The Committee for the Pitt Rivers Museum, having received the annual reports for the years 1983-4, 1984-5 and 1985-6 from the Curator, presented them to Congregation.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PITT RIVERS MUSEUM, 1983-1984
The Committee met three times during the year, once in each term. For the fourth successive year the main topic for discussion was the new museum bui!ding and problems connected with it. At the end of the year under review the building had been completed for five years, but it had only recently become possible to consider moving museum specimens into it. Consideration was also given to the effects of various levels of retrenchment.
Professor Harrison, Vice-Chairman, was absent on sabbatical leave for the greater part of the year. Professor Kirkwood took the Chair for the Michaelmas and Hilary Term meetings.
Museum Matters
During the year the air-conditioning system, installed near the end of last year in part of the new museum building at 60, Banbury Road, was thoroughly tested under different climatic conditions and, after various adjustments had been made, proved satisfactory. Long-term repairs to the roof (serious defects in which were reported last year) were completed during the autumn. Other structural work arising from the Consultant's report—additional roof insulation in the flat-roofed area, double glazing of the roof lights in the modules, and cavity insulation of the east walls—was not finished until the spring or early summer of 1984, and since much of this had to be done from inside the building it was still not possible to mount any exhibition material.
In Trinity Term 1984, these works having been completed, the Committee decided that every effort should be made to open the new museum by 30 September 1985, the date of the Curator's retirement. The staff of the Museum, while recognizing the magnitude of such an undertaking in the fifteen months then remaining, were eager to make the attempt; and the Curator, on behalf of the Committee, applied to the General Board for some non-recurrent help, including two temporary technician posts.
There remained problems with humidity control in the flat-roofed area and with light levels which were unacceptably high in the exhibition cases, but it was thought that these could be resolved with departmental resources and a 50% grant towards the cost from the Museums and Galleries Commission. The control of light levels, however, was proving unexpectedly intractable.
General Pitt River's gift was finally accepted and the acceptance sealed in 1884; 1984 was therefore the Centenary year. A Centenary exhibition was opened in January, in the presence of the Vice-Chancellor and the Lord Mayor. It covered the General's career and his importance in the development of 19th century anthropology and archaeology, the forty-eight years in office of Henry Balfour, the growth of the collections and present collecting policy, teaching, the archive photograph collection, and the range of Museum activities. The Journal of the Anthropology Society of Oxford (JASO) devoted a large part of issue to the museum, and these articles with others were printed by JASO as a special Centenary volume, The General's Gift. A range of souvenirs—mugs, book-marks, pens and pencils, rubbers, note-pads - was added to the academic publications, leaflets and postcards already offered for sale. All were designed within the Department, as was exhibition poster.
The preparatory work initiated in the previous year for the formation of Friends of the Museum came to fruition in December when at a public meeting it was decided that Friends should be established. Steering Committee was formed and in March the Friends formerly came into existence at a second meeting with the adoption of a constitution. The guidance of Sir David Piper as Chairman during this period was greatly appreciated, as were the services of Mrs Sally Owen as Secretary and Mr George Wareing as Treasurer. By the end of the year the Friends had about sixty members. A programme of activiities included visits to the Centenary exhibition, the museum store, the conservation laboratory and the new building, and to Avebury, the latter conducted by Mr Britton.
Efforts in connection with raising funds for the opening of the new building and the endowment of a post for an Assistant Curator in Ethnomusicology were concentrated on making contacts, publicity and increasing local awareness of the Museum. The University engaged a fund-raising firm, Craigmyles, to report on the feasibility of the University sponsoring an appeal on behalf of the four University Museums, in which the Pitt Rivers would at first have had priority. A representative of the company visited the Museum and advised that the policy of laying a firm ground-work in public relations had been a sound one, and that direct approaches to potential donors should not, at that stage, be pressed.
The Museum's first series of concerts and (in conjunction with Wolfson College) of related ethnomusicology seminars, was arranged during Trinity Term to mark the Centenary year. At the Commonwealth Institute in London Dr La Rue took part (under the banner of the Museum) in two musical events, each lasting two to three weeks. In connection with these she gave several short broadcasts on B.B.C. Local and national radio and television. She also arranged music workshops at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford. Volunteers from the Friends led by Mrs Annelie Rookwood, began organizing activities for schools and the County Music Advisor offered co-operation. The first Museum 'trail' was devised for Saints Philip and James School's UNESC0 project, for which the school won the national first prize.
With the help of a grant from the Area Museum Service, the major task of re-storing the photographic archive in suitable materials was completed, metal racking was erected and the whole archive transferred to the new store. The air-conditioning system installed there has operated satisfactorily for a full year. The associated small visitors' room was brought into use and proved a valuable asset: visiting scholars can now work on Museum material in reasonable comfort and in adequately secure conditions.
As opportunity occurred, work continued on exhibitions in the upper gallery and on improving storage conditions. The old time-switch lighting of the Hawaiian feather cloak case was replaced by a more effective unit, and a new communication system between the head attendant's desk and the two galleries, the need for which had been felt for security reasons, was installed. The photography and measuring of all musical instruments stored in the upper gallery and the labelling of the cupboards with their contents was completed, as was a survey of donors and geographical areas. The help of three volunteers, Mrs Ruth Barnes, Miss Jacqueline Smith and Mr Michael Snoxall, is gratefully acknowledged. When time allowed further improvements were made to storage at the Old Power House.
Accessioning of recent acquisitions proceeded, and assistance with typing enabled the card index system to be brought further up to date. A project to establish a location index was initiated.
Mrs Edwards (Archivist and Librarian) and Ms Cheetham (Museum Assistant, Documentation) commenced preliminary planning of an exhibition of Chinese archive photographs to replace the Centenary exhibition at the end of I984.
Towards the end of the year, with the completion of much of the remedial work required, the centre of activity moved to the new building at 60, Banbury Road. Mr Morris, the display technician working on the archaeology exhibition, made his base there, using the facilities of the partially-equipped display-preparation and wood-working shops. Basic carpentry work on the first six display cases for archaeology was completed and progress was made with mounting in the first case, an introductory one which required much graphic and illustrative work. As far as possible material had been prepared in advance and items required from outside the Museum's own collection, such as photographs and casts, had been obtained. Mr Inskeep (Assistant Curator for archaeology) spent much time during the year on planning and preparation, and he and Mr Morris went to Cambridge to see the new archaeological exhibition in the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, a comparable undertaking to that of the Pitt Rivers Museum but provided with relatively lavish resources.
As a direct result of his work on this exhibition Mr Inskeep found it necessary to check and rebox the very large L.S.B. Leakey collection of artefacts from east Africa.
It was still not possible to install exhibits of any kind in the musical instrument exhibition. Advance planning of the cases, using drawings and photographs, continued; and colours for case background, indicating the subject divisions, were selected. Discussions were held with representatives of several firms supplying audio-visual aids, and a report was prepared. Shortly before the end of the year it became possible to make good the interiors of the cases and begin painting.
An I.B.M. electronic typewriter for labelling, a large dry-mounting press and a large guillotine were among the new equipment provided and they have been in frequent use.
In the Conservation section we welcomed the return of Mrs Birgitte Speake, the unestablished part-time technician, from the maternity leave which had left Miss J.S.Walker single-handed, in September. The major re-organization of textiles and clothing which was approaching completion at the end of last year, was finished. As a result this section is probably now in better order than any other except the musical instruments. The textiles were cleaned where necessary; examples stored elsewhere, but not exhibited, were incorporated; other related specimens, such as shoes, hats or bags, were brought into good order; and valuable experience in classification and terminology, which will be needed when records are put onto computer, was obtained. The operation was carried out by Miss Walker and Ms Williamson, who was in charge of records. Though storage conditions for textiles are far from perfect, they are now probably as good as they can be with resources and space available, and this collection is now accessible for research as never before. Because of the inadequate staffing level Miss Walker, in addition to being the only established conservator, is in charge of the reserve textile collection.
Apart from this Miss Walker's time was largely taken up with routine environmental checks in the various buildings, conservation specimens required for the Centenary exhibition and for the exhibition planned for the new museum, and emergency treatment of pieces found to be in immediate danger of loss or serious deterioration. As reported in previous years, no systematic long-term conservation programme is possible; nor will it be until the conservation section is considerably strengthened.
Venetian blinds were fitted to the windows of the textile store to reduce exposure to light, and security of the windows of the intake room in the same building was improved.
Some further work was done on the fumigation chamber, including the fitting of a purpose-made control panel, but the chamber remains out of use.
Once again we thank the members of N.A.D.F.A.S. (National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies) for their help in the Conservation laboratory. Their main activity has been the cleaning and treatment of specimens for exhibition and of material removed from the basement of the Examination Schools, where it was formerly stored in quite unsuitable conditions.
Five items from the Huron, Chippewa and Iroquois Indians were lent to the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The Photographer (Mr Narracott) had a busy year. He produced 139 mounted prints for the Centenary exhibition and continued the photographic recording of the musical instrument collection and of new accessions. A beginning was made with the essential copying of archive photographs. There were 66 outside orders, and he made 593 slides, fourteen 5" x 4" transparencies and 4,672 black-and-white prints. These figures show a considerable increase on the previous year.
The public attendance figure for the year was 36,283, a reduction of about 3,000 on the previous year. Fewer school parties took advantage of the facility of visiting the museum, by arrangement, in the mornings, which probably reflects retrenchments enforced on them.
The Balfour Library
Demand on library resources continued to increase during the year, particularly in the sphere of specialist enquiries. Rises in costs, particularly of anthropological books, have inevitably made inroads on the library's slender budget; this is reflected in the marked drop in the number of books accessioned this year. The library is also having to reassess some of its journal commitments in the light of important new journal titles which have appeared recently.
Work on the reclassification continues at a steady rate. The reclassification of books on technology and material culture has been completed, but work on religion and folklore was held up by the further delay in the publication of Bliss Bibliographic Classification Class K (Society). In those sections already reclassified the more logical arrangement of material and the subject index have led to more tborough use of the available literature.
The following were accessioned during the year: books, 255; pamphlets and sheets, 81; periodical parts, 364. The library is receiving a further three titles by subscription, one subscription was cancelled and one title ceased publication. The total of new readers registered was 153, and 2297 loans were recorded.
The year saw a further increase in demand on the archive collections, demand which has increased about five-fold over the last four or five years and is consuming an ever-growing proportion of staff time. The cataloguing of the collections continued throughout the year and slow progress was made. Work on two major photographic collections was completed, and documentation work on another is well under way. About 400 photographs and miscellaneous manuscripts were accessioned in the course of the year. The move to the new store also revealed a considerable body of unaccessioned photographic material which is now being accessioned and assimilated into the collection time allows.
Our thanks are again due to Mr S. Bach, who continues his invaluable voluntary work cataloguing Miss B. Blackwood's papers, and to Miss R. van Buskirk for work on the Rattray collection.
The library gratefully acknowledges a grant of £169 from the Inter-Faculty Committee for Latin American Studies for the purchase of books in that field. The library was also very grateful to receive gifts from the following: Prof. M.A. Ames, Ashmolean Museum, Dr A. Barnard, Mr A.C. Credland, Dr A.J. Colson, Mrs E. Ettlinger, Mr A. Evan, Mr H. Gunstone, Mrs Hewlitt Pitt, Dr S. Jones, Mrs Kuhn, Latin American Centre (St Antony's College), Museum of the History of Science, Mr D.R. Simmons.
Publications
Sales and exchanges of Occasional Papers and Monographs amouned to 432; of other publications to 405; and of postcards to 8658.
During the Centenary year, The General's Gift, a selection of articles about the museum (past, present and future) produced under the auspices of JASO, went on sale.
Sales of souvenirs totalled 1854 and the accounts showed a modest but encouraging profit.
Staff
We congratulate Dr D.A. Roe on the award of the D.Litt. degree. During the year Ms L.B. Williamson (Museum Assistant, Documentation) resigned to take up a post in the United States, and Mr R. Murphy (Technician) accepted a full-time post with A.S.T.M.S. We wish them both success. Ms L.M. Cheetham took up duty as Museum Assistant. Mr W.H. Smith, Mr H.J.L. Walker and Mr A.S. Brown retired as attendants and Mr J.M. Simmons and Mr W. Ainscough joined the staff.
Mrs E.J.M. Edwards (Balfour Librarian) was regraded R.S.IB with the title 'Archivist and Balfour Librarian'. She served as secretary of the Working party on the Cataloguing and Indexing of Ethnographic Photographs and as archival photograph consultant for Central Television's series 'Natives'.
Mr R.R. Inskeep (Assistant Curator) continued as a member of the Editorial Board of World Archaeology.
Dr Schuyler Jones (University Lecturer in Ethnology and Assistant Curator) was invited to present a paper at the Sixth International Symposium on Asian Studies, held in Hong Kong. He followed this with extensive travel in China.
Dr H.T.A.M. La Rue (temporary Assistant Curator for Ethnomusicology) continued to edit the CIMCIM Newsletter.
Dr D.A. Roe again visited Kenya and Tanzania to collaborate with Dr Mary Leakey and to study Early Stone Age material and sites. He lectured at University College, Cardiff, and gave public lectures in Oxford and Cambridge. He also served on the Editorial Boards of World Archaeology and Quarterly Review of Archaeology, on the Advisory Board of L'Anthropologie, and on the Archaeology and Numismatics Advisory Committee of the National Museum of Wales.
The following publications by members of the staff appeared during the year:
Cranstone, B.A.L. I984(a). 'The Pitt Rivers Museum: past, present and future', Museum Ethnographers' Group Newsletter, 16.
--------1984(b). 'The Pitt Rivers Museum in 1983' in The General's Gift, ed. B.A.L. Cranstone and Steven Seidenberg (JASO,, Oxford.)
Edwards, E.J.M. I984(a) 'Pitt Rivers photographic archives: a progress report', Museum Ethnographers' Group Newsletter, 16.
-------1984(b). 'Collecting with a camera' in The General's Gift, ed. B.A.L. Cranstone and Steven Seidenberg (JASO, Oxford).
-------- 1984 (C). 'The Balfour Library', Libraries Bulletin, 40 (Hilary Term).
La Rue, Helene. 1984 (a) 'The musical instrument collections in the Pitt Rivers Museum', Museum Ethnographers' Group Newsletter, 16.
--------1984(b)'The "Natural history" of a musical instruments collection' in The General's Gift, ed. B.A.L. Cranstone and Steven Seidernberg (JASO, Oxford).
-------- 1984(C). 'The first hundred years', The Ashmolean, 5.
Roe, D.A. 1983. 'The Lower and Middle Palaeolithic of Britain with particular reference to the penultimate Glaciation', in Decouvertes recentes de Palaeolithique inferieur et moyen en Europe du Nord-Ouest, ed. I. Cahen (Studia Praehistorica Belgica, 3, Tervuren).
-------- 1984(a). 'Old Stone Age Finds in the Stour Valley', in Hoath and Herne, the Last of the Forest, ed. K.H. McIntosh and E. Gough (Canterbury).
-------- 1984(b). 'Two European Middle Pleistocene sites and their significance', Quarterly Review of Archaeology, 5, no.2.
Walker, Sue and Williamson Lynne. 1984. 'Reorganization of the Pitt Rivers Museum textile storage', Museum Ethnographers' Group Newsletter, 16.
Williamson, Lynne. 1984. 'Documentation in the Pitt Rivers Museum', Museum Ethnographers' Group Newsletter, 16.
Teaching
The Proposals, reported last year as having been submitted to the Anthropology and Geography Faculty Board, for a new M.St. degree in Ethnology and Prehistory (retitled 'Anthropological Archaeology') and for the inclusion of teaching in the duties of curatorial staff, were approved by the University.
Student Numbers
...
Total 5 13
Two candidates (one M.Litt. and one D.Phil) were successful.
The Donald Baden-Powell Quaternary Research Centre
The Centre again had a busy year, with a slight increase (to 138) in the number of academic visitors. Several successful 'day schools' on flint implements were run by research students for the Department of External Studies, and other functions for specific groups were arranged. A particularly welcome visitor was Mr Francis Baden-Powell, whose benefaction made the establishment of the centre possible.
The conversion of a room on the top floor into a dark room (using departmental resources) was begun, but lack of funds prevented any significant addition to the Centre's research equipment. At the end of the year it seemed that improvement of the very unsatisfactory telephone system was near.
The staff consists of one attendant-cleaner, with consequent waste of academic time in answering the door and the telephone and supervising visitors to the reserve archaeological collections. The help of students at the Centre should be acknowledged.
Donations
Dr N.J. Allen: a small ethnograpical collection from Nepal. Anonymous (per Dr H.S. Green, National Museum of Wales): a pot from Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. Mr F.H. Bateman: a serrated thatcher's hook from the Otmoor district, Oxfordshire. Mrs P.Bradford: a cmall ethnographical collection, mostly pottery. Mr A.S. Brown: an embroidered waistcoat from a village near Tripoll, Libya, purchased in 1943. Dr M.J. Hitchcock: a musical instrument from Bima, Sumbawa, Indonesia. Mrs Rachel Hood: about 45 items of clothing collected in Turkey, Palestine, Syria and Egypt immediately before and after the 1914-18 war. Mr R.R. Inskeep: a cast of a biface stone implement from the Swartkrans site, South Africa. Mr 1. Jack: a wood mask of the Ekpo society, from the Annang of Nigeria. Mrs M. Kuhn: six pieces of traditional embroidery from Poland. Mrs Hewitt Pitt: thirteen items of clothing and two musical instruments obtained by Sir Armine Dew on the North-West Frontier in the1920s. Ms Marianne Schrimpff: a collection of textiles from Colombia, mostly obtained about 1965 and 1966. Thames Valley Police (per Inspector Nigel Lambert): eight fire-arms and a humane killer. Mrs W.R. West: two conical ceremonial food covers, of velvet-covered vegetable fibre. from Teluk Anson. Perak, Malaya.
Purchases
Mr L.van Bussel: three carved wood fishing-net floats from New Britain. Mr J. Gillow: seventeen ethnographical items, mainly textiles from India and Afghanistan. Mr P.S.C. Parkes: twelve items of clothing from the Kalasha of Chitral, Pakistan. Mr G. Reece: twenty-eight items, most of wood and including tomb and door panels, from Nuristan, Afghanistan (the door panels purchased with the aid of a grant from the Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund). Mr J.D. Webb: a small ethnographical collection from Mienchow, Sze-Chwan, China, formed between 1907 and 1927.
