition, which, while ministering to the amusement of many, may convey instruction to all who seek it.33

For Gregory, audience maximisation would come from an appeal to two audiences: those seeking instruction and those looking for entertainment. Gregory’s fullest comments on this came not in an address to the legislative council but in a speech to the CBRAS. He argued that museums could impart instruction in the most popular and agreeable form in which all classes and races might join, but he also distinguished the different types of participation by ‘gentlemen’ and ‘natives’, thinking that the latter would follow the good example of the former.34 In an expansion of Robinson’s support of archaeological work, Gregory outlined his intention to assemble, if only in facsimile, a body of otherwise dispersed knowledge: I propose, in connection with this Museum, to obtain reproductions of the inscriptions through the Island, by means of photography, casts and hand-copying. These inscriptions, varying in character and dialect, will be of deep interest to the philologist, and throw light on the ancient usages, religious customs and early history of Ceylon.35

From his involvement since 1868 in the Arundel Society, which sought to make and publish meticulous copies of endangered Italian frescoes, [ 196 ]

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Gregory knew the value of copies as a study medium and insurance against the loss of the originals. In 1875 he reiterated that it was ‘highly expedient to make an effort to preserve the ancient records of Ceylon’, pointing out the duty he felt to increasing numbers of students of oriental history and philology and to ‘natives’ by having copies made of vulnerable ancient books and manuscripts in temple lib­raries.36 He had earlier noted that as those records were vital evidence of Ceylonese history, preserving them was an essential step so that scholars could ‘utilize [the] monuments of the past’ – that is, make advances in knowledge. The museum and its allied library therefore were to be a stimulus to study.37 Enabling legislation to build the museum was promulgated in August 1873 and swiftly passed through the necessary procedures, receiving the Governor’s approval on 17 September 1873.38 The museum opened officially in January 1877, having been designed by James Smither, the government architect, and built in the Cinnamon Gardens, an as yet little-developed area to the east of the historic core of Colombo. The museum contained as promised a wide range of specimens illustrating ‘the natural history, antiquities, and industrial products of the island’. In imposing this precise remit, to which he allowed a few exceptions, Gregory said he had the concurrence of ‘some of the most scientific men in England’, unfortunately unidentified, who were well versed in museum management. This was a complete departure from the common practice; collection-building by exchange had been undertaken by the former MMM and was being pursued by the botanic garden at Peradiniya through the imperial network of Royal Botanic Gardens.39 Gregory envisaged that the prevalent European mode of display, the series, arranged to show consistency and variation, would be employed with objects grouped in wall and island cases. In the original sequence, antiquities, inscriptions, sculpture, coins and ethno­ graphy were located on the ground floor, with natural history on the first floor. Gregory also advocated that the educational value of the collections should be maximised through the use of lectures and, that where relevant, the actual, or potential, economic uses of the objects exhibited should be emphasised. Gregory was responding to a pre-existing local demand, but he was also exercising the leadership role of the cultural arbiter, something that he craved and that colonial power afforded him. In London, the National Gallery and the British Museum were hedged around with the checks and balances of procedure and government policy. In Ceylon, Gregory adjudicated the checks and balances and set the policy; he could enact his personal interests, which matched the existing, imperial conventions of social and educational usefulness, and [ 197 ]

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influence the fundamental decisions about the remit and display of the museum. As Tennent wrote, the powers of the governor constituted a ‘paternal despotism’ which would have been attractive to Gregory if only because it allowed him to get things done. According to Sir Monier Monier-­Williams, the founder of the Indian Institute at Oxford, Gregory actively ‘organised’ the museum with ‘great wisdom, judgement, and scientific ability’, which makes him sound very hands-on.40 Gregory may have felt that by status and experience he was entitled to

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9.2  Galleries and exhibits in the Colombo Museum, c.1907. facing page: Top, left to right: the reading room, the mineral gallery, the medieval ­gallery; bottom left, the stone gallery with the Polonnaruwa lion in a prominent ­position; bottom right, the natural history gallery. this page: Left to right: a case of objects in ivory in the medieval gallery; the workroom used by the museum taxidermist and his assistants; a case of Kandyan swords and daggers in the gallery room.

set the museum agenda – as governor he was in any case responsible for the success or failure of the project. While in Ceylon Gregory did not forget Ireland. Writing from Kandy to the editor of the Galway Vindicator very soon after his arrival, Gregory advocated the establishment of a society for the preservation of ancient monuments within the county, to be called the Archae­ ological Society of Galway (the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society was not founded until 1900). Gregory also mentioned some

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of the ­monuments, such as the round tower at Kilmacduagh, which he thought to be on the verge of collapse and added that ‘were I at home, most gladly would I take the preliminary business on my own shoulders’.41 Gregory would have known that one of the numerous myths surrounding the origins of Irish round towers was that they were relics of a phallus-worshipping cult supposedly brought to Ireland by Buddhist migrants.42 The preservation and restoration of all types of ancient monuments in Ceylon soon became a matter of great concern to Gregory. Jungle clearance at overgrown sites was increased, and endangered or dilapidated buildings secured by the public works department. The survey department made precise studies of ancient monuments to establish their present condition and original layout and extent. In the 1870s particular efforts were expended at Anuradhapura, a complex of great historic and artistic significance which, in its heyday before the tenth century, had been one of the greatest cities of the age.

Gregory and the preservation of Ceylon’s archaeological heritage Gregory continued and expanded the work of the Archaeological Commission on inscriptions which were of interest for the historical evidence they contained and for their linguistic form. The German philologist Paul Goldschmidt was recruited to pursue this work. He was succeeded in 1878 by Edward Müller in a manifestation of the internationalism of colonial scholarship noted by John MacKenzie.43 Facilitating advances in epigraphy were amongst Gregory’s most notable achievements in Ceylon, the outcome of the direct interest he took in the recording, preservation, interpretation and publication of inscriptions. He underlined his personal interest by announcing that the ‘Corpus Inscriptionum Zeilanicarum’ he expected would result from the work begun by Goldschmidt would be ‘edited by us’, presu­mably meaning either himself and Goldschmidt, or ‘we’ the governor.44 By the time Müller’s research was published in 1883, some of the inscriptions only recently recorded had already been obliterated.45 One outcome of the museum’s role in archaeology was the physical relocation of artefacts into the museum for their better preservation and closer study. Gregory presented this cautiously: I shall also endeavour to remove to the Museum such objects as illustrate the early art of this country, taking due precaution neither to offend religious feelings, nor, by improperly detaching a portion of it, to destroy the completeness of an ancient structure which we may hope to preserve.46

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Gregory argued the case when the great stone lion of Polonnaruwa was brought into the museum: ‘No one would wish to remove monuments of antiquity from their original site, if it be possible to retain them there in safety; and it is a question between their preservation and safety.’ In support, he cited the case of another stone lion, at Padavilkulam, which had been destroyed by treasure hunters since the late 1850s.47 His argument for intervention, inspired by recent or personal experience of loss or damage to buildings or artefacts, was a leitmotif among nineteenth-century archaeologists. Each relocation served to advance the professionalisation of archaeology and museums by bringing a growing body of material under the direct control of archaeologists and curators.48 Gregory would certainly have been aware of this motive, but he promoted the policy with sensitivity, to prevent, or at least curtail, the loss of vulnerable and unprotected material but not to arouse or offend the religious authorities who were so influential in Ceylonese society. The museum director from 1877 to 1900, Amyrald Haly, whose abilities were not highly regarded by Gregory, was less cautious in this regard and in 1891 was ordered by the then governor to return some small bronze Buddhas taken from a supposedly ruined dagoba.49 The museum received 99,490 visitors in its inaugural year. This was seen as a triumphant success but the number fell dramatically, to less than 46,000, in the second year. In his first report, Haly regretted that the display of ‘Ceylon products’ – that is, economically useful materials – was ‘imperfect’. The private donations he hoped for had not materialised, but he had received many zoological specimens in too poor a condition to be useful.50 This evidence indicates the main issues that beset Haly. Having set up the museum and organised the display in accordance with the curatorial specifications approved by Gregory, he was faced with the problems of maintaining visitor numbers and expanding the collections. He also had to safeguard the displays against the challenges of the climate and insects, and all with very limited human and financial resources.51 Although Ward and Robinson set valuable precedents on which Gregory was able to build, the role of the CBRAS was fundamentally important to the establishment of the Colombo Museum. In his autobiography, Gregory rather downplayed this when he remarked of the museum that ‘it was strange nothing of the kind had been previously attempted’.52 It was true that nothing of the precise kind had been attempted, but there had been various museums in Colombo since about 1820. The founding of the museum corresponds to a pattern found among imperial institutions of that type.53 On many occasions, a museum collection was formed by a private society such as the CBRAS [ 201 ]

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but developed beyond the means of the society properly to maintain and display it. The society then sought public funding, which might sparingly be given. The scientific ambitions and ‘work’ of the society, it was realised, could best be pursued if its collections were ceded to become the nucleus of a public museum in which information could be systematised to facilitate the creation of knowledge. As he had promised at the time of his retirement as governor, Gregory maintained his interest in the museum, the Botanic Gardens and the affairs of Ceylon in general; he was well received on his return visits there in 1884, 1885–86 and 1890.54 Indeed, he became identified with the island to the extent that in 1887 he was referred to by a correspondent from Ceylon as being ‘in some manner our unofficial representative in England’, and in 1891 he was appointed to represent Ceylon on the governing body of the Imperial Institute, later the Commonwealth Institute.55 These details support the argument for Gregory’s role as a cultural arbiter. Along with his friends Layard and Robinson, Gregory may be placed in a loose movement of cultural arbiters active in the late nineteenth century in Britain and across the empire, operating as individuals in various overlapping circles of power, but with many interests in common. This was not another form of intellectual aristocracy but rather the exercise, by self-appointment, invitation or official position, for the public benefit, of cultural leadership as a corol­ lary of class and intellectual status and a manifestation of imperial duty. The actions that Gregory took would have been unnecessary in the metropolis given the successful operation there of learned societies supplemented by well-established institutional structures. That such a personal initiative was necessary to bring a public museum into existence reflects the haphazard nature of imperial cultural provision.

Notes

The author would like to thank Sarah Longair and John McAleer for their invitation to present the conference paper from which the present chapter has been developed, Colin Harris and his colleagues for help with the Gregory papers in the Bodleian Library and Commander Richard Gregory, secretary of the Naval and Military Club, London, for permission to quote from them, Eleanor MacLean, McGill University, and Aisling Tierney for her help in Colombo.

 1 There were three main components in Ceylonese society: colonists; ‘burghers’, or mixed-race descendants of the earliest European settlers and subsequent resident employees of the Dutch East India Company; and natives. The latter category was subdivided by ethnicity, caste, religion and education.  2 William Gregory is referred to as WG in these notes. On Ceylon, see WG, An Autobiography, ed. Lady Gregory (London: John Murray, 1894), pp. 267–356, and B. Bastiampillai, The Administration of Sir William Gregory Governor of Ceylon 1872–77 (Dehiwala: Tisara, 1968); the standard biography is Brian Jenkins, Sir William Gregory of Coole, A Biography (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1986), esp.

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pp. 203–8, 253–5, 272–4 on his museum and artistic interests, which are also discussed by Nicolaas Rupke, Richard Owen, Victorian Naturalist (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 36–40. See also M. H. Port, Imperial London: Civil Government Building in London 1850–1915 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 95–8.  3 P. H. de Silva (ed.), One Hundred Years 1877–1977: Colombo Museum Centenary Souvenir (Colombo: s.n., 1977; reprint 2000), gives a general history of the museum. See also John M. MacKenzie, Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cul­ tures and Colonial Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), chapter 10, esp. pp. 243–4.  4 Bastiampillai, The Administration, p. 149; ‘Ceylon’, The Times, 9 September 1873, p. 4. The idea for a colonial museum was much discussed in the 1870s, particularly in connection with the fate of the India Museum, which was formed in London by the East India Company and divided, after a prolonged debate in which WG took a close interest, between the British Museum, the South Kensington Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in 1879. See Ray Desmond, The India Museum 1801–1879 (London: HMSO, 1982), pp. 139, 171 and passim, and J. Forbes Watson, The Impe­ rial Museum for India and the Colonies (London: W.H. Allen, 1876). No colonial museum was ever built, but the government of Ceylon under Gregory voted sums to enable the island to be represented. See Addresses Delivered in the Legislative Council of Ceylon by Governors of the Colony: Together with the Replies of Council, 4 vols (Colombo: George Skeen, 1876–1905), vol. 2, pp. 299–300, 30 July 1873; The National Archives, Public Record Office, London (TNA), Colonial Office (CO), 57/60, 4 August 1873, ‘Transcripts of the minutes of the legislative council year ended 31 December 1873’.  5 Layard’s brother, Edgar, a pioneering figure in Ceylonese naturalism, was later closely involved in the South African Museum: MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, pp. 84–8, and note 15 below. WG travelled in Spain with Robinson in the 1860s. See WG, Autobiography, pp. 228–9, 235–8.  6 WG to A. H. Layard, 25 November 1883, in WG, Autobiography, pp. 384–5. Andrew Moore, ‘The Fountaine collection of maiolica’, The Burlington Magazine, 130:1023 (1988), 435–47, p. 435; Philip McEvansoneya, ‘… Merely an antiquarian curiosity’: The purchase of the reliquary of St Lachtin’s arm in 1884’, in Ciara Breathnach and Catherine Lawless (eds), Visual, Material and Print Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), pp. 48–58 and Philip McEvansoneya, ‘The purchase of the “Tara” brooch in 1868: Collecting Irish antiquities for Ireland’, Journal of the History of Collections, 24:1 (2012), 77–88. Among the works in WG’s bequest to the National Gallery, London, was one notable painting, an early bodegón by Diego Velázquez, Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (c. 1618), a fashionable taste for the time: Dawson W. Carr, Velázquez (London: National Gallery, 2006), pp. 122–4, no. 4, entry by Xavier Bray.  7 WG, Autobiography, p. 286; Rohan Pethiyagoda, ‘The family de Alwis Seneviratne of Sri Lanka: Pioneers in biological illustration’, Journal of South Asian Natural History, 4:2 (1999), 99–109; W. Vincent Legge, A History of the Birds of Ceylon (London: s.n., 1880), p. 207.  8 Jenkins, Sir William Gregory, pp. 97–108, 211–13, 218–19; Somerset Record Office, Taunton, Strachie Papers, DD/SH/58/255, WW 27/6, WG to Lady Waldegrave, 12 October 1874.  9 Jenkins, Sir William Gregory, p. 220; Deryck M. Schreuder, ‘Ireland and the expertise of imperial administration’, in R. Macleod (ed.), Government and Expertise: Specialists, Administrators and Professionals, 1860–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 145–65, 298–305. 10 Jenkins, Sir William Gregory, p. 85; Bodleian Library, Oxford University (OBL), Gregory Papers (uncatalogued) (GP), D, Ceylon: Letters as governor 1872–77, Sir Richard Morgan to WG, 30 August 1875; OBL, GP, D, Ceylon: Letters from Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, 1883–90, Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon to WG, 21 June 1886, mentions WG’s collection of native silverwork. Hamilton Gordon, later Lord Stanmore, was governor from 1883–90.

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11 Henry Charles Sirr, Ceylon and the Cingalese; Their History, Government and Reli­ gion: The antiquities, institutions, produce, revenue and capabilities of the Island: With anecdotes illustrating the manners and customs of the people (2 vols, London: W. Shoberl, 1850). 12 Robin Jones, ‘An Englishman abroad’, Apollo (November 2006), 36–43. Tennent’s Ceylon was published in two volumes (see note 14). 13 Ceylon Survey Department, Adminstration Report Part 2 (1868), p. 22, cited by John Falconer, ‘Pattern of photographic surveys: Joseph Lawton in Ceylon’, in Maria Antonell Pelizzari (ed.), Traces of India: Photography, Architecture, and the Poli­ tics of Representation (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 156–73, p. 160; Gerard A. Joseph, ‘Ola MSS., and the government Oriental Library of Ceylon’, The Library, 7:1 (1895), 269–75. 14 James E. Tennent, Ceylon: An Account of the Island, 2 vols, 5th edn (London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1860), vol. 1, pp. 127–8; John Davy, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon, and of its Inhabitants (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1821), preface; E. F. Kelaart, Prodromus Faunæ Zeylanicæ; Being Contributions to the Zoology of Ceylon ([Colombo]: The author, 1852), preface. 15 Charles Pridham, An Historical, Political and Statistical Account of Ceylon and its Dependencies, 2 vols (London: T. and W. Boone, 1849), vol. 2, p. 632. The MMM seems to have developed in conjunction with the medical library with which it shared premises, appropriately, in Hospital Street, Colombo. 16 John W. Bennett, Ceylon and its Capabilities: An Account of its Natural Resources, Indigenous Productions, and Commercial Facilities (London: W. H. Allen, 1843), pp. 338–9. Layard was the uncle of Austen Henry and Edgar Layard. 17 T. Petch, ‘In Ceylon a century ago: The proceedings of the Ceylon Literary and Philosophical Society’, Ceylon Antiquary, 8:1 (July 1922), 73–91, pp. 76, 78; John W. Bennett, A Selection from the Most Remarkable and Interesting of the Fishes Found on the Coast of Ceylon, 2nd edn (London: Edward Bull, 1834), pp. vii–viii; Pridham, Historical, Political and Statistical Account, vol. 2, p. 634. 18 Proceedings of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society [Proceedings CBRAS], 15 May and 27 November 1852; Kelaart to Edgar Layard, 16 December 1852, in Kelaart, Prodromus, appendix, p. 54. Owing to the inconsistent way in which they are bound with the society’s Journal in the set which I have used (British Library, shelfmark ST474), the Proceedings are cited by date only. On CBRAS and some of its predecessors see Y. Gooneratne, ‘The two societies: Town life in nineteenthcentury Ceylon’, Historical Journal, 9:3 (1966), 338–59, pp. 353–6. In his anecdotal autobiographical memoir (Blacker-Wood Collection, Life Sciences Library, McGill University, Montreal), Edgar Layard, a civil servant and respected naturalist who was in Ceylon from about 1845 to 1854, made the vague but plausible claim to have ‘founded a museum in connection with’ the CBRAS. 19 Proceedings CBRAS, 5 March, 4 April and 21 December 1853. 20 Proceedings CBRAS, 18 December 1858, 12 September 1859. Ward was proud to preside over Ceylon at a time of economic growth and an accumulating surplus. See Addresses Delivered, vol. 1, pp. 341–2, 30 July 1857. 21 Proceedings CBRAS, 21 June 1862, 7 March 1863, 8 December 1866, 27 May 1868, 24 March 1870. A visitor to Colombo in about 1863, the ornithologist Richard Swinhoe, gave a piquant but unflattering description of the two collections which were then still separate: Letter from Swinhoe dated 7 March 1864, The Ibis, 6:23–4 (1864), 413–23, pp. 420–1. 22 Proceedings CBRAS, 7 March and 31 October 1863, 3 September 1864, 13 May 1865. J. Ferguson [comments following a report of the Jubilee commemmoration], Journal of the CBRAS, 14:46 (1895), 83. MacCarthy also rejected the society’s applications for other grants. 23 See B. N. Bell and H. M. Bell, H. C. P. Bell Archaeologist of Ceylon and the Maldives (Denbigh: Archetype Publications, 1993). The alternating bouts of productivity and lethargy common to ‘literary societies supported by the fluctuating European population’ were well known. See ‘Proceedings’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of

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Great Britain and Ireland, 9:2 (1877), i–lxiii , p. xxx. 24 Proceedings CBRAS, 24 March 1870, 16 January 1871. Legge was later a distinguished ornithologist. His publication, A History of the Birds of Ceylon, like Moore’s Lepi­ doptera and Wickremasinghe’s Epigraphica Zeylanica (see note 44 below), bears a grateful acknowledgement of the practical help and advice afforded by WG. 25 ‘Proceedings’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 4:1 (1870), xiii; Proceedings CBRAS, 4 December 1869, 7 November 1872. 26 An earlier idea for a system of exchange with the museum in New South Wales (Pro­ ceedings CBRAS, 28 July 1860, 6 July 1861) seems to have come to nothing. 27 The CBRAS library and the government Oriental Library, founded in 1870, were also relocated to the museum. An assessment of the society’s library is outside the scope of this chapter, but lists of accessions by donation and purchase appear in the Pro­ ceedings and a catalogue was published in 1895. See also Joseph, ‘Ola MSS’. 28 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, pp. 274, 285, 25 September 1872. 29 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, pp. 275–6, 25 September 1872. Clauses on the amalgamation of the CBRAS holdings and the appointment of a curator are given in the printed draft ‘Ordinance to provide for the establishment and regulation of a Public Museum in Colombo’, dated 19 July 1873, bound with the ‘Transcripts of the minutes’. 30 Proceedings CBRAS, 7 November 1872. Fyers sat on the committee appointed by the legislative council to review and approve the museum plan. See TNA, CO, 57/61, Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Ceylon 1873 (Colombo, 1874), no. 8. 31 Proceedings CBRAS, 4 October 1872. 32 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 254, 25 September 1872; p. 339, 14 October 1874. The envisaged sum soon rose to 120,000 rupees (TNA, CO, 57/62, ‘Report. Supply Bill 1873’, Ceylon. Administration Reports 1873 [Colombo, 1874], p. 7) which was the final building and fit-out cost. 33 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 274, 25 September 1872. 34 Proceedings CBRAS, 7 November 1872. The attendance figures published in the museum’s annual reports give only totals without subdivision by colour or status. See, for example, TNA, CO, 57/73, ‘Report of the director of the Colombo Museum for 1877’, Ceylon. Administration Reports 1877 (Colombo, 1878), p. 4b. The legislation which underpinned the museum allowed for entrance charges, but whether such charges were ever levied has not been ascertained. 35 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 275, 25 September 1872. 36 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, pp. 384–5, 6 January 1875. 37 Proceedings CBRAS, 7 November 1872. Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 275, 25 September 1872; p. 386, 6 January 1875. 38 ‘Transcripts of the minutes’, 4 and 6 August, 3, 10 and 17 September 1873. 39 WG is reported to have consulted Anton Dohrn, the marine biologist, and T. H. Huxley regarding the museum directorship (B. Bastiampillai, ‘Sir William Henry Gregory – the founder of the Museum’, in de Silva (ed.), One Hundred Years 1877–1977, p. 43). They may also have advised on the form of the museum – Huxley certainly was one ‘of the most scientific men in England’. Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 276, 25 September 1872; MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, p. 9; Tennent, Ceylon, vol. 1, pp. 127–8; TNA, CO, 57/76, ‘Report of the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens … for 1878’, Ceylon. Adminstration Reports 1878 (Colombo, 1879), part 4, p. 4c. The gardens in Ceylon were run under the aegis of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew: see Donal P. McCracken, Gardens of Empire: Botanical Institutions of the Victorian British Empire (London: Leicester University Press, 1997). The main location, at Peradiniya, dates from 1821 and was of great interest to WG as a centre which pursued botanical research for its economic potential, as is indirectly shown by the shares in a Ceylon tea-growing estate WG held after his governorship. 40 Tennent, Ceylon, vol. 2, p. 167. Sir Monier Monier-Williams, ‘The India Museum’, letter to the editor, The Times, 31 July 1879, p. 8. 41 WG, letter to the editor, dated 30 March 1872, published in the Galway Vindica­ tor, 21 December 1872, reprinted by M. Coen, ‘Miscellanea’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 35 (1976), 149–51. 42 Joseph Lennon, Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History (New York:

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Syracuse University Press, 2004), pp. xv–xvii and passim. 43 Addresses delivered, vol. 2, p. 385, 6 January 1875; MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, pp. 267–8; TNA, CO, 57/75, Papers on the Subject of the Literary and Scientific Work Carried on by the Government of Ceylon (Colombo, 1878). 44 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, pp. 384–6, 6 January 1875; p. 523, 7 May 1877. WG did not do this, nor was his intended paper on the inscriptions ever read to the Society of Antiquaries of London. 45 Edward Müller, Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon, 2 vols (London: Trubner & Co., 1883), for example vol. 1, p. 30, no. 20, at Mihintale. A much expanded catalogue of inscriptions was begun in 1904 by D. M. Wickremasinghe as Epigraphia Zeylanica, Being Lithic and Other Inscriptions of Ceylon, 4 vols (London: Henry Frowde, 1912–43). 46 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 276, 25 September 1872. Müller, Ancient Inscriptions, lists many inscribed stones removed to the museum. 47 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 409, 8 September 1875. 48 See the discussion of this in the Indian context by Tapati Guha-Thakurta, ‘The museumised relic: Archaeology and the first museum in colonial India’, Indian Eco­ nomic and Social History Review, 34:1 (1997), 21–51. 49 OBL, GP, D, Ceylon: General correspondence, Frederick Corbet, a lawyer and hon­ orary librarian of the Colombo Museum, to WG, 26 March 1891. Haly was not the first choice as director (Addresses Delivered, p. 386, 6 January 1875), but Rudolf von ­Willemoes-Suhm, the German zoologist, having joined the circumnavigating research expedition of HMS Challenger (1872–76), died aboard before he could be recruited. 50 ‘Report of the director … for 1877’, p. 3c; ‘Report of the director … for 1878’, Ceylon. Adminstration Reports 1878, p. 133c. 51 As was noted by a visiting biologist, Ernst Haeckel, A Visit to Ceylon, trans. Clara Bell (London: Kegan, Paul & Trench, 1883), pp. 107–8. 52 WG, Autobiography, p. 314. 53 The Indian Museum in Calcutta, the nucleus of which came from the Asiatic Society of Bengal’s holdings in 1866, has many similarities with the Colombo Museum. See MacKenzie, Museums and Empire, pp. 8, 236–8; see also The Indian Museum 1814– 1914 (Calcutta: Trustees of the museum, 1914; new edn 2004). 54 Addresses Delivered, vol. 2, p. 541, 7 May 1877; OBL, GP, D: General correspondence August 1877–91, G. H. K. Thwaites, Director of the Botanic Gardens, to WG, 1 August 1877 and Sir James Longden, WG’s successor as governor, to WG, 11 January 1879; WG, Autobiography, pp. 358, 385–93; Jenkins, Sir William Gregory, p. 275. 55 OBL, GP, general correspondence 1884–91, E. S. W. Senáthi-Rájá to WG, 29 April 1887; Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to WG, 3 June 1891.

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Chapter ten

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Tipu’s Tiger and images of India, 1799–2010 Sadiah Qureshi

Emily, the heroine of Mrs Hofland’s novel A Visit to London, numbered amongst her amusements a visit to East India House, which housed both the museum and library of the East India Company. Here, she marvelled at fine natural history specimens and Indian artefacts; yet, her reverie on the orient and its wonders was disturbed by a ‘harsh moaning sound’. The librarian explained the noise was coming from a model tiger crouching over his human victim; encased inside was a musical instrument imitating ‘the horrid grumblings made by the tyger on seizing his prey … [and] the convulsive breathings, the suffocated shriek of his victim’. Whilst ‘clinging to the arm of Mr Carberry’, Emily simply cried: ‘“For heaven’s sake, do take me home.” The gentle­man, turning to her, beheld her pale and trembling, and lost not a moment in conducting her to her carriage.’1 Tipu’s Tiger, the artefact responsible for making such an impression, was taken at the siege of Srirangapatam (Seringapatam) in 1799: a battle that ended the Mysore Wars between the British, Haidar Ali and his son, Tipu Sultan.2 The denouement came with a dramatic storming of the palace, with Tipu losing the war, his life and even half his moustache, which was unceremoniously removed as a trophy. The Tiger, one among thousands of items taken in the looting and division of the spoils that followed, was found in Tipu’s Ragmahal, a room devoted to his musical instruments. The internal organ was a gift from the French, allies against the common British foe, and the outer casing of the Tiger and man were added later, in Channapatna.3 Whilst Tipu’s jewels and possessions were broken up into pieces and traded in the bazaars for a fraction of their worth, the Tiger evaded the indignity of being fragmented and quickly found its way into the East India Company’s museum.4 [ 207 ]

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10.1  Tipu’s Tiger displaying its internal musical mechanism.

Tipu’s Tiger has fascinated the public ever since, drawing generations of visitors to London’s museums. Reconsidering the ways in which it has been collected, displayed and commodified allows an exploration of the shifting nature of Indian art, the role of British museums in representing its Indian imperial acquisitions and the importance of both artefactual and broader contexts in articulating the role of the museum in curating empire for the public. Given this potential, it is unsurprising that the Tiger has attracted the attention of curators, historians and the creatively minded.5 Building on this work, this chapter attempts to ground Tipu’s Tiger firmly in the context of the artefacts with which it has shared a home, a context that is the outcome of curatorial choice on how best to exhibit collected objects. It examines the history of the Tiger’s display in order to assess the role of its artefactual context in creating a meaning for the object. In addition, it explores the importance of broader frames of reference, such as the popularity of the Siege of Srirangapatam in public entertainment and exhibitionary culture and the British and Indian iconography of tigers to explore broader cultural resonances relevant to the Tiger’s immense powers of public attraction.

The Company treasure chest Originally sent by Lord Mornington to London, to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, the fate of Tipu’s Tiger hung in the balance as it left for British shores and word of its arrival sparked ­interest in the British press.6 A memorandum accompanying the Tiger upon its arrival from India, penned by Mornington, to the Chairman [ 208 ]

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of the Court of Directors, expressed understandable sympathy for the human prey: ‘While the Organ is playing, the hand of the European is often lifted up to express his helpless and deplorable condition.’ Yet, in an otherwise relatively factual description, Mornington’s parting remark betrayed a sense of unease regarding what ought to be done with the organ and his poor opinion of its former owner: ‘It is i­ magined that this characteristic memorial of the arrogance [and] barbarous cruelty of Tippoo Sultan may be thought deserving of a place in the Tower of London.’7 Fit only to be exhibited with the other beasts in the tower menagerie, the Tiger inspired an emotionally charged response from the moment of its capture and one that would underpin its display as a confirmation of its former owner’s base cruelty. Mornington’s directions were overruled, and Tipu’s Tiger was initially kept in storage. In 1808, it first became accessible to the public in East India House in Leadenhall Street; its acquisition was marked by an entry in the day book simply reading: ‘July 29th, 1808. Recd. Tippoo’s Musical Tiger’.8 Although the Tiger failed to make its debut within the intended context of the beasts, Mornington’s intentions for its symbolic role were nonetheless fulfilled. From the outset, the Court of Directors intended that the collection function as a museum in which ‘Manuscripts … in all the languages of Asia’ and ‘Printed Books … of all such works as in any way relate to Oriental subjects’ were available for scholarly consultation; in addition, a ‘Cabinet of Natural Productions’, one of ‘Artificial Productions’, and finally one of ‘Miscellaneous Articles’, were intended to complement the library collection.9 Knight’s guide to London provides a host of possibilities for the Victorian seeking amusement, devoting a substantial entry to East India House. If one was at a loss for entertainment, East India House was open on Saturdays from eleven to three, free of charge, to any member of the public, in a ‘creditable act of ­liberality’.10 Amongst the ‘Oriental curiosities’ on display in the library were specimens of painted tiles, Buddhist idols, Chinese weighing and measuring machines, a Chinese mariner’s compass, specimens of tea and ‘three cases containing very elaborate models of Chinese villas, made of ivory, mother-of-pearl, and other costly materials; and from the ceiling is suspended a large and highly-decorated Chinese lantern, made of thin sheets of horn’. Adjacent rooms housed paintings, prints, models of Chinese war junks, Burmese musical instruments, models of looms, ploughs, smiths’ bellows, butterflies, beetles’ shells, stuffed birds from Java, India and Sumatra, a solid silver throne adapted for the back of an elephant ‘in which Oriental princes travel[led]’ and, significantly, ‘Tippoo Sultan’s “Register of Dreams”, with the interpretation of them in his own hand; and the Koran which he was in the habit of [ 209 ]

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10.2  Tipu’s Tiger in the East India House in the mid-nineteenth century.

using’.11 The museum’s collections were large enough to necessitate their overflow into the library where Tipu’s Tiger continued his incessant devouring. An engraving of the library clearly shows Tipu’s Tiger, standing freely on a table, and gives a visual indication of the object’s artefactual context. Interestingly, nobody is examining it directly, despite contemporary sources, such as the Athenæum, reporting that: The shrieks and growls were the constant plague of the students busy at work in the library of the Old India House when the Leadenhall Street public unremittingly it appears were bent on keeping up the performance of this barbarous machine. No doubt that a number of perverse sections have crept into our oriental works, through the shocks which the tiger caused to the nerves of the readers taken unawares.12

Museums necessarily divorce objects from their original context; in doing so they ascribe meanings to such objects that they would never otherwise easily obtain. An attempt to recreate original context may be made, but ultimately, authenticity is an illusion. An inherent problem in such displays is the failure to acknowledge that such displacement has taken place. The object implicitly occupies an epistemologically privileged position in the ostensibly neutral space of museological display. It gains the capacity to augment a visitor’s knowledge; at one [ 210 ]

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extreme, display invests the object with a power to speak of its own accord. Such reification was common in the nineteenth century and underlies the early display of Tipu’s Tiger and its representational role in speaking on behalf of the subcontinent.13 The East India House collection, through the sheer range of material covered, attempted to convey to visitors a sweep of physical experience. Prosaic items, such as tiles and looms, were juxtaposed with the most exotic natural history specimens and royal accoutrements. It has been argued that when two cultures meet, it is their material culture that is used to make judgements regarding their state of ‘civilisation’.14 This assertion is helpful in understanding the importance of material culture in shaping experience. The framework of the museum in East India House classified objects, immediately labelling them as foreign; simultaneously objects were portrayed as representative and thus epistemologically privileged. Knight, for instance, explicitly encouraged visitors with the promise that a ‘visit to this Museum [wa]s certainly calculated to render impressions concerning the East more vivid and striking’.15 In this context, the function of display becomes the cre­ ation of a metonymical chain connecting the distant or unfamiliar to the tangible experience of material objects before the individual, sensorial stimulation equates with mental confirmation. India, Tipu, and Tipu’s Tiger, became associated in a series of steps potentially invisible to the viewer; this reinforced the immediate sensation that displayed items were not simply isolated objects but pieces of a much larger interpretative and intercultural encounter. The exploitation of such metonyms also served as a means of creating, promoting, substantiating and reshaping the perception of that being displayed. Thus, Tipu’s Tiger provided one of many endpoints in the chain and was intended to be read as confirmation of existing impressions of the British presence in India, its ostensible civilisation, superiority and sophistication. This invisibi­lity was reinforced by the synechdochal nature of the museum itself: objects were decontextualised and re-presented as substitutions for the whole, thus embedding the associations institutionally. Meanwhile, outside the Museum’s neo-classical confines, nineteenthcentury commentators encountered Tipu and his Tiger in broader networks of political discussion, in print and in entertainment culture.

Tipu the bogeyman Tipu inherited Mysore from his father Haidar Ali, who rose to prominence in Mysore’s late-eighteenth-century military campaigns and seized power in 1759. From the early seventeenth century, Mysore was established as a Hindu kingdom ruled by the Wodeyar dynasty. [ 211 ]

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In 1732, the death of Krishna Raja Wodeyar I necessitated the appointment of a regent and a series of successions that, ultimately, led to the loss of Wodeyar power at the hand of Ali. Initially, Haidar’s control remained tenuous, but, with further military campaigns, including the first Anglo-Mysore war against the British (1767) and aggression against the Marathas (1773–74), he expanded his dominions and maintained power until his death in 1782. Tipu fought a series of wars between his accession and 1792, including the second Anglo-Mysore War (1780–84) during which he became a powerful military leader in his own right. Yet, after an alliance with the French that was particularly galling to the British, Tipu suffered a humiliating defeat in the third AngloMysore War (1789–92) and faced having to cede half his kingdom. In 1799, he lost the final Anglo-Mysore War, the kingdom was further reduced and Wodeyar power restored until 1947.16 The British victory in Mysore consolidated British claims to South Asian territory and, despite resistance lasting into the later nineteenth century, laid the foundations for the incorporation of India into the British Empire. Crucially, during this period, the British Empire underwent an increasingly aggressive expansion in several key areas. It has been argued that more sophisticated technological and political organisation, coupled with nationalist interests, fuelled the imposition of British systems of organisation and rule in the colonies. Free-trade rhetoric pushed the East India Company’s drive for a monopoly of force, labour and revenue; the rulers of the subcontinent were portrayed as despots in a move to justify the removal of their power. Tipu’s fierce resistance to colonial aggression earned him particular ignominy. His alliance with the French only inflamed the situation further as the British began drawing parallels between their European, particularly French, and Asian enemies. Indeed, Tipu is said to have become the first of the ‘“black” bogeymen’ to haunt British consciousness to the present day.17 Tipu’s death occasioned the production of broadside ballads, plays and paintings portraying his defeat and acquainting the public with the events at Srirangapatam. The ephemerality of London’s shows allowed showmen to create and exploit the news. Thus nineteenth-century metropolitan entertainment served multiple functions as a form of factual and topical reportage, political critique and amusement. In this climate, exhibition proprietors were journalists-cum-history-makers since London’s playbills might only lag a few weeks behind the newspapers in announcing the fall of a foreign ruler or the acquisition of a new outpost. For instance, Philip Astley, the proprietor of Astley’s, a venue synonymous with equestrian spectacles, announced a spectacle

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based on the ‘Storming of Seringapatam’ just a fortnight after news of the British victory appeared in the press.18 Similarly, within a couple of months, a grand panorama, painted by Robert Ker Porter, opened which visually recapitulated the British account of the ‘Storming of Seringapatam’.19 The writer Thomas Frognall Dibdin felt that: ‘It was a thing dropped down from the clouds – all fire, energy, intelligence, and animation [and] … more than one female was carried out swooning. … The public poured in by hundreds and thousands for even a transient gaze – for such a site was marvellous as it was novel.’20 Panoramas regularly capitalised upon national success abroad by producing canvases that focused on recent imperial acquisitions: for example, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars proved a popular theme. Sometimes canvasses would be painted and ready for exhibition just a few weeks (Porter’s took just six) after the event they depicted. Exhibitors prided themselves upon the accuracy of their paintings. Panoramists often worked on site making drawings with a camera obscura that could be worked up to larger dimensions and, as the popularity of panoramas grew, personnel abroad often made drawings that they hoped to sell as entrepreneurial speculations.21 Such topicality ensured both the commercial success of the shows and widespread public awareness and interest in the Anglo-Mysore wars. Moreover, the animosity remained a theme of entertainment long after Tipu’s death. The ‘Storming of Seringapatam’ became theatrical fodder for decades, with playhouses dramatically retelling the story into the 1820s and 1830s.22 Similarly, Madame Tussauds featured cabinet figures of ‘tippoo saib’ and ‘tippoo saib’s sultana’ in the Chamber of Horrors alongside French reprobates such as Louis XVI, the Duc D’Orleans and Voltaire well into the 1840s.23 Thus, whilst the battle remained topical, showmen capitalised upon Tipu’s downfall to create commercially successful exhibitions and plays. As the gleam of novelty faded, they continued to exploit his death by perpetuating his status as a historically significant defeated foe: a status that they had helped to establish. Over the course of the century, the interest continued unabated in broader arenas. For example, the publication of the Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan in 1811, gave its readers a chance to rehearse and consolidate Tipu’s vilification. In the Edinburgh Review, William Kirkpatrick, the editor of the letters, asserted that from the moment of his ascending the throne Tipu pursued two aims: the aggrandisement of the Khodadad (God-given dominions) and the spread of Islam. Tipu was described as ‘ambitious’, ‘fanatical’, and one for whom the ends ‘completely sanctified the means’.24 In contrast to many English

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diarists, Kirkpatrick noted Tipu was not in the ‘habit of collecting the best company in Srirungapatan at his suppers, and retelling their bon-mots in his correspondence’, and implied this added a sense of literary curious­ness to them.25 Significantly, the article included the comments of the translator, who aimed to elucidate the Sultan’s character in a penetrating new light. Kirkpatrick claimed legitimacy for his enterprise by emphasising that the letters were addressed to people wholly dependent upon Tipu; thus, free from reserve and fear of repercussion, the letters were claimed to be unusually revealing. The article noted that Tipu probably judged his own sentiments with different criteria from those of the British: ‘Thus, the various murders and acts of treachery which we see him directing to be carried into execution, were not criminal, but, on the contrary, just, and even meritorious, in his eyes.’26 However, the allowance only served to underline his despotic nature since it was almost immediately followed by the conjecture that his deeds ‘might, and most likely did, in a great degree proceed from a disposition naturally cruel and sanguinary’.27 The attempted rationalisation led to a tension between acknowledging some desirable traits, such as Tipu’s ‘vigorous understanding, unceasing activity, and undaunted courage’, and reinforcing the notion of an alarmingly ambitious man. Vitriolic treatments of Tipu directly informed encounters with Tipu’s Tiger. For instance, in 1835, the Penny Magazine published an article giving a detailed description of the original mechanism, leaving little doubt that the author had examined it in detail. It claimed the machinery produced ‘a harsh growl’: ‘The man in the meantime continues his screaming and whistling, and after a dozen cries, the growl is repeated.’ The mechanism, though ‘not of nice workmanship, is simple and ingenious in contrivance’ and is sharply contrasted with the outer casing: The representation is altogether of the most primitive description, as the engraving will testify. The attitude of the Tiger is perhaps not so bad, but that of the man is ludicrous. … The dress of this figure is equally droll with his attitude.

The construction was claimed to be clumsy ‘such that a common carpenter would not like to acknowledge’. The description of the sound as harsh and unpleasant recurs throughout contemporary accounts but, significantly, the article adds: ‘Such is the delectable nature of the music which pleased Tippoo so much, that he is said to have passed hours in his music room with an attendant turning the handle of the machine.’ Although the article adds, ‘we will charitably hope this was not the sole amusement derived by Tippoo from this instrument’, [ 214 ]

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the assumed superiority again reasserts itself in the final sentence: ‘It would be difficult to convey a more lively impression of the mingled ferocity and childish want of taste so characteristic of the majority of Asiatic princes than will be communicated at once by an inspection of this truly barbarous piece of music.’28 Describing a foreigner as barbarous is hardly unusual for the period, but the emotional weight of such description is still striking, whilst the emotive force of the words parallels the assumed fierceness of Tipu’s anti-British sentiment. The importance of the Tiger’s appearance in the Penny Magazine, and similar periodicals, derives from the magazine’s status as a cheap, illustrated publication, explicitly intended to be educational. It was founded in 1832 by Charles Knight and sponsored by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Knight believed education ‘in its fullest sense was a twofold enterprise entailing both factual instruction in a range of general subjects and the inculcation of a particular set of social virtues’.29 By 1835, the magazine had established itself and demonstrated the niche in the market for cheap, mass-produced printed literature. However, it began to suffer financial problems and falling circulation; the print orders for 1835 indicate the beginning of the decrease in market share but still give an indication of the sheer numbers involved. In the relevant quarter, an average of 102,022 copies were ordered for each issue, with an estimated average of 98% of the print order sold.30 Thus, the article provided both unprecedented access to a pictorial representation and description of the Tiger, whilst its representation of Tipu and India fulfilled the social and moral function envisaged by Knight. Meanwhile, it is worth bearing in mind that displays of automata were popular in the late eighteenth century and continued into the nineteenth century. In the 1780s, for example, Merlin, the first of the well-known mechanics, opened a museum in London where the public could view various automata, human and animal in form, some producing clockwork music. Such automata were often relatively sophisticated and provide a possible reason for the constant observation that Tipu’s Tiger was poorly constructed. For the public, accustomed to far more complicated displays, the Tiger with only one moving part may have been a relatively poor showing. Automata displays were associated with the exotic from the very beginning, with collectors able to purchase automated Turks, elephants, tigers and women. In the early nineteenth century, machinery, intelligence and cunning came to be linked. Automata began to mimic human action and, through concealment of the human input, appeared intelligent and capable of reason. Simon Schaffer has argued that this link between intelligence, mechanism and the Orient raises political questions. He argues: ‘In many [ 215 ]

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Western myths of mechanical intelligence, with Chinese or Japanese, Turks or Nazis as their protagonists, aliens are automata, mindless subjects of tyranny; they build automata, because they possess fiendish cunning; and they conceal what they have done because they want to master us.’31 The notion of tyranny and aliens as automata are directly applicable to Tipu’s Tiger. It was interpreted as an immediate and frightful symbol of the tyrannical desires of a single powerful individual. Tipu, as an alien, is mindlessly obsessed with the extension of his kingdom and faith through the impulsive cunning of the alien, but without the rationalising reason of his British foes. This social aspect is played out not only in the language of barbarity, but also in descriptions that refer to the Tiger as a ‘toy’ and ‘strange plaything’.32 Knight’s tourist guide to London also describes it as ‘a childish piece of musical mechanism which once belonged to Tippoo Sultan’, whilst John Keats immortalised the ‘little buzzing noise’ that came from ‘a play-thing of the Emperor’s choice / From a Man-tiger-Organ, prettiest of his toys’.33 Here, the parallel between Asiatic and French villains may also have come into play. Whilst the organ’s internal mechanism originated in Europe, it was a product of the feared French and their revolutionary mechanisation. Its cunning and threatening aspect is at once undermined by its putative childishness, thus establishing a sense of safety and salvaging British superiority. By the later nineteenth century, Tipu’s defeat had become a staple of children’s and adult fiction alike, periodical literature and history textbooks. For example, in 1894, nearly a century after Tipu’s death, the Illustrated London News published a series depicting ‘Battles of the British Army’. Each issue included several full-page illustrations, including a centrefold, of a decisive moment in British history, with the seventh being ‘Seringapatam’.34 Just a year later, George Henty’s The Tiger of Mysore (1895) told the tale of a young British soldier, Dick, and his escapades in Mysore, including hunting tigers, rescuing an English slave girl from Tipu’s zenana, or harem, and enthusiastically participating in the protection of British interests, often accompanied by the all-too-willing Surajah.35 The widespread and longstanding circulation of such images gives an indication of how important the Tiger’s Indian provenance proved to be throughout the nineteenth century. Its assumed original purpose, to amuse Tipu, was transformed into a lusting after power and British soldiers’ bodies in the safe knowledge that his ambitions had been thwarted. Meanwhile, the frisson of fear to which the Tiger gave rise was undoubtedly fuelled by perceptions of the ferocious feline.

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Tyger, Tyger In Britain, tigers exemplified the deplorable nature of the beast. Providence designated that some animals subsist through destruction, but the tiger’s ferocity and savage proclivities were unparalleled. Fully acknowledging the beauty and grace of the animal, nineteenth-century writers of natural history continually warned against the deceptive nature of appearances. As a species, tigers were believed to ‘delight in butchery’, which was made worse by their willingness to ‘destroy from the mere love of destruction, long after their natural appetite has been sated’. The whole organisation of the tiger, the argument flowed, was adapted for its lifestyle. They hunted with ‘consummate cunning’, like ‘robbers and murderers’ chose ‘the night for their deeds of bloodshed’, and ‘with stealthy pace prowl[ed] the earth, and spr[u] ng upon their prey with resistless force’. 36 In an age obsessed with improvement and progress, perhaps the most damning indication of its status comes from the claim that its natural disposition rendered it almost incapable of betterment: ‘No discipline can correct the savage nature of the tiger, nor any degree of kind treatment reclaim him.’37 As the century wore on, tiger hunting became an increasingly popular activity, becoming virtually ceremonial outings, especially amongst colonial men who sought to establish their British masculine prowess with a loaded rifle.38 Tigers’ audacious propensity to eat humans contributed to their reputation. In December 1792, the only son of Sir Hector Munro, a commanding general in the British Army during the battle of Port Nova in 1781, where the forces of Haider Ali and Tipu were defeated, was killed in a hunting expedition by a tiger in Sugor Island. The death, widely reported, fascinated the public; a Staffordshire pottery commissioned a figure based on the incident. It has been suggested that the death of an enemy’s son may have given Tipu spiteful pleasure, thus moti­vating him to commission the organ in remembrance.39 Meanwhile, the tiger’s reputation is also argued to have stemmed in large part from such tales of their man-eating, since ‘[e]ating human flesh symbolized the ultimate rebellion, the radical reversal of roles between master and servant’.40 This crucial and widespread connection between man-­eating beasts, public fascination, and the popularity of Tipu’s Tiger may be explored further. Within this context, Tipu’s Tiger functioned as an object confirming notions of barbarous Indian sultans, an authentication of tigers’ innate unregeneracy, and the upsetting of desired British control of India. In Mysore, Tipu adopted the tiger as his emblem, using it extensively to adorn his personal possessions, courtly surroundings, and the uniforms of his military. The motif took either a naturalistic form or [ 217 ]

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babri, a stylised stripe. One of the most spectacular examples was the throne Tipu commissioned for his use.41 All that remained of it after the siege of Srirangapatam, when it was broken into pieces, were the life-size tiger’s head at its foot, two of the smaller tiger-head finials and the Huma (bird of paradise) which had perched over the canopy. Eyewitness accounts describe it as being made of wood covered in gold. The finials and Huma were set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, and the canopy set with a fringe of pearls ten inches deep. The Huma, now in the Royal Collection, is the size of a pigeon and made of solid gold. It possesses a tail ‘arranged as to imitate the most dazzling plumage and so closely set that the gold was scarcely visible’.42 The exact reasons for Tipu’s adoption of the tiger motif are disputed. Kate Brittlebank argues that an essential component lies in the sakti and barakat associated with the symbol. Sakti is the power of the Hindu warrior goddesses, who are themselves associated with tigers, often riding them as their steeds or venting their fury with a similar ferocity. Barakat is a form of power – literally blessing – associated with emblems. These are often relics of martyrs, in a similar vein to amulets and often associated with Muslim saints. In India, these words became interchangeable as the concepts merged syncretically. Tipu adopted a highly stylised calligraphic cypher in the form of a tiger’s face made up of the Arabic characters denoting ‘Allah’ and ‘Muhammad’, the Muslim God and Holy Prophet respectively, and it was emblazoned on Tipu’s banners and standards in battle. Brittlebank argues that, for Tipu, its adoption afforded a potent means of protection, possessing as it did both sakti and barakat. Moreover, she convincingly articulates how the use of an emblem that had both Muslim and Hindu resonances formed part of a strategy to legitimate Tipu’s rule in the kingdom of Mysore. After all, he was the Muslim leader of a predominantly Hindu region, and he had seized power from its former Hindu rulers. Previously, historians have relied on mistaken understandings of the linguistic connection between Tipu’s name and the Tiger’s, or upon the significance of the interchangeability of ‘lion’ and ‘tiger’ as in Tipu’s motto, Asadullah Al-Ghaleb, ‘The Lion of God is Conqueror’. The value of Brittlebank’s argument lies in her examination of the Tiger as a symbol of kingship in Tipu’s cultural context and her emphasis on power.43 The use of tigers as emblematic of power was known to the Victorians, especially in reference to Tipu. The Penny Cyclopaedia, in an article discussing their natural history, noted: ‘In the East the Tiger is associated ­emblematically with power. … The tiger soldiers of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib were among the choicest of their troops.’44 Thus, Tipu’s Tiger could function as a macabre reminder of the power Tipu believed himself to possess, and sought, over the British. Indi[ 218 ]

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viduals, such as the fictional Emily, would shudder at the thought of Tipu’s power even when she was able to turn the crank handle and thereby control the shrieks and growls. But, as Mr Carberry escorted Emily from her frightful encounter, and the century wore on, perceptions of both India and Indian art began to change. Just how much is evident in the Tiger’s most recent and likely final home, the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Indian masterpiece Tipu’s Tiger now resides in the Nehru Gallery of Indian Art, near the recently refurbished galleries devoted to Islamic art, and in the South Kensington complex devoted to public improvement that was funded with the profits of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Tiger’s displacement here provides an instructive counterpart to its early history whilst further demonstrating the role of physical situation in shaping meaning. In 1858, the transfer of the property of the East India Company again placed it in storage in Fife House, Whitehall. Between 1868 and 1874 it remained housed in the new India Office in King Charles Street, after which it was placed in the Eastern Exhibition Galleries in South Kensington, newly built to house the collection of the East India Company. In 1879, with the India Museum dissolved and its artefacts distributed amongst various institutions, the Tiger was moved to the Imperial Institute, South Kensington. Removed for repairs in 1946, it was once again on public display in 1947. Apart from a short trip to New York in 1955, it remained in the Eastern galleries of the Institute until 1956 when the Institute was demolished. Its collection then became part of the Indian section at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), and the Tiger was removed to the main museum building on Exhibition Road. One of the museum’s most famous and enduringly popular pieces, Tipu’s Tiger’s insatiable appetite for his European quarry bears an unmistakably new status. In addition to the prestige of being housed in a gallery named after Nehru, even a cursory examination of its present display case demonstrates shifts of attitude. The same metonymic chain connecting Tipu, India and the Tiger is in existence, but in this context, it communicates a different message. The other artefacts, in striking colours, fashioned from gold and inlaid with jewels, convey a sense of majesty and beautiful opulence from their visually stunning, glass-encased space. No longer a testament to subcontinental barbarity, it is now a source of immense pride as borne out in a series of ‘masterpiece’ leaflets published by the V&A in the 1970s, which focused on a number of artefacts in its collections.45 No longer a direct [ 219 ]

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10.3  Display case at V&A Museum showing Tipu’s Tiger in his current home in the Nehru Gallery of Indian Art.

expression of imperial ownership, it is now encountered within the post-colonial context of Nehru’s successful campaign for Indian independence and premiership of the newly founded nation state. Indeed, it, and the objects with which it is surrounded, are minimally labelled; information regarding their provenance – from the Kingdom of Mysore or belonging to Tipu – effectively omit the process by which the objects fell into British hands. Anyone wanting such information must seek further, perhaps to the instructional video playing alongside the case, or to the bookshop, or outside the museum. Meanwhile, Tipu’s reputation has been the subject of attempts to resurrect him as an icon of Indian nationalism and colonial resistance. Both Hindus and Muslims have adopted the Sultan as emblematic of a new brand of Indian identity. For instance, the sword of Tipu Sultan is perhaps the only other artefact as famous as the Tiger. In 2003, the Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya bought Tipu’s sword at a Christie’s auction and promptly returned it to India.46 Reputedly interested in making further purchases and setting up a Tipu museum in India, one suspects Mallya’s interest in Tipu artefacts will ultimately lead him to the Tiger. In the early years of the twenty-first century, as this chapter has developed, Tipu’s Tiger has been commodified in interesting ways.47 Initially, the giftshop offered a range of Tiger memorabilia, from chocolates wrapped in images of the object, carved wooden models and do-it-yourself cardboard cut-out reconstructions to a soft-toy housed [ 220 ]

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on a dedicated stand. In many of these items, the Tiger is shown with his prey, but as with the soft-toy, it has also been further divorced from its original form by being presented as a wide-eyed, solitary tiger. More recently, the museum’s range has been reduced to postcards and publications. The publication of Stronge’s Tipu’s Tigers has been accompanied by the release of an iPhone ‘app’ in which users can move the Tiger around in three-dimensional blackness, perform music on an electronic version of the organ’s keyboard, and hear the Tiger perform God Save the Queen. Whilst the opportunity to play with the Tiger and hear it being played is marvellous (the mechanism is now too fragile to be played as enthusiastically as in East India House), the choice of music may well raise eyebrows. After all, it is likely that Tipu’s Tiger did materially manifest Tipu’s resistance to British colonial onslaught, even if only tangentially. Yet, it now regularly serenades iPhone users with the British national anthem; a use which transforms the Tiger’s representational purpose, both within and outside the museum, but one that, one suspects, Tipu would never have contemplated or condoned.

Conclusion Tipu’s Tiger and its display exemplify shifting perceptions of Indian art and the changing role of curators in both creating and promoting images of India in British museums from the nineteenth century onwards. The metonymic chain implicit in the display of Tipu’s Tiger, linking India, Tipu, tigers and British imperialism, coupled with its epistemologically privileged position within museums, has lent force to its shifting function from a testament to the ostensibly barbaric nature of Tipu to a much-loved and unique work of Indian art. Present-day sensibilities may regard the Tiger as an almost comical remnant of empire; certainly, Lord Mornington’s original moral message is now defunct. If anything, the colonial ambitions it was originally made to endorse are now commonly condemned, whether those ambitions be British or Indian. However, this risks a lack of appreciation of the sheer strength of negative feeling it originally inspired. In contemporary accounts, the Tiger often inspires the only emotionally evaluative judgements to be made from a visit to the museum. In Knight’s London Pictorially Illustrated, where many other items are judged to be costly, splendid, or worthy of special notice, the Tiger invites description as rudely constructed and ‘childish’. The subjectivity is almost jarring next to the other descriptions, which discuss material manufacture, dimensions, and utility. Feeding these reactions are perceptions of tigers themselves. Accustomed to calls for its conservation, it is difficult for modern readers to [ 221 ]

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imagine the innate unregeneracy that tigers conjured up for Victorians. British hunters prided themselves upon ridding India of its verminous scourge. Its beastly immorality neatly paralleled that of the despotic Sultan. Tipu himself capitalised on the tiger’s ferocity and ultimately used it as a symbol to legitimate his power, through the intermingled notions of sakti and barakat. This alternative iconography explains the unique significance of Tipu’s Tiger to its owner. It symbolised the legitimacy of kingship he sought to establish in his own kingdom as he fought to expand, and subsequently defend, his father’s legacy. Meanwhile, in Britain, the public could breathe sighs of relief as, ultimately, the organ’s presence in Britain epitomised the failure of the very objectives it signified. Thus, whilst tigers may have conjured fear and inspired masculine prowess for nineteenth-century museum visitors, modern viewers are more likely to associate the tiger’s plight with that of other endangered animals and the activities of organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund as it campaigns to stem the destruction of global biodiversity.48 In the twentieth century, and following the declaration of Indian Independence in particular, the Tiger found a new set of cultural reson­ances aided by its residence within the Nehru Gallery. As Indian artefacts have become valuable and admired objects of art in their own right, the Tiger has acquired a new status both as a unique masterpiece and potentially the focus of nationalist repatriation campaigns. Such a move would involve yet another displacement and change in meaning resulting from a change in context. If achieved, although unlikely, such a displacement would invert the politics of the Tiger, reifying it not as a testament to a foreign threat triumphantly defeated but as an expression of ancestral identity, colonial resistance and nationalist independence. Whatever its fate, ultimately, the interest in Tipu’s Tiger is a testament to the complexity of curating empire and the act of looking.

Notes  1 Quoted in Ray Desmond, The India Museum 1801–1879 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 26.  2 ‘Tipu’ and ‘Srirangapatam’ are the accepted modern forms. However, the original variants (‘Tippoo’ and ‘Seringapatam’) are retained where used in quotations from original sources.  3 Mohammad Moienuddin, Sunset at Srirangapatam: After the Death of Tipu Sultan (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2000), p. 103. A crank handle in the shoulder of the Tiger, when turned, controls airflow to two sets of bellows; the first imitate the growls and shrieks, whilst the second supply a miniature organ of eighteen pipes, within the body of the Tiger. A set of ivory keys, accessed via a flap in the Tiger’s body, allows operation by hand. During the Second World War part of the staircase roof fell upon the Tiger, causing severe damage and leaving it broken into several

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hundred pieces. The repairs modified the mechanism so that the crank handle operated all the components of the organ. See Mildred Archer, Tippoo’s Tiger (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1959) for a musicologist’s description of the present mechanism and Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume, ‘Tipu’s Tiger – its history and description’, Music and Automata, 3:1 (1987), 21–31 and 3:2 (1987), 64–80.  4 On collecting Indian artefacts, see Maya Jasanoff, The Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East, 1750–1850 (London: Fourth Estate, 2005) and Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). For an indication of the range of artefacts involved, see Sotheby’s, The Tipu Sultan Col­ lection (London: Sotheby’s, 2005) and Anne Buddle, The Tiger and the Thistle: Tipu Sultan and the Scots in India, 1760–1800 (Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1999).  5 See Archer, Tipu’s Tiger; Susan Stronge, Tipu’s Tigers (London: Victoria and Albert Musuem, 2009); Davis, Lives of Indian Images; and Daljit Nagra, Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!! (London: Faber and Faber, 2011).  6 Stronge, Tipu’s Tigers, pp. 61–5.  7 Entry 212 in the original India Museum Accession Catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum. From personal correspondence with Graham Parlett, former curator of the Nehru Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum.  8 Ibid.  9 Arthur J. Arberry, The Library of the Indian Office: A Historical Sketch (London: India Office, 1938), p. 16. 10 Charles Knight, London Pictorially Illustrated, 6 vols (London: Charles Knight, 1841–44), vol. 5, p. 62. See also the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera (henceforth JJC), Museums 1 (39). 11 Knight, London Pictorially Illustrated, vol. 5, pp. 62–4. 12 ‘The India museum’, Athenæum, 5 June 1869, p. 766. 13 See Peter Vergo, The New Museology (London: Reaktion, 1989) and Michael J. Ettema, ‘History museums and the culture of materialism’, in Jo Blatti (ed.), Past Meets Present: Essays About Historic Interpretation and Public Audiences (London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), pp. 62–93. 14 Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989). 15 Knight, London Pictorially Illustrated, vol. 5, p. 64. 16 See Irfan Habib (ed.), Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernisation Under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (New Delhi: Tulika, 1999), and Kate Brittlebank, Tipu Sultan’s Search for Legitimacy: Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 17 Christoper Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (London: Longman, 1989), p. 114. 18 Advertisement, Morning Post and Gazetteer, 9 October 1799, p. 1. 19 JJC, Entertainments folder 7 (10). 20 Quoted in Richard D. Altick, The Shows of London: A Panoramic History of Exhibi­ tions, 1600–1862 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 135. 21 For an overview of the panorama’s developments, see Bernard Comment, The Panorama (London: Reaktion, 1999); Ralph Hyde, Panoramania: The Art and Enter­ tainment of the ‘All-Embracing’ View (London: Trefoil Publications, 1988); Stephen Oetterman, The Panorama: History of a Mass Medium, trans. Deborah Lucas Schneider (New York: Zone Books, 1997); and Altick, The Shows of London, pp. 128–210. 22 JJC, London Playbills folder 9 (10) and Trade in Prints and Scraps 8 (15a). 23 [M. Tussaud], Biographical and Descriptive Sketches of the Distinguished Characters which Compose the Unrivalled Exhibition of Madame Tussaud and Sons (London: G. Cole, 1847). 24 ‘Select letters of Tippoo Sultan; arranged and translated by Col William Kirkpatrick’, Edinburgh Review, 19 (1812), 363–73 and William Kirkpatrick (ed.), Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan to Various Public Functionaries, 2 vols (London: Black, Parry and Kingbury, 1811). 25 ‘Select letters of Tippoo Sultan’, Edinburgh Review, 363.

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26 Ibid., 365. 27 Ibid. 28 ‘Tippoo’s Tiger’, Penny Magazine, 15 August 1835, pp. 319–20. 29 Patricia Anderson, The Printed Image and the Transformation of Popular Culture, 1790–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 54 (emphasis added). 30 Scott Bennett, ‘Revolutions in thought: Serial publication and the mass market for reading’, in Joanne Shattock and Michael Wolff (eds), The Victorian Periodical Press, Samplings and Surroundings (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), pp. 225–57, p. 236. 31 Simon Schaffer, ‘Babbage’s dancer and the impresarios of mechanism’, in Francis Spufford and Jennifer S. Uglow (eds), Cultural Babbage: Technology, Time and Inven­ tion (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), pp. 53–80, p. 79. See also, Simon Schaffer, ‘Enlightened automata’, in William Clark, Jan Golinski, and Simon Schaffer (eds), The Sciences in Enlightened Europe (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 126–65. 32 ‘Tippoo’s Tiger’, Penny Magazine, pp. 319–20. 33 Knight, London Pictorially Illustrated, vol. 5, p. 64; John Keats, The Cap and Bells: Or, the Jealousies, stanza xxxvii, line 9. 34 ‘Battles of the British Army, no. VII. Seringapatam’, Illustrated London News, 14 April 1894, pp. 455–8. 35 George Henty, The Tiger of Mysore: A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib (London: Blackie and Son, 1895). 36 William Swainson, Animals in Menageries (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1830), pp. 101–2. 37 Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 29. 38 On hunting, see Joseph Sramek, ‘“Face him like a Briton”: Tiger hunting, imperialism, and British masculinity in colonial India, 1800–1875’, Victorian Studies, 48 (2006), 659–80 and John M. MacKenzie, The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conserva­ tion and British Imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988). 39 Archer, Tippoo’s Tiger, pp. 13–15; see Moienuddin, Sunset at Srirangapatam, p. 105, for a challenge to this position. 40 Ritvo, Animal Estate, p. 29. 41 For an image of the throne, see Anna Tonelli’s painting of 1800 in Stronge, Tipu’s tigers, p. 17. The painting is misleading as Tipu never ceremoniously occupied his throne. See also Moienuddin, Sunset at Srirangapatam, pp. 45–6. 42 Cited in Moienuddin, Sunset at Srirangapatam, p. 47. 43 On Indian tiger iconography and Tipu’s strategies of rule, see Brittlebank, Tipu Sul­ tan’s Search for Legitimacy. 44 Penny Cyclopaedia, 24 (1842), p. 440. 45 Veronica Murphy, Victoria and Albert Masterpieces: Tippoo’s Tiger (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1976). As early as 1937, the Churchman cigarette company issued a series of fifty collectable cards, which, when assembled, acted as a printed Treasure Trove of museum pieces (see Figure 10.1). 46 Habib Beary, ‘Tipu’s Sword back in Indian Hands’, 7 April 2004, http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3609205.stm [accessed 1 December 2010]. Significantly, Stronge, Tipu’s Tigers, does not discuss these shifts despite referencing other twentieth-century material. 47 All these items have been collected by the author between 2000 and 2010 from the Victoria and Albert Museum. 48 Mark V. Barrow Jr, Nature’s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009) and William H. Adams, Against Extinction: The Story of Conservation: The Past and Future of Conservation (London: Earthscan, 2004).

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Afterword

Objects, empire and museums Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Sarah Longair and John McAleer

This volume of essays has focused on the roles played by individuals, and the museums with which they were associated, in telling the multifaceted story of Britain’s engagement with the wider world. The examples explored in this collection have ranged widely in terms of chronology and geography. Discussions of how Britain’s imperial engagement informed and influenced displays of material culture in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century provincial Britain have sat alongside chapters that investigated the spread of the idea of museums to former colonies in the early twentieth century. The circumstances in which museums developed in post-colonial situations, in Africa and Oceania in particular, have also been scrutinised by many of the contributors. In all of these examples, curators were involved in presenting the varied and eclectic nature of Britain’s imperial present, or a version of its imperial past, to museum visitors. The principal interpretive devices that they used to accomplish this were objects – the two- and three-dimensional building blocks on which all museum narratives rest. In some instances, particularly in Britain itself, the nature of this imperial connection was explicit in the displays and exhibitions offered to visitors. Elsewhere, as museums developed in the context of a range of specific local circumstances, collections and their display were less overtly related to the history of the British imperial engagement with the region. Nevertheless, as the essays collected here have attested, the global sweep of British economic, political and cultural involvement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries meant that few exhibitions or displays were left untouched by prevailing ideas about the nature of empire. While such circumstances, and the exhibitions and museum displays they produced, may now themselves be history, the objects that [ 225 ]

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tell the story of those entangled imperial encounters still exist. In some cases, these objects are sequestered in smaller, local museums; often they form part of the broader collections held by major national museums. Wherever they are located, however, these objects and the changing interpretations they have been subject to over the inter­vening period clearly illustrate how the meanings of objects are modified and altered in response to external influences and changing political priorities. The process of understanding these shifting patterns highlights the fact that ‘curating empire’ is still a pertinent concern for museum professionals today. The British Museum and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich – the two national museums which provided the facilities and backdrop for the ‘Museums, material culture and the British Empire’ symposium in 2009 on which this volume is based – contain many examples of such objects in their collections. The final chapter in this book focused on Tipu’s Tiger, a single object associated with one individual. However, as Sadiah Qureshi has shown, the changing interpretations and locations of this object over the course of two centuries, together with the shifting currents of public opinion and perception, permit it to be used to illuminate the life and legacy of Tipu Sultan of Mysore, and his place in the public imagination in Britain. In a similar way, a figurehead in the collection of the National Maritime Museum can be seen to represent elements of the historical relationship between Britain and India, as outlined by Sadiah Qureshi in her analysis of Tipu’s extraordinary tiger. The figurehead in the National Maritime Museum (FHD0102) is made of wood, copper and iron, and was carved in India in the early nineteenth century, in the decades immediately following Tipu’s defeat in 1799. It first adorned HMS Seringapatam, a 46-gun Royal Navy warship launched at Bombay Dockyard in 1819. The vessel subsequently became a receiving ship in 1847 and, in 1852, it was repurposed as a coal hulk at the Cape of Good Hope, where it was eventually broken up in 1873. The delicate and fragile nature of the carving makes it unusual for a figurehead – these were usually very robust objects created specifically to withstand the buffeting they received on the prow of a large ship. Another mystery associated with the object is the identity of the seated figure holding an umbrella. Given the origin of the carving in India, and the nomenclature of the ship, it would seem highly likely that the figure represents Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore. He is shown riding a roc, a mythical bird of great strength. The upper part of the body is unclothed, like an elephant mahout, with the right arm raised to support a sun umbrella made of metal. The umbrella, normally borne by attendants, is both a practical accoutre[ 226 ]

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11.1  Figurehead of HMS Seringapatam.

ment and a symbol of the status of the person sheltered beneath it. As the ruler of an extensive empire in southern India until his defeat in 1799, Tipu was one of the best-known obstacles to the advance of Company power in India. Edmund Burke, heavily involved in the impeachment trial of the former governor-general of India, Warren Hastings, called Tipu ‘this Marcus Aurelius of the East’.1 Despite his [ 227 ]

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defeat, as Sadiah Qureshi showed, Tipu’s fame lived on. Thus, in the naming of the vessel on which the figurehead was placed, no less than the location in which it was constructed, the object can be seen as evidence of British imperial expansion in India in the period.2 The placement, in effigy, of a defeated rival on a naval vessel illustrates how Tipu’s biography was enveloped in a wider interpretation and projection of the advance of British power in the region. Just as his reputation as a merciless and bloodthirsty rival diminished in the early years of the nineteenth century, so his threat to British power was neutralised by the act of carving his likeness for use on a British vessel. Even as a piece of decorative art on a working ship, the carving operated as an ‘object’: encapsulating a vision of history and presenting it to those who looked at the carving. The meaning of the object has been transformed in its museum career. Originally part of a Royal Navy ship, the carving was preserved when Seringapatam was broken up in South Africa in the 1870s. The carving was then located at Fire Engine House in Devonport Dockyard until 1937. In that year, the Admiralty transferred the object, along with a number of other figureheads, to the newly opened National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. In 1999, the object formed part of the Museum’s ‘Trade and Empire’ gallery, which represented a new approach to telling the history of Britain’s imperial past and its contemporary legacies. Like many British museums, the National Maritime Museum has increasingly found itself needing to reflect changing attitudes to, and understandings of, the country’s place in the world. By the last decades of the twentieth century, there was a realisation that the role of the ‘maritime’ in British history needed to be recognised and reinterpreted for audiences that had not grown up with these assumptions. This was particularly the case in relation to the creation and sustaining of the empire. The entire museum was relaunched in 1999 with a suite of new galleries surrounding the glass-roofed ‘Neptune Court’, conceived in order to reflect the fact that, since the National Maritime Museum first opened its doors to the public three-quarters of a century earlier, ‘no other facet of national life [had] changed so radically as Britain’s relationship with the sea’.3 ‘Trade and Empire’ was one of the new displays. It explored the history of the empire, not just in relation to commerce and maritime power but also with reference to issues of post-colonial knowledge and identity formation. The gallery and its approach reflected new thinking about what was meant by ‘maritime’ history.4 The ‘Trade and Empire’ gallery was replaced by a new permanent gallery, ‘Atlantic Worlds’, in 2007 and the carving went into storage. In 2011, however, the figure embarked on a new chapter in its museum [ 228 ]

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11.2 Yoruba sculpture of Queen Victoria.

career, as part of a new permanent gallery exploring the history and legacy of the East India Company and Britain’s long economic and political relationship with Asia. In this context, the figurehead illustrates the Company’s struggle for power and territory in the Indian subcontinent. Representing a local, ‘Indian’ empire-builder, the object is contextualised as part of a late-eighteenth-century struggle between many contending forces for the upper hand in the subcontinent. The interpretation of the object looks at who Tipu was, how he was represented in Britain during the Anglo-Mysore wars, and how his legacy and commemoration have been used in the more recent past. The sculpture of Queen Victoria carved by a Yoruba sculptor in the late nineteenth century is another object which embodies colonial [ 229 ]

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relationships. It is a typical example of several such beguiling pieces to be found in museums across Britain and they have featured in a variety of displays and exhibitions in recent years which ‘curate empire’.5 Whereas the figurehead of Tipu was the work of an unnamed sculptor depicting an Indian ruler, this Yoruba artist created an image of ‘the Great White Queen’.6 These pieces, likely to be created by a variety of sculptors, were based upon photographs circulated at the time of the Golden Jubilee in 1887. British administrators displayed such images in offices and gave them to local rulers.7 Other copies of these Jubilee portrait photographs circulated unofficially. The artists show a great attention to the details visible in the photographs, including Victoria’s crown, multiple items of jewellery, the pronounced long sleeves and fabric of her robes. The long fingers elegantly hold her fan in front of her. In some versions of the sculpture, the fan became a kind of elongated hand. As the photograph did not show the Queen’s legs, the sculptor attended to this anatomical anomaly by carving shoes underneath the skirt. These sculptures followed the Yoruba carving tradition which does not seek to create a reproduction of the person, but a likeness. The most important part of the body, the head, is enlarged. The expression of the Queen is serene and calm, qualities Frank Willett highlights as important characteristics for a West African ruler.8 In the twentieth century, sculptures of Europeans in the Yoruba sculptural tradition, for example by the renowned Yoruba sculptor Thomas Ona, became very popular as tourist art. His depictions included British district officers at work and relaxing playing polo. It is generally agreed that the sculptures of Queen Victoria were intended to convey respect for the head of the British Empire rather than act as caricatures. The popularity of such works may have encouraged other artists to depict Europeans in different guises. Unlike many other colonial-era objects, these sculptures provide an important means for museums to display commentary by colonised peoples. They can be interpreted as satire – the Yoruba tradition of enlarging the head makes the stereotypical pith helmet even more ungainly. They can also symbolise empowerment – tourist art was a means of exploiting the willingness of European visitors to part with significant sums. In recent years these sculptures have been used to represent a variety of stories about empire. In London the Yoruba Queen Victoria sculptures were displayed in the Inventing New Britain: The Victorian Vision exhibition at the V&A in 1992 and the British Museum’s Views from Africa exhibition in 2005, a part of the ‘Africa 05’ celebration. These examples demonstrate just two of the contexts in which the sculptures can be interpreted – located within their historical or geo[ 230 ]

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graphical context. The instantly recognisable form of Queen ­Victoria, carved in this elegant and less familiar style, forms a particularly potent means to provoke new ways of looking at empire and opening the eyes of the museum visitor to the complexity of colonialism. The National Maritime Museum and the British Museum, together with a host of museums across world, have been intimately involved in ‘curating empire’, both explicitly and implicitly. Debate about how best to represent this history in museums is sure to continue long into the future. The objects discussed here, and the museums explored throughout this collection, illustrate how interpretations change and are changed over time as the process of ‘curating empire’ continues to preoccupy and fascinate curators and museum visitors alike.

Notes  1 Quoted in F. P. Lock, Edmund Burke: Volume II, 1784–1797 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), p. 362.  2 See Andrew Lambert, ‘Strategy, policy and shipbuilding: The Bombay Dockyard, the Indian Navy and imperial security in eastern seas, 1784–1869’, in H.V. Bowen, Margarette Lincoln and Nigel Rigby (eds), The Worlds of the East India Company (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002), pp. 137–51.  3 Roger Knight, ‘Making waves’, History Today, 4 (April 1999), 3–4, p. 3.  4 Margarette Lincoln and Nigel Rigby, ‘Reinventing maritime history’, History Today, 7 (July 2001), 2–3.  5 Inventing New Britain: The Victorian Vision at the V&A; Images from Africa at the British Museum; National Museums, Liverpool; and the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.  6 Neil Parsons, King Khama, Emperor Joe and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African Eyes (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. xvii.  7 Robert Brain, Art and Society in Africa (London: Longman, 1980), p. 114.  8 Frank Willett, African Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993), p. 213.

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Index Abdurahman, Muhammed 140 Accra 147, 149, 157, 161 Achimota College 147, 148, 149 Adelaide 89, 117 Aders, William Mansfield 125, 128 African Survey (1939) 139 Agassiz, Louis 96, 98 Aitken, Max (Lord Beaverbrook) 105 Allen, James 74 amaXhosa see Xhosa Angas, George French 21 Angas, S. F. 21 Anglo-Mysore Wars 207, 212, 213, 216, 229 Anthropological Institute of London 178, 180, 181 see also Royal Anthropological Institute, London anthropology 13, 38, 49, 58, 59, 74, 123, 126, 131, 169, 170, 176–83 anthropological museums 158 anthropological research 126, 127, 130, 139, 152, 171, 178, 179, 182 anthropometry 179, 180, 183, 186n.66, 187n.67 Anuradhapura 200 Anzac Day 108, 119n.9 Aperaniko, Rihipeti 73 Archaeological Survey of India 145, 193 archaeology 13, 43, 136, 152–4, 168, 195, 200–1 archaeological displays 43, 44, 154, 168 archaeological material 25, 43, 145, 146, 149 archaeological research 126, 130, 152, 154, 195, 196 Argus (Melbourne) 88, 106 Arkell, A. J. 154 Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester (1857) 28 Arundel Society 196–7

Ashmead-Bartlett, Ellis 106 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 2 Asiatic Society of Bengal 179, 206n.53 Astley, Philip 212 Athenæum 210 Auckland 63 Auckland Museum 64, 75 see also Partridge Collection audiences 11–32, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 63–4, 85, 196 see also visitors Austen, Jane 21 Australia 6, 8, 18, 21, 28, 61, 70, 82, 83, 89, 95, 97, 104–21 Australian Museum, Sydney 84, 96, 97 Australian War Memorial, Canberra 6, 12, 104–21, 124 Australian War Museum 108, 109 Australian War Records Section 107, 119n.17 automaton 215–16 Baines, Thomas 8, 17–36 Bantu Kinema Experiment, ­Tanganyika 133 Barnes, Sir Edward 193 Barnum, Phineas Taylor 82, 91, 100n.1 Barry, Redmond 96–7, 99 Bather, F. A. 28 Bean, C. E. W. 104, 105, 107, 108–11, 115, 116, 117 Beeckman, Daniel 19 Bell, Charles Davidson 20 Bell, Francis 170, 175, 182, 183 Bell, Harry Charles Purvis 195 Bengal 2, 179 Best, Elsdon 73 Blandowski, William 83, 86, 95, 97–9 Blyth, Edward 96 Bombay 194, 226

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index

Bombay Dockyard 226 Bombay Museum 184n.3 botany 3, 30, 171, 178, 193 botanical displays 18, 26 botanical gardens 19, 63, 92, 193 botanical research 91, 171, 178 botanical specimens 3 see also Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Braunholtz, Hermann 153–6 Brighton 7, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 49, 50 Brighton Dome 45 see also Royal Pavilion, Brighton Brighton Herald and Hove Chronicle 40, 41, 47, 48 Brighton Museum 12, 38, 42, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51 British Association for the Advancement of Science 22, 30–1, 186n.66 British Central Africa 149 British Council 158 British Museum 4, 27, 64, 127, 138, 153, 154, 178, 188, 190, 197, 203n.4, 226, 230, 231 British Museum (Natural History) 28, 90, 93, 170, 172, 174, 175, 178 see also Natural History Museum British West Africa 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 156, 157, 163 Brown, William 2 Buck, Peter 60, 76 Bullock, William 21, 27 Burke, Edmund 227 Burton, Frederic 190 Calcutta 96, 178, 194, 196 Cambridge Torres Strait Expedition 171, 180, 183 Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology see Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge Canada 6, 61

Canberra 104, 109, 110, 112, 114, 115 Canterbury Museum, Christchurch 25, 35n.83 Canterbury University College, Christchurch 56 Cape Colony, South Africa 28 Cape of Good Hope 226 Cape Town 17, 19, 20 Carnegie Corporation 143n.35, 149 Carnegie Foundation, New York 128, 132, 134 Carnegie Grant 129, 135, 138, 141, 165n.12 Carroll, James 60, 65, 66, 68 Catesby, Mark 19 Central Museum of West African Ethnology and Archaeology 151–2 Ceylon 172, 173, 174, 175, 188–204 see also Sri Lanka Ceylon Branch, Royal Asiatic Society (CBRAS) 193, 194, 195, 196 Ceylon Literary and Agricultural Society 193 Ceylon Literary Society 193 charity bazaars 41, 45–6, 47–8, 54n.61 China 25, 26 Christchurch, New Zealand 7, 68, 70 Clark, J. D. 135 Clarke, Louis 126, 129, 131 Coates, Gordon 76 Cole, Sir Henry 24 Colombo 5, 7, 188, 189, 193, 197, 201 Cinnamon Gardens 197 see also Military Medical Museum Colombo Museum 175, 188–206 Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London (1886) 32, 63, 186n.57 Colonial Development and Welfare Act (1940) 139, 140, 149, 152 Colonial Development and Welfare Fund 141, 149, 150, 151, 155 Colonial Museum, Wellington 57, 63, 67 see also Dominion Museum, Wellington

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Colonial Office 5, 63, 123, 139, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152–3, 154, 156, 163, 188 see also Foreign Office Colonial Research Fund 149, 150, 151, 155 Colosseum, London 21 Commonwealth Institute, London 202 see also Imperial Institute Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 181 Cornwall 171, 183 Coronation Exhibition, White City, London (1911) 71 Coryndon Museum, Nairobi 127, 135, 136 Cotes, Everard Charles 178 Cotton Tree Telephone Exchange, Freetown 145, 146, 160, 162, 167n.70 Creech Jones, Arthur 149, 150, 155, 163, 164 Crystal Palace 31, 68 see also Sydenham Dansey, Roger Ingram 74 Darwin, Charles 170, 171, 174 Darwin Museum, Shrewsbury School 127 Darwinism 89, 170, 171, 180 Davy, John 193 De Robillard, Victor 98, 99 Dendy, Arthur 170, 174, 175 Derby, Earl of see Smith-Stanley, Edward, 13th Earl of Derby; Stanley, Edward Henry, 15th Earl of Derby (Lord Stanley) Department of Antiquities, Nigeria 157, 166n.40 dioramas 14, 27, 105, 108–17 Disraeli, Benjamin 190 Dominion Museum, Wellington 67, 73, 76 see also Colonial Museum, Wellington Donne, T. E. 70, 74 Dublin 190, 191, 192

Duckworth, E. H. 148–9, 150, 163 Dutch East India Company ­(Vereenigde Oost-Indische ­Compagnie, VOC) 19, 202n.1 Easmon, M. C. F. 157, 159, 160, 161 East India Company 2, 203n.4, 207, 208, 212, 219, 229 East India House, London 207, 209, 210, 211, 221 Edinburgh Review 213 Edward VII 64 as Prince of Wales 189 Edward VIII, as Prince of Wales 71, 72, 75 Egypt 190 Egyptian Hall, London 21 Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa 149, 150, 165n.23, 166n.37 Empire Exhibition, Glasgow (1938) 32 Empire Exhibition, Johannesburg (1936) 32 Empire Exhibition, Wembley (1924– 25) 32, 57, 71, 73, 128 epigraphy 200 ethnography 13, 43, 66, 68, 73, 153, 154, 168, 179, 182–3, 197 ethnographic collections 2, 6, 9, 26, 38, 44, 48, 50, 83, 149 ethnographic displays 12, 43–5, 48, 71, 76 ethnographic expeditions 76, 179, 183 see also ethnology ethnology 26, 148, 150, 152, 158, 177, 178, 182 ethnological displays 25, 27, 179 ethnological research 76, 152, 153, 183 see also ethnography Eyo, Ekpo 157 Fabian Society Colonial Bureau 149, 150 Fagg, Bernard 154, 157, 166n.40

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index

Fagg, William 154 Festival of Empire, London (1911) 57, 70 First World War 44, 62–3, 74, 104, 105, 106, 118n.2, 119n.7, 123, 124 see also Great War Firth, Raymond 153 Flower, Sir William 1, 169, 170, 182 Foreign Office 5 see also Colonial Office Fortes, Meyer 150, 151 Fortescue, Sir John 105 fossil 14, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 97, 98, 172 Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone 159, 160, 162 France 108, 109 Freetown, Sierra Leone 7, 145, 146, 147, 153, 159, 162 French West Africa 151, 158 Fyers, Amelius 195 Gallipoli 106, 108, 119n.7, 119n.9 Galton, Francis 178, 180 Galway 189, 190, 199 Gambia, The 147, 153, 154, 164n.3 Gardiner, John Stanley 171 Gella, Yaro 157 Geological Society, London 92 George V 68, 71, 72 as Duke of York 62, 65, 68 Gerrard, Edward 92–3 Ghana 147, 157, 162 see also Gold Coast Gilbert, C. Webb 109 Gillman, C. A. 134 Gisborne Museum, New Zealand 158 Gluckman, Max 150 Gold Coast, The 147, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159 see also Ghana Goldschmidt, Paul 200 Goode, George Brown 22 Gore, W. J. 88 Gorsuch, Leslie 156 Gould, John 89–93

Grant Duff, Sir Mountstuart E. 171 Gravely, Frederic Henry 176 Gray, Asa 178 Gray, John 89–93 Gray, Sir John Milner 140 Great Exhibition, London (1851) 3, 28, 219 Great War 104, 105, 118n.2 see also First World War Greenwood, Thomas 21, 27 Gregory, Augusta (Persse), Lady 189 Gregory, Augustus 18 Gregory, Sir William 5, 10, 188–206 Günther, Albert 170, 172, 174, 177, 178 Gurney, John Henry 24 Haast, Julius 89, 98–9 Haddon, Alfred Cort 126, 171, 177, 179, 180 Haeckel, Ernst 171, 172 Haider Ali 217 see also Hyder Ali Hailey, Malcolm, Lord 150, 152, 153 haka 68 Hall, Sir Robert de Zouche 158–9, 163 Haly, Amvrald 175, 201, 206n.49 Hamilton, Augustus 65, 66, 67, 68 Hastings, Warren 2, 227 Havell, Ernest B. 171, 181 Hector, James 63, 64 Henare, Tau 71 Henderson, J. R. 171, 176 Henley Regatta 71 Henry, Joseph 11, 96 Henty, G. A. 216 Hibbert, J. G. 156 HMS Challenger 206n.49 HMS Seringapatam 226–8 Hollingsworth, L. W. 127–8 Hooker, Sir Joseph 91, 171 Hooker, Sir William 25, 26, 29, 30 Hughes, Billy 104, 106, 119n.7 Hull Society 22 Huxley, Julian 148, 150–3, 154, 155, 156, 164

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Huxley, Thomas 170, 205n.39 Hyder Ali 218 see also Haider Ali Ife bronzes 148, 150 Illustrated London News 35n.70, 216 Imperial Institute, London 178, 186n.57, 202, 219 see also Commonwealth Institute Imperial Museum, St Petersburg 96 Imperial War Museum, London 109, 124 India 2, 10, 13, 25, 28, 45, 46, 57, 123, 145, 169, 171, 172, 174, 178, 179, 181, 182–3, 192, 193, 195, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 215, 217–22, 226, 227–9 India Museum, London 219, 203n.4 India Office 219 Indian art 192, 208, 219–21, 222, 223n.4 Indian Civil Service 179 Indian diaspora communities 125, 131 Indian Institute, Oxford 198 Indian Museum, Calcutta 51n.5, 178, 206n.53 Indian museums 6, 8, 123 Indian nationalism 219–20, 222 Industrial Exhibition, Wellington (1885) 65 Ingrams, William Harold 127, 142n.30 Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) 149, 151, 152 Institute of West African Arts, Industries and Social Sciences (IWAAISS) 150, 151–2, 153, 155, 166n.37 International Exhibition, London (1862) 99 Ireland 177, 191, 192, 199–200

Kelaart, Edward Frederick 174, 194 Khan, Mirza Abu Taleb 2 King George V Memorial Museum, Dar es Salaam 134, 136 King’s College, London 170 King’s Lynn 7, 8, 17–36 Athenæum, King’s Lynn 18, 22–32 Stanley Library 24 Subscription Library 23, 24 Kirkpatrick, William 213–14 kiSwahili 126, 130, 133, 135 see also Swahili Knight, Charles 209, 211, 215, 216, 221 Krefft, Gerard 84, 96, 97–8, 99 Kup, A. P. 160

Jefferson, Thomas 6 Jocelyn, Robert, Lord 23

Lagos 147, 157, 161 Lankester, Ray 171, 182 lantern slides 31, 35–6n.87, 46, 181, 182 Lapicque, Louis 183 Law, Sir Charles 138 Layard, Austen Henry 190, 191, 202 Layard, Charles Edward 193 Layard, Edgar 203n.5, 204n.18 League of Nations 75 Leakey, Louis 136 lectures 89, 90, 125, 128, 132, 139, 172, 173, 178, 180, 181, 182, 197 Legge, William Vincent 195 Lincoln’s Inn, London 178 Lindauer, Gottfried 63 Linnean Society, London 92 Liverpool 2, 24, 33n.23 Liverpool museums 33n.23, 231n.5 Livingstone, David 18 Lobengula 18 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 128 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St Louis World’s Fair), St Louis (1904) 70 Lugard, Alfred, Lord 123 Lynch, Frank 116

Keats, John 216

MacCarthy, Sir Charles 194

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McCoy, Sir Frederick 5, 7, 8, 10, 82–103 McCray, George Gordon 86–7 McCubbin, Louis 109 MacDonald, Malcolm 148–9 McElderry, Samuel 128–9, 137–8 Macpherson, Sir John 155, 156 Madame Tussauds, London 213 Madras 7, 8, 178, 179, 181 Madras Census Report (1891) 178 Madras Medical College 173, 180 Madras Museum 7, 10, 168–87 Madras School of Art 181 Madras University 172, 182 Margai, Sir Milton 160, 161 Markham, S. F. 38, 125 mataatua (meeting house) 71, 72, 73, 74 Maugham, W. Somerset 17 Mauritius 98 Meinhard, Heiner 151–3 Melbourne 5, 8, 10, 70, 73, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89, 93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113 Botanical Gardens 92 Exhibition Building 108 National Gallery 92, 96 Observatory 92 Public Library 85, 92 University of 84, 97 see also National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne Menin Gate, Belgium 104 Meyerowitz, Eva 156 Meyerowitz, H. V. 148, 150, 153, 163 Miers, Sir Henry 125 Military Medical Museum, Colombo (MMM) 193, 194, 197, 204n.14, 204n.15 Möbius, Karl 173, 176 Moko, Pita 75 Monier-Williams, Sir Monier 198 Monson, William 156, 163 Mont St Quentin 105, 110, 112, 113, 115 Monuments and Relics Act, Sierra Leone (1967) 162

Monuments and Relics Commission, Sierra Leone 157, 159, 160, 161, 162 Monuments and Relics Ordinance, The Gold Coast (1945) 157 Monuments and Relics Ordinance, Sierra Leone (1946) 157 Mornington, Richard Wellesley, Earl of 208–9, 221 Mueller, Baron Ferdinand von 89, 91, 96 Müller, Edward 200 Munro, Sir Hector 217 Murchison, Sir Roderick 31, 84 Murray (river) 86, 97, 98 Murray, Kenneth 148, 149, 150, 153–4, 157, 163, 164, 166n.40 Musée de l’Homme, Paris 152 Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin 151 Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge 126 Museum of Science and Art, Dublin 190 see also National Museum of Ireland Museum Studies 13, 57, 76 Museums Association 16n.37, 28, 123, 125, 135 Museums Journal 131 Museums, Libraries and Archives Council 38 Myers, Charles S. 171, 180, 183 Mysore 211, 212, 216, 217, 218, 220, 226 Maharaja of 181 Mysore Wars see Anglo-Mysore Wars Naidu, Abhoy 171 Nairobi 127, 135, 136 National Gallery, London 148, 188, 190, 197, 203n.6 National Ma¯ori Museum 57, 65, 66 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich 4, 226, 231 National Museum of Ireland 191 see also Museum of Science and Art, Dublin

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National Museum of Sri Lanka 188, 189 see also Colombo Museum National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne 82–103 National Museum, Washington DC 22 Natural History Museum 17, 28 see also British Museum (Natural History) New South Wales 95, 97, 108, 205n.26 New York 128, 219 New Zealand 5, 6, 12, 21, 25, 46, 56–81, 97, 98, 158 New Zealand International Exhibition, Christchurch (1906) 68 Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society 21 newspapers 40, 60, 62, 64, 65, 70, 84–5, 88, 106, 107, 115 ¯ pirana 56, 60, 73, 76 Ngata, A Nga¯tai, Terei 64 Nicol Smith, Ailsa 5, 122–44 Nigeria 147, 148, 149, 150, 153–4, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 162 Ife 148, 149, 157 Jos 154, 157 Oceania 6, 13, 225 Ona, Thomas 230 Ortmann, Arnold Edward 171, 175 Oudh 2 Owen, Richard 87, 88, 89, 90–1, 97, 170 panoramas 213 Pantherion, London 27 Papakura, Maggie (Makereti) 68–70, 74 see also Staples-Brown, Margaret Papua New Guinea 126 Partridge Collection, Auckland 63, 79n.46 patu (club) 74 Peace Memorial Museum, Zanzibar 141n.2

see also Zanzibar Museum Peale, Charles Willson 19, 27, 32 Penang 126 Pene, Kereama 75 Penny Magazine 214, 215 Peradiniya, Royal Botanic Gardens 197 periodicals 35n.70, 62, 210, 213–16 Péronne 110 Philadelphia Museum 19, 27, 32 phonographs 182, 183, 187n.86 photographs 25, 39, 71, 73, 74, 108, 161, 179, 181, 182, 230 photography 25, 105, 107, 113, 126, 182, 193, 196 Pitt Rivers, Augustus Henry Lane Fox 43, 44, 52n.28 Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford 74, 151, 231n.5 Polynesian Society 66 Po¯mare, Ma¯ui 60 Porter, Sir Robert Ker 213 Pozières 114, 115–17 Prince Paul of Württemberg 95 Queen’s College, Belfast 84 Queensland 97 Rangachari, Kadambi 171, 182 Rangiuia, Tuahine 71 Rankine, Sir Richard 128, 129, 138 Ra¯tana, T. W. 74–5 Reeve, Lovell 89, 92, 93, 94 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 213 Rhodesia 126 Rhodes–Livingstone Institute, British Central Africa (RLI) 149 Rhodes–Livingstone Institute Museum 135, 149 Risley, Herbert Hope 179, 180 Rivers, William H. R. 171, 180, 183 Roberts, Charles 180 Robinson, Sir Hercules (1st Lord Rosmead) 191, 192, 193, 196, 201, 202 Robinson, Sir John Charles 190

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Roscoe, William 33n.23 Royal Albert Hall, London 54n.56 Royal Anthropological Institute, London 153, 154, 178, 180, 181 see also Anthropological Institute of London Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 91, 171, 180, 203n.4, 205n.39 Royal College of Physicians, London 170 Royal College of Surgeons, London 178 Royal Geographical Society 18, 30, 31 Royal Irish Academy, Dublin 190 Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope 20 Royal Pavilion, Brighton 38, 41 Royal Society 2, 93, 94, 185n.40 Royal United Services Institution 109 Ruskin, John 25 Second World War 123, 126, 149, 151, 152, 222n.3 Sedgwick, Adam 84 Selenka, Emil 171, 175 Senegal 149 Seringapatam 207, 213, 216, 222n.2 see also Srirangapatam Sierra Leone 145–9, 153–4, 157–64 Sierra Leone National Museum 146, 160, 161, 162 Sierra Leone Society 158, 159–61, 162 Sinclair, John 125, 126 Sirr, Henry Charles 192 Skerrett, Evaline (Iwa) 70, 71 Smith, Andrew 20, 21 Smith, S. Percy 66 Smither, James 197 Smithsonian Institution 11, 95, 96 Smith-Stanley, Edward, 13th Earl of Derby 24 Smyth, Charles Piazzi 20 Society for the Diffusion of Useful

Knowledge 215 Society of Antiquaries of London 206n.44 Society of Arts, London 25 Somme 110 South Africa 6, 17, 19, 20, 31, 46, 228 Frontier Wars 27, 28, 35n.70 South African Literary and Scientific Institution 19 South African Museum of Natural History 20 South African War (1899–1902) 62 South Australia 97 South Kensington Museum 24, 28, 73, 188, 190, 203n.4, 219 see also Victoria and Albert Museum Spurrier, Alfred Henry 122, 125, 126, 127–8, 130, 132, 137 Sri Lanka 188, 189 see also Ceylon Srirangapatam 207, 208, 212, 218, 222n.2 see also Seringapatam St Louis 70 St Pancras Station, London 70 Stafford, Cyril 87, 88–9 Stanley, Edward Henry, 15th Earl of Derby (Lord Stanley) 23, 24 Staples-Brown, Margaret 74 see also Maggie Papakura ­(Makereti) Steedman, Andrew 21 Stevenson, Sir Hubert 153 Stoneham Museum, Kenya 129 Swahili 125, 126, 127, 131 see also kiSwahili Sydenham 68 see also Crystal Palace Sydney 70, 73, 80n.84, 84, 97, 107, 109, 110, 111 Sydney Morning Herald 115 Taj Mahal 47 Tanganyika 133, 135, 158 taonga (cultural treasure) 59, 64, 65 Tate Gallery, London 148

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taxidermy 64, 92, 171, 199 taxonomy 172, 174, 176, 177 Te Rake, Hohepa 72, 74 Tennent, Sir James Emerson 192, 198 Thames 2, 71 theatre 21, 41, 46–7, 49, 213 Thiselton-Dyer, William Turner 171, 180, 182 Thomas, Northcote 152 Thunberg, Carl 19 Thurston, Sir Edgar 7, 8 10, 168–87 Tipu Sultan 13, 207, 209, 211–16, 217, 218–19, 220, 221, 222 Tipu’s Tiger 13, 207–24 Toms, Herbert S. 43, 44, 48, 49, 50 Torrington, George, Lord 192 Tower of London 209 Tradescant collection 2 Treaty of Versailles (1919) 117 Treaty of Waitangi (1840) 60, 63, 74 Tregear, Edward 62 Treloar, John 109, 110–11, 116, 119n.17, 119n.18, 121n.38 Trowell, Margaret 136 Twining, D. A. 116–17 Tylor, Edward Burnett 44

207, 208, 210–11, 219, 221–2, 225, 230, 231 see also audiences Ward, Sir Henry 194, 201 Washington DC 96 Waterloo, Battle of 109 Wellcome Medical Museum, London 128 Western Front 110 Whiteley, Gerald 153 Xhosa 28 Yoruba 229–30 Young Ma¯ori Party 56, 60 Zambezi 18, 30, 31 Zanzibar 5, 10, 12, 122–44 Zanzibar Museum 7, 10, 122–44 see also Peace Memorial Museum zoology 1, 18, 20, 85, 88, 89, 90, 170, 171–7, 179, 182, 193, 194

Uganda 136 UNESCO 156 University of Melbourne 84, 97 Uppsala, University of 19 Van Someren, Victor 135–6 Victoria (Queen of the United Kingdom) 229–30 Victoria, Australia 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99 Victoria and Albert Museum 190, 219, 230, 231n.5 see also South Kensington Museum Victoria Falls 18, 32n.5 visitor books 39, 51n.9, 52n.11, 63–4, 79n.47 Visitor Studies 37, 39 visitors 11–13, 37, 38, 39–40, 41, 50–1, 85, 174, 180, 201, 205n.34,

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