COMMITTEE FOR THE PITT RIVERS MUSEUM
Annual Report for the year 1977-8
The Committee, having received the following Report from the Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, presents it as its Report to Congregation. The Committee met three times during the year, once in each term. The principal business was to discuss the progress of Stage 1 of the new museum, and matters connected with the staff of the museum and with proposals or requests for loans.
Staff
The contract with the Area Museum Service for South Eastern England under which Mrs. C. Bennetts was employed as Conservation Officer expired and was not renewed owing to difficulty in agreeing terms satisfactory to the Area Museum Service and to the University. Mrs. Bennetts ceased work in April. No work is now undertaken on a formal basis for other museums. Two technicians were appointed to fill the new posts established during the previous year: Miss L. Westrop specializes in design and exhibition work, and Mr. M.A. Munsch in carpentry and the care of the reserve collections at the Old Power House. Mr. W.R. Orledge and Mr. A.G. Crocker began duty as attendants. Mr Arthur Russell retired.
Museum Matters
Requirements connected with Health and Safety legislation have become matters for concern during the year. The Museum, the Balfour Library, and the administrative offices, like many buildings of their period, lack alternative escape routes. The only access to the galleries of the exhibition court is by a stone staircase, and work on an external iron fire escape which was to have been installed by the end of March has not begun because of planning difficulties. The closure of these galleries, at least to parties of school-children if not to the general public, must soon be considered. The liability of the University to lenders or depositors has also come under examination. It is the policy of the Museum that loans are not normally accepted, because of the administrative problems involved; but exceptions must sometimes be made.
Some technicians have now been given responsibility for defined sections of the collections in addition to their specialized duties, a change which became possible when the two additional posts were established. A great deal of flexibility is still required by them, and is willingly accepted, but it should now be easier for them to become interested in, and knowledgeable about, specialist subjects or areas. In this connection a course of lectures for the staff on basic technology has been given.
The efforts of the Conservation section have been devoted mainly to reducing a considerable accumulation of work started but not completed. By the time Mrs. Bennetts left in April all outstanding work for the Area Museums Service had been finished and returned. Conservation records have been reorganized and simplified. The help of volunteers from the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies in cleaning and simple treatment is again gratefully acknowledged.
Experiments have been carried out (on the initiative of Dr. D.F. Shaw, C.B.E., Keeper of Scientific Books, Radcliffe Science Library) to establish whether the fumigation chamber could be adapted for the use of ethylene oxide instead of methyl bromide, the former being ad effective fungicide as well as a pesticide and therefore more appropriate for the fumigation of books as well as of museum specimens.
The inadequacy of the Conservation Section for the care of a collection of the size and quality of the Pitt Rivers Museum was emphasized last year and demands reiteration. In a year during which the world record price of ethnographical specimen reached £250,000, the present conservation strength of one technician and a part-time assistant seems ludicrous in purely financial terms, apart from the scientific importance of collections which can never be replaced and are in many instances unique.
A number of loans have been made or agreed to during the year. The only one overseas was of five pieces from the Forster Collection, formed on Captain Cook’s second voyage, to the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu for the bi-centenary celebrations of Cook’s discovery of Hawaii. In accordance with museum policy all expenses, including those of the Curator to escort the specimens, were paid by the borrower.
Work has continued on the re-arrangement or refurbishing of exhibitions in the museum and on the reserve collections at the Old Power House.
New Museum
The building of Stage 1 of the new museum at the 60 Banbury Road site was completed during the year, and the design and location of exhibition cases were agreed with the Surveyor. Landscaping of the front, which was planned for the early summer of 1978, had to be deferred.
Visitors
Students and research workers have been given access to the collections as freely as circumstances have allowed, and the museum continues to provide as a service to the public the identification of items submitted and the provision of information about them. Visitors to the public exhibition totalled 29,378, including organized visits from 225 schools and societies. Particularly welcome was a party from the Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. It is a matter for regret that because of staff difficulties the public can be admitted to the exhibitions only between 2 and 4 p.m. On weekdays; but organized parties are admitted between 10 a.m. And 12 noon by appointment.
The Donald Baden-Powell Quaternary Research Centre
The Centre, under the Honorary Directorship of Dr. D.A. Roe, had an active and successful year, disturbed but not disrupted by; building operations. About 80 academic visitors were received, including an international group in connection with the I.M.Q.U.A. Meeting at Birmingham.
Swan Fund
The purpose of the Swan Fund is to encourage research connected with the small peoples of Africa, e.g. Bushmen and Pygmies (Ch. IX, Sect, 1, § 255 - Statutes, 1980, p. 598). The number of deserving applications has again made it impossible to grant all of them in full, but grants made have in some cases enabled projects to proceed which otherwise might have had to be abandoned.
Staff Activities
Members of the Departmental staff have undertaken commitments beyond their statutory duties as follows:
Dr. A.J. Butt Colson (University Lecturer in Ethnology) attended a symposium on ‘Amazonia: Extinction or Survival?’ held at Wisconsin University; arranged (with Mr. J.D. Collinson) a series of six seminars on ‘Innovators or Innovations hat have changed Society’; and continued field research in Venezuela (financed by S.S.R.C.) for two months in August and September 1977.
Mr. B.A.L. Cranstone (Curator) served as a member of Council and of the Library Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute, as a Trustee of the Emslie Horniman Anthropological Scholarship Fund, and as a tutor for the Diploma of the Museums Association. When returning from escorting museum specimens on loan to the B.P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, he spent four weeks visiting United States ethnographical museums.
Mr. R.R. Inskeep (Assistant Curator) was elected an Honorary Life Member of the South Africa Archaeological Society. He served on the Executive Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, on the Council of the Prehistoric Society of Great Britain, on the Editorial Board of World Archaeology, and on the Executive Committee of the Area Museums Service for South Eastern England.
Dr. D.A. Roe (University Lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology) was elected to Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries. In 1977 he visited Swaziland and Cape Province, Republic of South Africa, working with the Swaziland Archaeological Project, studying material, visiting sites, and lecturing at Stellenbosch and Cape Town Universities. He organized a day school on prehistoric flint implements for the External Studies Department and lectured to various university and local societies and to schools. He also continued as a member of two of the Department of the Environment’s Area Archaeological Advisory Committees, and of the Editorial Board of World Archaeology.
Staff Publications
Colson, A.B. 1977 ‘A study of social change and the emergence of religious cults among Venezuelan Indians’ (Report to Social Science Research Council).
Roe, D.A. 1977 ‘Fordwich and Sturry’ in INQUA Guidebook for Excursion A5 (South-East England and the Thames Valley), ed. D.Q. Bowen.
----- 1977 ‘Hlalakale Early Stone Age site (Acheuliam)’ in Hlalakale/Kugika:Stone Age Sites in North Western Swaziland, ed. D. Price Williams and N.G. Lindsey (London: City University).
----- 1978. Foreword to Paleoecology and Archaeology of an Acheulian Site at Caddington (Dallas: Southern Methodist University).
----- 1978. (With a contribution by J.J. Wymer) A survey of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Periods in Berkshire) Berkshire Archaeological Society, Occ. Pap.1)
Balfour Library
The following were accessioned during the year: books, 252; periodical parts, 395; pamphlets and sheets, 273; theses, 2. Books sent for binding totalled 112. There were 142 new readers, about 300 readers in all used the library, and 1,667 issues were recorded.
A Grant of £60 from the Inter-faculty Committee for Latin American Studies for the purchase of books is gratefully acknowledged.
Our thanks are due to Mr. Jamers Craig and to Mr. Stephen Bach for valuable voluntary assistance. Mr. Craig has completed the cataloguing of the photographic collection and Mr. Bach has continued cataloguing the archival material.
Direct purchase of periodicals was taken over from the agents during the year and a new periodicals accessioning system initiated. Work began on a new classification system for the Library to enable it more adequately to meet the needs of modern teaching and research.
Gifts or transfers to the Library from the following are gratefully acknowledge: Ashmolean Museum, Ashmolean Natural History Society, Professor E. Bassani, Dr.J.H.M.
Beattie, Dr. J.B. Campbell, Dr. A.J. Colson, Mr. B.A.L. Cranstone, Mr. A.L. Crawford, Mrs. E. Ettlinger, Mr. B.E.B. Fagg, Mr. E.C. Freeston, Mrs. R.K. Hanner, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Dr. H.D. Israel, Dr. S. Jones, Mrs. Kuhn, Mr. S.de Lotbinere, Dr. R.J. May, Dr. Novotny, Dr. K.P. Oakley, Miss A. Osborn, the late Mr. T.K. Penniman, Dr. Hans Peter, Mr. G.E.S. Turner, University Museum.
Publications
J.R. Bockstoce, Eskimos of Northwest Alaska in the Early Nineteenth Century, was published during the year as the first of the new Monograph Series. The following were reprinted: H.H. Coghlan, Notes on Prehistoric and Early Iron in the Old World (revised edition): Beatrice Blackwood, The Origin and Development of the Pitt Rivers Museum; and A Memoir of General Pitt Rivers. Sales and exchanges of Occasional Papers and Monographs together amounted to 1,063; of offprints and catalogues, to 574; and of postcards, to 8.788.
Student Numbers
...
Two of the Diploma candidates were successful. One D.Phil. In Prehistoric Archaeology was awarded.
Donations
The following gifts are gratefully acknowledged: Dr. D. Alexander: a coil of red feather money from the Santa Cruz group, Melanesia Mr. F. Baden-Powell: three boomerangs and a French one-litre measure Mrs. D.M. Bourdas: an ethnographical collection from Manipur Mr. P.A. Cartledge: a mask from the Bapende of Zaire Mr. M. Chambers: an archaeological collection including eccentric flints from British Honduras, and an ivory bracelet from Nigeria. Dr. A.J. Colson: a ‘wife-catcher’ from Venezuela Mr. J.R. Colson: a cassava sifter from Guyana and a vegetable-fibre hat from Tunisia. Colonel J.R.G.N. Evelegh: an Ashanti stook believed to be the personal stool of King Kofi of Ashanti and formerly the property of Sir Garnet Wolsely. Dr. D.B. Harden, C.B.E.: A collection of pottery from Portugal, U.S.A., and Tunisia. Miss J. Hopkins: an ethnographical collection from various localities of west and north-west Africa. Mr. A.L.E.H. Hottot: two feather-covered hats from Annam or Cambodia Mrs. C.J. Kennington: five Ashanti drums Dr. K.P. Oakley: a small collection of archaeological specimens from various sites Bequeathed by the late Mrs. I.M.M. Parmiter: two Inca pottery vessels Sir Philip and Lady Rogers: a piece of decorated barkcloth from Fiji Mrs. P. Schiele: a pair of shoes from Greek Thrace Yasunori Shomua: a charm from a temple in Nagoya, Japan Dr. M. Wenzel: two wooden locks and a key from Nubia.
Purchases
From Mrs. Jean Brown: a large ethnographical collection from the pastoral Pokot of Kenya, with full supporting documentation From Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods: two carved shields from the Lumi district and one from Telefomin, Papua, New Guinea From Miss Judy Hopkins: two ivory trumpets, two brass figures, and a wooden stook from Nigeria and Ghana, and four pieces of Mauretanian pottery.
