Events in the history of the Pitt Rivers Museum that took place in 1938.
Readers are reminded that this table is a work in progress and may be amended or added to at any time.
| Month | Day | Event | Source of Information | Notes |
| January | No day | Heinrich Meinhard, a German refugee, starts work at the museum. He had been previously at Berlin Museum, he catalogues accessions. his work paid by Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. | Relational Museum timelines/Annual Report 1937-38 | |
| January | No day | Balfour cannot walk and was in constant pain | RGS correspondence, 4 January 1938 | |
| February | ||||
| March | ||||
| April | No day | Beatrice Blackwood returns from fieldwork in New Guinea | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Report 1937-38; Frances Larson pers comm. | |
| April | No day | Balfour undergoing treatment at Droitwich Spa | RGS correspondence, 18 April and 20 May 1938 | |
| May | No day | Balfour undergoing treatment at Droitwich Spa | RGS correspondence, 18 April and 20 May 1938; PRM ms collections Blackwood papers General Correspondence M-S, letter to F. Speiser, 7 May 1938 | |
| May | 27 | Balfour's wife Edith dies | Frances Larson pers comm | |
| June | 10 | Last meeting of Committee for Anthropology held. J.L. Myers who had been its first secretary in 1905, was the Chair for the last meeting | Peter Rivière; OUA: DC1/1/2, 26 November 1937, 4 March 1938, 10 June 1938; OUG 1937-38: 969 | |
| July | No day | Blackwood attends Second International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences at Copenhagen ... where she read a paper on ‘African Cranial Deformation in New Britain’. | Annual Report 1937-38 | |
| July | 28 | Balfour suffering acute leg pain and malaria | PRM ms collections Blackwood papers general correspondence A-D Balfour to Blackwood 27 July 1938 | |
| August | No day | Blackwood attends International Congress in Copenhagen in Balfour's stead and gives paper on head deformation among the Arawe, she visits museums in Denmark, Sweden and Norway | Frances Larson pers comm; PRM ms collections Blackwood papers General Correspondence A-D, letter from Balfour, 27 July 1938 | |
| September | No day | Blackwood continues travels in Scandinavia | Frances Larson pers comm | |
| October | No day | Faculty of Anthropology and Geography comes into being composed of two sub-faculties, that of Geography and that of Anthropology | Peter Rivière | |
| November | ||||
| December | ||||
| Unspecified | Balfour prepares last Annual Report for the Museum | Relational Museum timelines | ||
| Unspecified | Balfour ill and spends time in nursing home | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Report 1937-38 | ||
| Unspecified | Penniman and Blackwood (on her return from New Guinea in April 1938) took on Balfour's teaching in his absence | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Report 1937-38 | ||
| Unspecified | Glass roof again overhauled, ventilating fan installed | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Report 1938-39 | ||
| Unspecified | Curtains are provided for some cases that had light sensitive objects within them | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Report 1938-39 | ||
| Unspecified | Some objects on open display glassed in | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Report 1938-39 | ||
| Unspecified | Work continues on card catalogue system for all Museum objects | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Report 1938-39 | ||
| Unspecified | Francis Howe Seymour Knowles continues to volunteer | Relational Museum timelines/ Annual Reports 1936-37, 37-38 |
AP
