1998.267.265 Alfred Robinson with an early desk case display, Pitt Rivers MuseumThe many noteworthy events which reflect the development of museum anthropology at the University of Oxford and also the development of the Pitt Rivers Museum are listed in the yearly tables below. The tables cover from 1850 to 2013 (the final year of the Fell Fund project). For more information about events in Augustus Pitt-Rivers' life, see here.
The tables include events which had previously been made available via the ESRC-funded Relational Museum project website, the Rethinking Pitt-Rivers project and brand new information obtained during the lifetime of this project. Sources include annual reports, archival material, historical accounts of the university and its departments, biographies etc.
Note: From 1933-34 Annual Reports for the Museum changed from being reports for single years (albeit written in the succeeding year, and often with references to events within that following year) to annual reports for a split year, that is to say for the last half of one year and the beginning of the next. The exact cut-off month changes over time, but for most annual reports it appears to have been the end of July, that is--each annual report covers 1st August to 31 July). Because most events listed in the annual reports (which are written as narrative prose rather than in tabular format) are undated, it is not easy to be sure if things happened later in one year or early in the succeeding one. For that reason for this date on all events should be presumed to probably have happened in either UNLESS they are specifically dated from 1933 onwards.
Note that though this research project concentrates on the second half of the long nineteenth century (for this project defined as being 1850-1920), all of the available annual reports have been provided in full here, and events in all the years 1850-2013 have been summarised in year tables below. This is because this information will be very useful to lots of researchers working on the Museum's activities over a wider time-frame. Other parts of this website will look at the much shorter time-frame.
Before 1800 - 1800s - 1810s - 1820s - 1830s - 1840s
1850 - 1851 - 1852 - 1853 - 1854 - 1855 - 1856 - 1857 - 1858 - 1859
1860 - 1861 - 1862 - 1863 - 1864 - 1865 - 1866 - 1867 - 1868 - 1869
1870 - 1871 - 1872 - 1873 - 1874 - 1875 - 1876 - 1877 - 1878 - 1879
1880 - 1881 - 1882 - 1883 - 1884 - 1885 - 1886 - 1887 - 1888 - 1889
1890 - 1891 - 1892 - 1893 - 1894 - 1895 - 1896 - 1897 - 1898 - 1899
1900 - 1901 - 1902 - 1903 - 1904 - 1905 - 1906 - 1907 - 1908 - 1909
1910 - 1911 - 1912 - 1913 - 1914 - 1915 - 1916 - 1917 - 1918 - 1919
1920 - 1921 - 1922 - 1923 - 1924 - 1925 - 1926 - 1927 - 1928 - 1929
1930 - 1931 - 1932 - 1933 - 1934 - 1935 - 1936 - 1937 - 1938 - 1939
1940 - 1941 - 1942 - 1943 - 1944 - 1945 - 1946 - 1947 - 1948 - 1949
1950 - 1951 - 1952 - 1953 - 1954 - 1955 - 1956 - 1957 - 1958 - 1959
1960 - 1961 - 1962 - 1963 - 1964 - 1965 - 1966 - 1967 - 1968 - 1969
1970 - 1971 - 1972 - 1973 - 1974 - 1975 - 1976 - 1977 - 1978 - 1979
1980 - 1981 - 1982 - 1983 - 1984 - 1985 - 1986 - 1987 - 1988 - 1989
1990 - 1991 - 1992 - 1993 - 1994 - 1995 - 1996 - 1997 - 1998 - 1999
2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2009
