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George Rolleston from his wikipedia articleGeorge Rolleston from his wikipedia articleGeorge Rolleston papers

The Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford) holds a large archive of correspondence and working papers from George Rolleston which were transferred to it from the Oxford University Museum in 1886 as part of a larger reorganization of University collections.

We are very grateful to the Ashmolean Museum for allowing us to place these transcriptions on this website and wish to thank Alison Roberts in particular for her help in this matter. We are also grateful to Alice Stevenson who catalogued the Rolleston manuscripts for the Ashmolean Museum.

The transcriptions were done as part of the Scoping Museum Anthropology project, they are rough transcriptions and many words were illegible (George Rolleston's handwriting is very difficult to read). All scholars are recommended to contact the Ashmolean Museum to see the original manuscripts before using these transcriptions in their own work.

A full catalogue of the Rolleston papers held by the Ashmolean Museum has been prepared, and is available here. Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you wish to see any of the material. 

Transcriptions of relevant correspondence etc from the Ashmolean Rolleston papers relating to anthropology, ethnographic specimens etc

General Rolleston notes (and some correspondence): GR/1/4; GR/B/1; GR/B/4; GR/B/5; GR/B/6 [except GR/B/6/6 which is given separately below]

Displays of crania and objects, Oxford University Museum at unknown date. [Zoological collections, OUMNH]Displays of crania and objects, Oxford University Museum at unknown date. [Zoological collections, OUMNH]

GR/B/6/6 Rolleston correspondence and notes relating to W.G. Lawes, S.J Whitmee, and Joseph King (all missionaries) and T.H.T. Hopkins

Short biographies of:

William George Lawes

Samuel James Whitmee

Joseph King

T.H.T. Hopkins

GR/A/1, GR/A/2, GR/A/3 Rolleston correspondence (arranged by senders' surnames A-Z)

GR/A/2 Henry Nottidge Moseley's correspondence to Rolleston, including letters from HMS Challenger

See here for transcriptions of Rolleston and Pitt-Rivers' correpondence

See here for an account of a jawbone examined by Tylor and Rolleston in March 1881 in Nice

If you wish to arrange to see the originals or to discuss the content further then please contact the Department of Antiquities at  Tel: +44 (0)1865 278020 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you would like to know more about the image of the crania display from the Oxford University Museum, please contact Malgosia Nowak-Kemp at the Zoological Collections, Oxford University Museum of Natural History.


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Supported by the John Fell OUP Research Fund

 

(c) 2012 Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford