part of APPENDIX F
Oxford, Great Britain
Pitt Rivers Museum
South Parks Road,
Oxford OX1 3PP,
England
The entrance to the Pitt Rivers Museum is through the Oxford University Museum Natural History (OUMNH) on Parks Road, Oxford. The Pitt Rivers' entrance is at the far side from the main entrance to the OUMNH, therefore, need to walk across the ground floor to reach it.
The Balfour Galleries at 60 Banbury Road, is a Research and Study Centre for musical instruments, textiles and clothing.
Tel: +44 01865 270927
Fax +44 01865 270943
E-mail general inquiries: prm@prm.ox.ac.uk
E-mail photograph and manuscript inquiries: ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk
E-mail photographic services: photographic.services@prm.ox.ac.uk
E-mail object inquiries: objects.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk
E-mail educational inquiries: education@prm.ox.ac.uk
The Museum says of itself that its displays archaeological and ethnographic objects from all parts of the world. The General's founding gift contained more than 18,000 objects but there are now over half a million. Many were donated by early anthropologists and explorers. The extensive photographic and sound archives contain early records of great importance. Today the Museum is an active teaching department of the University of Oxford and also continues to collect through donations, bequests, special purchases and through its students, in the course of their fieldwork.
Most of the objects in the Museum are displayed "typologically'" that is grouped by form or purpose rather than by geographical or cultural origin. This unusual layout developed from the General's theories concerning the evolution of ideas. Today it makes it easy for us to appreciate the wide variety of practical solutions to the problems of life.
There is one (smallish) drawback to the "typological" type of display , i.e. that it is not "geographical". It means that if one wants to look, say, at sorts of Andamanese implements, one will find them only under a wide variety of headings all over the museum. It is, however, a small price to pay for the Museum' authentic Victorian atmosphere and the display of material not usually treasured or preserved. The cluttered cases, the original small handwritten labels and the absence of intrusive text-panels all contribute to the special experience it offers. One can only agree when the Museum says that it is a fascinating place for those studying changing historical attitudes - besides much else.
Pitt Rivers was born in 1827 in Yorkshire. In 1841 he entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and in 1845 was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards. He fought for a short time in the Crimean War, served in Malta, England, Canada and Ireland. He finally retired in 1882, at the age of 55, with the honorary rank of Lieutenant-General. In 1880 he unexpectedly inherited the Rivers estate and name from his great uncle. The country estate was a substantial one and Pitt Rivers also received a large annual income; for the remainder of his life he was a wealthy landowner. In 1882 Pitt Rivers was appointed the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments. He died in 1900, at the age of 73. His interest in collecting archaeological and ethnographic objects came out of his early professional interests in the development of firearms. Later he started to collect many other varieties of offensive and defensive weaponry and then objects other than weapons.
The Pitt Rivers Museum was founded in 1884 when Lt.-General Pitt Rivers gave his collection to the University. His two conditions were that a museum was to be built to house it and that someone should be appointed to lecture in anthropology.
Under http://projects.prm.ox.ac.uk/kent/musantob/PRbiog3.html we find a most remarkable complaint - and not one that any other museum in the world could easily make:
... It is generally believed that Pitt Rivers himself did very little 'field' collecting but, in fact, he did obtain objects whilst on active service, during on a military tour of Europe, in Malta and the Crimea. Later in life he seems to have collected objects during trips abroad (for example during an archaeological surveying journey in Brittany). Chapman suggests that Pitt Rivers 'preferred to purchase individual pieces rather than complete collections in order to acquire only those pieces he felt contributed to his overall scheme' (Chapman, 1981:41). This is somewhat contradicted by the presence of large numbers of objects from single collectors such as E.H. Man (Andaman and Nicobar Islands) and John Petherick (Southern Sudan) and the Cypriot archaeological pottery excavated by Cesnola. E.B. Tylor said of the collection in 1883:We have already far too much Andaman and Nicobar things. ... there was in Pitt Rivers one whole gallery full of scarcely anything else. They quite swamped the rest. Now, I hope to reduce their effect by distributing them but even then there are too many ... I don't know whether Mr Man is prepared for the distribution of his present things ... he would probably insist on the others being left together. He is the sort of man who might send us four or five entire Nicobar villages with all the inhabitants inside. (PRM, Tylor papers: Man 3).
The Andaman collection at the Museum is still one of the world's largest outside India (although one would look in vain for it on the Museum's short description of its Indian collection under http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/india.html )
Because of the unusual "typological" type of display and storage npractices by the Museum, we do not have a list of Andamanese items held by the Museum. It is known, however, that roughly 500 objects from E.H. Man are held, probably the largest number of objects collected by an individual within the Pitt Rivers collection..
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Last changed 6 December 2003