The Transcribe Wellcome project began in March 2020, with the aim of eventually transcribing all the accession and collections registration records of the former Wellcome Historical Medical Museum [WHMM], and of Wellcome Historical Medical Library [WHML] (later known as the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, or simply Wellcome Library).

The Wellcome collections were - and are - extensive. When Henry Wellcome died in 1936, the museum object collection alone was estimated at around 1 million objects. Today Wellcome Collection encompasses nearly 400,000 library works (both contemporary publications and rare books, including more than 600 incunabula printed before 1500), an estimated 21,000 manuscripts in more than 50 languages, around 250,000 prints, paintings, drawings and photographs, 800 archive collections and approximately 8,000 moving image and sound titles. Sir Henry Wellcome's Museum Collection, a closed collection of over 117,000 historic museum objects relating to medical history and the history of science has been on long-term loan to the Science Museum since 1976.

The archive which documents the activities of the Wellcome museum and library from the 1890s onwards, including the histories of acquisition, provenance, and dispersal of the collections items, itself comprises almost 600 boxes of mostly handwritten or typescript documentation. Although most of this archive (archive collection reference: WA/HMM) was digitised in 2018 and is available online, it remains a very large, complex, and difficult to navigate aggregation of material.

By transcribing the main series of accession and registration records, we aim to help researchers explore the provenance and collecting histories of items acquired for the Wellcome museum and library between 1897 and 2000, and to trace the recipient museums and libraries to which Wellcome collection items were transferred between 1936 and 1983.

Whilst we work towards making the transcribed data available online, we have put together this documentation site to support our growing community of transcribers and researchers using the museum and library archive.

An accession system was begun for museum objects in 1929. Accession records were kept on individual index cards or 'flimsy' slips (WA/HMM/CM/Inv/A.1-A.231), and assigned accession numbers were affixed to objects with one tag attached to the object, another on the outer paper wrapping.

This new system meant that more than one person could accession at a time (each being given a batch of numbers to assign to objects) and that objects, and batches of objects, could be briefly documented with additional detail being added to the card later. Much of the accession card data was copied from auction sale catalogues (and hence can be inaccurate or misleading).

A numbers were issued in a simple sequence of numbers from 1 to 500529, with gaps between A301931 to A400000, and 'undetermined others' (phrase used in WA/HMM/CM/Cla/1) between A400000 and A500495.

A new registration system was introduced in 1935 for both new acquisitions and for objects already in the collection.

This sequence of registration numbers started at R1 each year, followed by the year of registration e.g. R1/1935, R2/1935 etc., then R1/1936, R2/1936, and so forth.

If objects already had A numbers, or R numbers from the old registration system, these were recorded next to the new registration number in ledger registers (WA/HMM/CM/Acc/21-56). There are also index cards for selected R year numbered objects: WA/HMM/CM/Inv/A.240-A.268; A.273. Objects, and batches of objects, continued to be assigned A numbers prior to registration.

On the objects themselves, old numbers were not usually obliterated, but crossed out with a single red line and the new numbers added in white or black ink close by.

Paintings were also registered in the museum new registration system between 1935 and 1980. Paintings were supposed to be given ‘P’ prefixes in place of ‘R’, although this doesn't seem to have happened consistently.

In Transcribe Wellcome, new registration numbers are standardised to include the R prefix and the forward slash notation, i.e. R2223/1936.

PHO series begun by Pender-Davidson in December 1928. Continuous sequence to 1987. Negative numbers noted usually refer to Wellcome Images M sequence.

Registers PHO 1 to PHO 15277 (WA/HMM/IC/1/9-24)

Index cards PHO 1 to PHO 2234 (WA/HMM/IC/3/C.1-C.14)

Pre-1918, a few photographs were accessioned, probably by the library rather than the museum, and given P references (see section on Prints and Drawings)

Transcribed from the 'List of symbols for collections of objects', undated, probably c.1928-1935 (archive reference: WA/HMM/CM/Cla/1).

Egyptian Collections

Wellcome Historical Medical Museum [WHMM] began formally registering objects in December 1913, according to a simple sequence of numbers running continuously from R1 to R60514 (dated May 1933).

Registration details were handwritten into bound ledger volumes, and the assigned number painted on the objects in black or white ink (WA/HMM/CM/Acc/1-20). There were also index cards for selected R numbered objects (WA/HMM/CM/Inv/A.232-A.239).

Paintings were also registered in the museum registers between 1914 and 1933, sometimes (but not always) with the prefix 'P' substituted for 'R'.

No registration of objects appears to have taken place between 1933 and 1935.

Until 1913 there was a shelfmarking system of numbers and letters to indicate bookcases and shelves. These were written in the top right hand corner of the flyleaf, next to the accession number. This numbering was used while the library was at Snow Hill and was retained unchanged when the Library was moved to Wigmore Street in 1911.

T.W. Huck, the first professional Librarian (1913-1916), started an alphabetical classification but didn't get beyond class A in applying it. His numbers appear in the centre of the front pastedown.

C.C. Barnard, his successor (1919-1921), devised a new classification retaining Huck's alphabetical outline. This was developed by subsequent librarians and used from the whole Library until 1946. These shelfmarks are about a third of the way down the front pastedown. (The Barnard Classification for Medical and Veterinary Libraries still used by Wellcome Collection, and a handful of other specialist libraries, was first published by C.C. Barnard in 1936, when he was Librarian at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.)

After the abandonment of the Huck/Barnard in-house classification the books were arranged by date and size and then alphabetically by author (or other heading) with no shelfmarks allocated.

Incunables were given their own shelfmarking system of numbers and letters. Originally this related to actual cases with the smallest books at the top (shelf 'a') and increasing in size to 'f' at the bottom, and books on each shelf in numerical order.

Subject headings

Some books have notes of subject headings at the end, in the hand of H.R. Priest, Assistant Librarian, 1906-1911.

An important note about terminology and language

The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum and Library index cards and registers were predominantly compiled between the 1890s and the 1970s. Much of the information recorded on the accession cards was copied verbatim from auction sales catalogues, which were notoriously inaccurate.

The museum and library records reflect the period and context in which they were written. The language used is frequently problematic and sensitive, and includes outdated ethnographic classification terminology. Some of the language used is racist, offensive, or distressing, and it is often applied to discriminate. The records include entries for human remains, and for items which are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

By transcribing these handwritten and typescript records we aim to facilitate research into the colonial origins of many of our collections items, and to expose the power dynamics at play behind their acquisition, use, and (in some cases) dispersal to other museums and libraries. And we seek to understand better the assumptions and cultural appropriations that were made in documenting, categorising, researching, and managing museum and library collections at Wellcome over the course of the long twentieth century. All of the transcribed information, and research based on this archive, should be viewed within this historical context. We also aim to apply the results of the transcription to improve our contemporary collections information practice, helping to identify and address sensitivities amongst our collections and to develop better practices for documenting, displaying and explaining their complex histories and contexts.

Between 1899 and 2000, all library accessioning was recorded in handwritten, hard bound registers (WA/HMM/LI/Acc/1-13). As well as printed and published materials (including incunabula and rare books), the handwritten library accession registers included entries for manuscripts acquired prior to the year 2000.

Formal accessioning of library materials began in January 1899, although sequential numbering was not introduced until 1910.

Between 1981 and 2000, prints, paintings and drawings and some photographs were also accessioned into the library registers.

A separate accession register for archives and personal papers was begun in 1979. These accession entries were later input into Wellcome's collections management system for archives and do not form part of the dataset for Transcribe Wellcome.

Pre-1910

The first library register starts on 10 January 1899, but notes of a few earlier acquisitions from December 1897 are inserted at the front. Although the entries in the register are not numbered, numbers were allocated and written on the top right hand corner of the flyleaf of each volume. Some of these numbers have been retrospectively written into the register by library staff at a later date.

Provenance information was usually also written in the books themselves at this date, in abbreviated form (vendor/donor and date), in the lower inner corner of the flyleaf or pastedown. There is a key to abbreviations used in provenance notes at the front of the first library register.

1910 to 1953

5 figure accession numbers (e.g. 43129) were allocated in sequence, although often more than one accession register was in use at a time:

From about 1913 to about 1946 accession numbers were written on the top right hand corner of the title page. Numbers previously written on the flyleaf were sometimes transferred to this position. Provenance notes were still sometimes written into the books well into the 1920s.

From around 1947 onwards, numbers were written on the verso of the title page. Sometimes numbers originally written on the recto were erased and transferred to the verso, particularly if a title page had to be photographed.

1954 to 2000

In January 1954 a new 6 figure numeration was introduced, starting at 300001:

Large collections

Multiple lots at auctions were typically given a single accession number. One book was then itemised in the register 'and others', as in the sales catalogues themselves (although it isn't necessarily the same title that is itemised, and sales catalogue may list more than one in a lot).

Morris sale

Sotheby's 5-10 December 1898 The key in WA/HMM/LI/Acc/1 says that Morris books are identified by the letter M. In fact Morris's bookplate was regarded as sufficient and M was written only in books without the label. The books also usually have a cutting from the sale catalogue pasted in.

Ashburnham sale

Sotheby's 13 December 1898 Identified by A.

Hammond Jones sale

Puttick & Simpson 19-21 December 1898 Identified by HJ.

J.F.Payne sales

1. Sotheby's 12-14 July 1911

2. Sotheby's 30 January 1912

3. Sotheby's 17 May 1912

At the first sale the entire collection was purchased by Wellcome with a single bid in the name of Tobin (probably C.J.S. Thompson). An accession number and provenance note was written in every book, but the collection was never entered in the register. Blocks of numbers are missing from the register and clearly Mr Ealand, the assistant librarian, accessioned batches of Payne books as time allowed. (He was made redundant at the end of 1912).

Some books were also purchased at the 2nd and 3rd sales in 1912, and other books from these sales have been acquired since.

Other collective numbers

Several large collections were purchased in the early 1920s. As the staff then consisted of the Librarian and one student assistant, both part-time, the practice was adopted of assigning a single number to a whole collection.

Principal collective numbers:

• 42550 Debacq collection (French medicine and pharmacy) purchased 1919, accessioned 1923

• 42600 Dutch Royal Library duplicates purchased 1923

• 54800 Manchester University duplicates purchased 1930

• 55350 Zangrandi collection (Italian medicine) purchased 1928, accessioned 1930

• 95300 Leon collection (Latin American) purchased 1927, accessioned 1948

• 95400 Discards received via LA Medical Section exchange scheme 1949 onwards

• 308936 and 317494 Guerra collection (Spanish and Latin American). Most of the collection was until 1990 housed in the 'American Room'. Guerra books not shelved there were numbered 308936; books in the American Room was later number 317494.

• 311223 'French collection'. Miscellaneous material relating to French and Belgian doctors and scientists collected in the 1930s but held in the Museum until the 1960s.

• 323840 Crawford collection (Indian Medical Service) presented 1973

CC series

Paintings (although a few prints and drawings were also registered in this sequence).

System used by Daniel Pender-Davidson and continued by others to 1935.

Extant registers for CC4866 to CC9145 (WA/HMM/IC/1/25-27), and draft registers CC9146 to CC9778 (WA/HMM/IC/Not/1).

Index cards CC1 to CC9978 in two series, one handwritten by Pender-Davidson, one typescript; gaps in each series.

• Series 1: CC1 to CC7000 (WA/HMM/IC/3/A.1-A.12)

• Series 2: CC1 to CC9778 (WA/HMM/IC/3/A.13-A.37)

Later documentation of paintings

1935 to 1980

Between 1935 and 1980, paintings were registered in the museum's new registration system. Paintings were supposed to be given 'P' prefixes in place of 'R', although this doesn't appear to have been consistently applied.

1981 to 2000

Paintings and prints were accessioned into the library accession registers from December 1981 to December 2000.

Transcribed from the Nationality list in the 'Key to Abbreviations in Store File', dated 4 May 1928.

Henry Bourne. Life dates: c.1857-1936. ‘odd job man’, handyman. Active at WHMM: c.1908-c.1936 [earliest/latest noted in sources]

work at WHMM:

Carried out ‘odd jobs’, accompanied visitors around the museum. Bid at auction sales (according to Britchford, Symons 26-27.) Worked in library at [Willesden), 1929 (see WA/HMM/LI/Rep/4, image 3)

From oral history of Mary Cathcart Borer, Symons 1987, p12:

There weren’t many visitors to the museum in those days… For day after day the place was quite empty of anyone but staff. Those who did come were mostly extremely interesting, many of them bringing material from their travels abroad which they knew would interest Sir Henry. … In between times, life could be very quiet and uneventful. In the Hall of Statuary, behind the front hall, were displayed some extremely comfortable dental chairs, and I remember that old Bourne, one of the general odd-job men who would go round with visitors turning the lights on and off, used to have his afternoon nap in one of them: his snores echoed alarmingly through the empty museum.

WHMM archive materials:

• WAHMM/RP/Jst/B/24. Report of 29 April 1936 (image 249). Johnston Saint reporting to HSW on Mr Bourne's death.

You will be sorry to hear that Mr. Bourne died quite suddenly and peacefully yesterday, at 6.50pm. He had been away for some time with bronchial trouble complicated by cardiac weakness and right up to the end appeared to be making good progress. He was in his 79th year and had had 28 years service with you here. I shall be attending the funeral and will send a wreath on your behalf.

sources:

• Symons 1987, 12.

Tags: museum staff; practical staff; library staff

Transcribed from the materials classes listed in the 'Key to abbreviation in store file', dated 4 May 1928.

Transcribed and collated together from several different versions of the sections abbreviations listed in the 'Key to abbreviation in store file', dated 4 May 1928 (archive reference: WA/HMM/CM/Cla/1).

Prints and Photographs accessioned before 1918

Some prints and photographs were accessioned, probably by the library rather than museum, before 1918, in a sequence P1 to P1874: WA/HMM/IC/1/4.

Not to be confused with paintings registered in the museum (old) registration system with a P prefix.

PD and PD Year Numbers

Batch accessioning of prints and drawings, some retrospective, begun by C. A. Earnshaw in February 1936 and continued by others up to 1982. Initially sequential; later reverts to 1-1 each new year.

Registers: PD 1 to PD 391 (WA/HMM/IC/1/28-31); Gap 1938 to 1959; PD 1959-1-1 to PD 1982-14 (WA/HMM/IC/1/32)

PR Numbers

Prints, mostly portraits; series constructed by Pender-Davidson between 1928 and 1933.

Registers PR 1 to PR 1104 (WA/HMM/IC/1/7). Later registers are missing but provenance details for PR1 to PR26508 were reconstructed by Earnshaw (with some gaps) in a report in WA/HMM/RP/Sta/3.

Later documentation of prints

1981 to 2000

Paintings and prints were accessioned into the library accession registers from December 1981 to December 2000.

Dr Renate Ruth Adelheid Burgess. Life dates: 1910-1988. Active: 1964-1980

Work at WHML

Keeper of Art Collections. Paintings and prints. Catalogued engraved portraits in the 1960s.

Biographical notes

See obituary published by William Schupbach 1989.

WA/HMM archive

• WA/HMM/IC/3/U

Sources:

• Burgess, 1973.

• Schupbach, 1989. (obituary)

• Symons 1993, 44, 48.

Tags: library staff; research staff; paintings, prints and drawings

Dr Mary Kathleen Forsaith Lander (married name: Kitchin) M.B. M.Sc. (London). Life dates: 21 May 1897 – 5 Feb 1945.

Medical doctor, psychologist and Jungian analyst. Assistant Curator at WHMM from October 1922 until June 1923.

Work at WHMM

Kathleen Lander was a qualified medical doctor who first appeared in WHMM correspondence in June 1922, discussing with CJS Thompson about the museum supplying illustrations for one of her lectures (15 June 1922 WA/HMM/CO/Chr/A.33).

Lander was Assistant Curator for a period of only 8 months, and her staff file does not give much detail of her museum work. Her letter of resignation (8 May 1923, WA/HMM/ST/Ear/A.39) asked that her last day should be 9 June 1923.

Biographical notes

After leaving WHMM she spent five years as a general practitioner in London, including a period with a child welfare clinic and antenatal clinics. She took up psychological work from 1923, including a post at the Tavistock Clinic and also the Maudsley and Bethlem hospitals. Studied with Carl Jung and became a Jungian analyst.

Headed notepaper c.1923 in her WHMM staff file indicates Dr Lander was at a correspondence address of 33 Camden Road, NW1, shared with a Dr Dorothy Fenwick. Letters indicate that her father was also a physician.

Kathleen Kitchin died in 1945 at the age of 47. Obituaries appeared in The Times and the British Medical Journal.

WA/HMM archive

​Handwriting samples

• WA/HMM/ST/Ear/A.39. Many handwritten letters in staff file 1922-23 (not digitised)

Other archives at Wellcome

Publications in Wellcome Collection’s library

Sources

Biographical information

Career information

• Ann Conrad Lammers. The Jung-Kirsch Letters: The Correspondence of C.G. Jung and James Kirsch. 2016. Routledge. pp 75-77, 80-81.

Obituaries

• Obituary - The Times, London. 7 Feb 1945, page 7, col E.

Tags: museum staff; curatorial staff

Mr Chadburn commisionnaire active: [earliest date noted in sources] c.1928-

work at WHMM: commissionaire, worked at museum entrance in uniform, receiving visitors’ cards (medical men only permitted to visit) and arranging for staff to show them around. sources: Symons 1987, 11.

[[museum staff]] [[practical staff]]

William John Bishop. Life dates: 1903-1961.

Librarian. In post 1946-1953.

Started work at WHML as Librarian in April 1946, taking up the post after Moorat's retirement. Bishop had previously worked as a medical librarian at the Royal College of Physicians and Royal Society of Medicine. Active in making WHML part of the Medical Section of the Library Association, including participating in an exchange scheme for surplus books and journals from 1947. Bishop resigned his post in 1953, for reasons described as disillusionment with the library's underfinancing and working conditions (Symons 1993, p.40). He continued to work as a researcher and writer, and as librarian of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

References

Poynter 1961 (obituary, including portrait)

Symons 1993, 34, 38-40, 45, 61

Wikipedia entry, W. J. Bishop

Tags: library staff; librarian

work at WHMM

One of four original staff members of the permanent WHMM in 1914 under C. J. S. Thompson (with T. W. Huck, F. G. Shirreff, G. R. Carline) a relative of Louis Sambon, Amoruso accompanied Thompson on overseas visits as a translator. Amoruso left the museum to serve in the military during the First World War and did not subsequently return.

(Symons 1993, p.7, 13-14)

B. Chatterjee

scientific staff, worked on east Asian material active: c.1933? – 1938 [“replaced in 1938 by Otto Samson”, Symons 1987, 38) work at WHMM: east Asian material, particularly Indian subcontinent.

biographical notes: sources: WC archive materials: image:

[[museum staff]] [[scientific staff]] [[to research]] [[east Asia]]

W.J. Britchford. Chief Carpenter. Life dates: 1926-1968 Active: 1926-1968

work at WHMM

Begun work in 1926, during time of museum reorganisation at Wigmore Street. Oversaw other joiners working at the museum. Worked on making showcases/cabinets, and producing replica objects for display in museum.

Quote from oral history, Symons 1987, 28:

Whenever we borrowed a bronze surgical instrument he (HSW) would ask us to make a replica of it before we returned it. We usually did this in wood, and would then paint it with thin glue and dip it into a barrel of Verdigris. Providing it was not knocked about it would last quite a long time in the showcase.

Sources:

• Symons 1987, pp24-31. (oral history)

Tags: museum staff; practical staff

Born 23 July 1894, St. Margaret’s, Twickenham, Middlesex, England. Died 6 March 1959, London.

Later Librarian at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 1921 - 1959

Biographical notes published in Archives of Natural History__

Obituary: Hall, S., & Symons, J. (1998). John Walker Barber-Lomax 1914–1998. Medical History, 42(4), 518-518. doi:10.1017/S0025727300064383

Graduate from UCL, B.Sc. in Geography and Cultural Anthropology. Social historian, fiction and non-fiction author, screenwriter. Employed at WHMM in 1928 after graduation from UCL. Graduation photo is in Wellcome L series images, - L0023909

Image: L0023910

Work at WHMM

Object selection for purchase: viewing items day before auction sales and marking up catalogues with items of interest. Identifying and registering items arriving after auction sale purchase. Worked mostly at the museum premises Wigmore Street or at warehouse for stored objects (Oxford St Marylebone Lane at Oxford St end), occasionally too at Willesden stores. Selected objects for display, arranged and interpreted them. (“There had been talk in the early days of our taking our PhDs, but as it turned out we had no facilities for this and no contact or access to the library at Willesden.” – oral history p11.).

Biographical notes

Studied under Dr. Perry and Professor Elliot Smith at UCL; Perry recommended her for the job at WHMM (Symons 1987, 8-9) Borer left WHMM in 1935 and went on archaeological expedition to Armant, near Luxor, Egypt, with husband Oliver Myers under auspices of Egypt Exploration Society. Married name Mary Myers, m. Oliver Humphry Myers (1903-1966)

Sources

Oral history in Symons 1987, pp 7-13.

Biographical notes and list of publications: https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2011/01/mary-cathcart-borer.html https://bookaddictionuk.wordpress.com/2019/12/12/mary-cathcart-borer-1906-1994/

WL archive materials

• MSS.8269. One essay entitled 'Notes on Woad'.

• MSS.8963 One screenplay entitled 'The Chief: Lord Lister - 1825-1912'.

• WA/HMM/RP/Sta/2. ‘Staff Reports’ ‘Mary Borer’ Jan 1932-Jul 1933. (Handwritten, so contains handwriting sample, and what she worked on.)

• WA/HMM/ST/ Lat/A.26. Report by Malcolm on Borer’s resignation.

Oral history

Overshadowing the years in Wigmore Street was the registration of the vast Pareyn collection of ethnographic material from the Belgian Congo – hundreds of carved wooden effigies, thousands of spears, knives, shields, headdresses and so forth. There was a time when we, in the ethnographical department, could tell at a glance which river and tribe each item came from.

• Symons 1987, p12-13.

Handwriting sample: WA/HMM/RP/Sta/1 staff reports, 1929-30

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aadq2es3/items?canvas=8&langCode=false&sierraId=b19106051

William St Chad Boscawen. Life dates: 1855-1913. Active at WHMM: c.1906-1913. Researcher on ancient Near Eastern and ancient Egyptian collections.

image: Boscawen pictured in E.A. Budge The Rise and Progress of Assyriology (1925), photograph facing page 120.

work at WHMM

Casually employed by WHMM. Catalogued and studied material from ancient Near East (Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria) and ancient Egypt from 1906. Attended auction sales and reviewed material for purchase.

Biographical note

Formerly employed at British Museum as an Assistant in the Ancient Near East department. Published a successful popular book on the ancient near east in 1903. Undertook regular freelance employment at WHMM from 1906 until his death in 1913, working desipite repeated periods of personal difficulty and ill health.

WHMM archives

• staff file (WA/HMM/St/Ear/A.11)

• correspondence

• unpublished research papers for WHMM (MS.8311, MS.8857)

Sources

• Horry, Ruth (2015)

Tags: museum staff; Assyria and Babylonia; Egypt; research staff

Mr Brookes. Model maker.

work at WHMM

Freelance modelmaker, employed by WHMM to create copies of objects.

WHMM archives:

• Letter from C.J.S. Thompson to E.A. Wallis Budge (British Museum), 4 December 1913, WA/HMM/CO/Ear/107)

Sources:

• Horry, 2014 (add reference to biblio)

Tags: contractor

Sona Rosa Burstein. Folklorist, anthropologist and gerontologist. Life dates: 1897–1971

Image: see Freeman 1976.

Work at WHMM

Employed at WHMM in 1928 after studying folklore and anthropology in Wales and Oxford. She oversaw the Ethnography section and the other women working on these collections (Margaret Rowbottom and Joan Lillico).

Left WHMM for war work, and returned by 1945. Undertook research trips to USA 1951, 1953.

Biographical note

See Freeman 1976.

Education: M.A., Diploma in Anthropology, Oxford. Also educated in Aberystwyth, Wales.

WA/HMM archives

Other archives

Handwriting sample

Sources

Oral history in Symons 1987, p.9.

Tags: museum staff; anthropology; 'Ethnographic section'; scientific staff

Chiang Yee active at WHMM 1938-46

active: 1938-46

[img[ChiangYee.jpg) image: WL website

work at WHMM: Chinese collections biographical notes:

sources:

Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveller from the East--A Cultural Biography Da Zheng 2010 Published by: Rutgers University Press

WC archive materials:

[[museum staff]] [[scientific staff]] [[to research]] [[east Asia]]

George Reginald Carline (life dates: 15 March 1885 - 24 December 1932). Anthropologist and folklorist.

Likenesses:

• George Reginald Carline. Photograph, 1926. Wellcome Collection 14422i

• George R Carline by Sydney Carline. Sketched designs for a medal, 1911. British Museum 1980,0126.21

Work at WHMM

Museum Assistant at WHMM, c.1914-1917. One of four original staff members of the permanent WHMM in 1914 under C. J. S. Thompson (with T.W. Huck, Francis Shirreff and Arthur Amoruso).

Biographical notes

(See obituaries and articles by Symons 1993 and Petch [undated].)

George Carline studied anthropology at Exeter College, Oxford and was part of the student archaeological society. After graduating he worked at the Oxford English Dictionary (see Gilliver 2016).

His family were well-known artists, including mother Annie Smith, father George F. Carline, younger brothers Sydney and Richard, sister Hilda and brother-in-law Stanley Spencer.

George Carline became a museum assistant at WHMM at the time of its permanent opening in 1914. He was one of four original staff members working under curator C.J.S. Thompson.

Carline remained at WHMM during World War 1, having a medical exemption from military service. He left the museum in 1917 to join the Civil Service. (Symons 1993, pp.13-14).

After war ended he became an assistant curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and remained there until 1926. Carline was also involved with Folklore Society from 1919.

He did archaeological work on the 1925-6 excavations at Fayum in Egypt with Gertrude Caton-Thompson and William Flinders Petrie, and anthropological field work in South Africa in 1929.

Carline became curator of the Bankfield Museum, Halifax, Yorkshire in 1926 where he worked on the costume collections and an ethnographic gallery. He remained in post until his death in 1932 aged 47.

He is buried in a family plot in Sunningwell, Oxfordshire. See sources below for information on Carline family history and genealogy.

WA/HMM archives

• WA/HMM/ST/Ear/A.16 - Staff file, Apr 1914-Feb 1921. On his work as museum assistant, and also regarding acquisition of objects.

• WA/HMM/PR/2 - Press cuttings related to Carline. 3 articles reporting his death (page image 71): Yorkshire Observer 27 Dec 1932; Yorkshire Observer 30 Dec 1932; Nature 21 Jan 1933.

Sources

Obituaries

Mr. G. R. Carline. Nature 131, 86 (21 January 1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131086a0

H. C. L. “George Reginald Carline.” Folklore, vol. 44, no. 1, [Folklore Enterprises, Ltd., Taylor & Francis, Ltd.], 1933, pp. 115–16, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255921

General references

Gilliver, Peter. The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. 2016. Oxford University Press.

Petch, Alison. “George Reginald Carline”. ENGLAND: THE OTHER WITHIN. Analysing the English Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. [undated] Pitt Rivers Museum online resource.

Symons 1993, pp. 13-14.

Archaeological society membership at Oxford University:

• https://oxforduniversityarchaeologicalsociety.wordpress.com/history/phoenix-rises/

• https://oxforduniversityarchaeologicalsociety.wordpress.com/history/alumni/

Excavations at Fayum, Egypt 1925-1926: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/fayum/fayumainf.html

Genealogy

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/genealogy/records/george-francis-carline-24-8yl48q

http://www.calderdalecompanion.co.uk/c.html#c2345 (search ‘Carline, George Reginald’)

https://billiongraves.com/grave/George-Reginald-Carline/32290767 (burial and family information)

Tags: museum staff; practical staff

E. [Edwin] Clarke Director WHMM and WIHM. in post 1973-1979

[img[L0003718-tiny.jpg)

L0003718

[[museum staff]] Director WIHM

Earlier on the staff of WHMM and Library, contract ending 30 September 1967 (WT/D/2/3/7 annual report 1967)

Mr Comins.

Bid on material at auction, as evidenced in flimsy inv cards.

[[museum staff]] [[auction bidder]]

in post 1919-20

in Symons list of 'secretaries and other senior staff'

[[to research]] [[museum staff]]

R. M. Cox (DATES)

scientific staff, recorded active June 1937 - Sep 1938. Egyptian material

Work at WHMM: Cataloguing Egyptian material and preparations for Egyptian gallery. Left WHMM in Aug or Sep 1938 and oversight of Egyptian collections passed to Theodor Gaster.

WHMM archives

• WA/HMM/RP/Sta/2 Reports by each staff member, per month

Tags: museum staff; Egypt; scientific staff

John K. Crellin. Physician, pharmacist, and historian of medicine https://flankerpress.com/author/john-k-crellin

Joined staff on 1 January 1966. Organised and reported on materia medica specimens as well as examining the collection of medical and pharmaceutical ceramics. Lectured once a week on the history of pharmacy to university students.

Produced a 2 vol catalogue of medical ceramics collection in 1969: //Medical ceramics : a catalogue of the English and Dutch collections in the Museum of the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine// https://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b2008612~S12

CV contained in WT/D/2/1/37

WIHM [[museum staff]]

Enid Dance (DATES)

scientific staff. Active c.1933(?) (Ref: Symons 1987, 33)

work at WHMM: Classical Medicine

Biographical note: Graduate in Classics, University of Cambridge. PhD University of Cambridge. Left WHMM to become curator of Guildford Museum. (Symons 1987, 31, oral history of Joan Lillico) WAHMM/CO/Wel/C/4 image 11, 1945 staff list

[[museum staff]] [[Greece and Rome]] [[scientific staff]]

S. H. Daukes

Director of WHMM. in post 1941-1945

Captain Peter Johnston-Saint

in post as Secretary, 1924-34 'Foreign Secretary' - a travelling collecting agent, 1928-34 Conservator (=curator), 1934-1947

[[museum staff]] curator [[travelling agent]] [[administrative staff]]

A.L. Dean Secretary active: in post as Secretary, 1928-1954

work at WHMM: wrote 'Dean reports' – summaries of early reporting corresp by WHMM curator Thompson

[img[L0021121-snip-Dean-Underwood-Matthews.PNG)

image: L0021121 (tandem vault) ''left: A. L. Dean'', centre: Dr E. A. Underwood, right: Leslie Matthews; at Dean’s retirement ceremony, 1964.

(note date discrepancy between image and Symons' dates)

[[museum staff]] [[administrative staff]]

Dr Barbara Mary Pyecraft (married name: Duncum) (1910-2001)

active: spring 1931-November 1937

work at WHMM

Worked with Lacaille cataloguing folklore collection, including amulets. Worked with Alec Haggis on the history of cinchona. On Materia medica, and also descriptions of medical practices in Africa from accounts of ‘travellers’. 1934, travelled with Haggis to photgraph medical saints in churches in East Anglia and Devon. 1936, tasked with organising a journal abstracting service covering research topics of other WHMM staff. (“It was not long before I found myself in much the same predicament as the sorcerer’s apprentice: I was fairly drowning in data. It taught me a salutary lesson. Collecting interseitng and important information is easy. The difficulty lies in putting it to good use if one has not started with a pretty definite idea of what that use is to be.” oral history p.24.)

Biographical notes

Studied history at university of London. Left WHMM in November 1937 to join the Institute for Research in Agricultural Engineering, Oxford. Published The development of inhalation anaesthesia (1947) based on her ~PhD thesis. Published by WHMM research series, to accompany an exhibition on the centenary of anaesthesia. ('Centenary of Anaesthesia Exhibition' 1946. WA/HMM/EX/F.1. ) Duncum gave one of the papers at the associated opening event at the RSM History of Medicine Section.

Sources

Oral history in Symons 1987, pp. 19-24

Obituaries

• David Zuck, “Dr. Barbara Duncum (1910-2001)”, Bulletin of Anesthesia History. Volume 20, Issue 1, January 2002, Page 6. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1522-8649(02)50018-4

• Neil Adams and David Zuck, http://www.histansoc.org.uk/uploads/9/5/5/2/9552670/bduncum.pdf – this obituary of Barbara Duncum, seems like it quotes from John Symons 1987 even though it says Symons 1982 in the obit?)

Extract from Neil Adams and David Zuck obituary:

Barbara's first work involved the classifying of items of folklore, amulets and various objects carried as mascots. Her job was to type the descriptions called out by Mr Lacaille, a model of patience and courtesy: 'There was a brief embarrassment when we came to mascots carried in the pockets of French soldiers during World War 1. "You must excuse it, Miss Pycraft", Lacaille called "a piss-pot, gunmetal; and another". Indeed, there were many scores of them; and although many soldiers must surely have been carrying other kinds of talismans l no longer remember what they were.'

In 1934 Barbara accompanied a senior member of staff, Alec Haggis, on a tour of churches in East Anglia and Devon, listing and photographing statues, carvings, and paintings of saints with medical connections. Then in 1936 she was asked to organise and run a journal-abstracting service covering the main fields of interest to the Museum. Within a short time she found that she was being swamped with data, little of which was of interest to her colleagues, and began to feel the need for a change of direction.

Publications

B. Duncum “The Development of Hospital Design and Planning” in The Evolution of Hospitals in Britain ed F. N. L. Poynter (London: Pitman Medical Publishing, 1964, 207-210.

WHMM archives

• WA/HMM/EX/B.12. Exhibition for the centenary celebrations of the first public administration of an anaesthetic.

• WAHMM/EX/F/1. 'Centenary of Anaesthesia Exhibition' Oct-Dec 1946.

• https://wellcomecollection.org/works?query=centenary of anaesthesia exhibition&search=images

Image: no online image located yet

[[museum staff]] [[materia medica]] [[folk medicine]] [[scientific staff]]

Mr Keighley (DATES) Registrar

active: [recorded active c.1932- set up and oversaw system of registration

!! Oral history from oral history of Margaret Rowbottom. Discussing registration department work, inc after HSW’s death:

<<< “A Registration department was set up under Mr Keighley, and a new system of registration inaugurated. The intention was that an object should only be ‘registered’ when it had been properly identified and scientifically described, but unfortunately Captain Saint, possibly under pressure from the Trustees [after HSW’s death] to produce results, had a lot of material renumbered with no correction of the information given on the accession cards or in the old registers.”

<<< //Further research needed:// [dates for when new system was set up can be XR from WAHMM/CM files, where it is discussed. New reg numbers start from c.1929?]

[[museum staff]] registration

R. Dykes

in post 1916

In Symons' list of 'secretaries and other senior staff'

[[museum staff]] [[to research]]

A. Donald Lacaille (DATES)

scientific staff, archaeologist. active 1928- [stayed until retirement?] active: //pronounciation note//: Lacaille - to rhyme with black eye (Symons 1992, 58)

[img[L0015160-tiny.jpg) image: L0015160. Also pictured in L0015161, L0015162, M0013824 with Underwood at Portman Sq.

work at WHMM: Registered archaeological objects 1929. (Staff reports WAHMM/RP/Sta/1 canvas 126)

biographical notes

sources

Handwriting sample: Staff reports WAHMM/RP/Sta/1 canvas 126 https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aadq2es3/items?canvas=126&langCode=false&sierraId=b19106051

[[museum staff]] [[scientific staff]] archaeology

Tom Lane 1929-1970, worked as museum attendant, 'chauffeur to the museum curator' (doesn’t specify which), and eventually was Chief Museum technician when retired.

work at WHMM: museum attendant; bidder on auction sales

sources: oral history, Symons 1987, pp33-35. “How to spend £900 – Tom Lane looks back”, Foundation News, Dec 1970, vol 20, no 12, pp14-15.

[[museum staff]] [[practical staff]] [[auction bidder]] [[to research]]

Walter Davis Foreman packer at museum (previously employed by BW&Co at Snow Hill). active c1926-

[mentioned in Britchford oral history]

[[museum staff]] [[to research]] [[practical staff]]

E. J. Freeman

Sub-librarian, by 1964

Librarian. in post 1973-[until at least 1993 when Symons book published],

[[library staff]] librarian WIHM

Mrs French Sheldon American, former medical missionary in Congo. Was present at WHMM at Wigmore Street but unclear what she did as a member of staff.

Reference in obituary of Duncum (Pyecraft), Barbara, which quotes from John Symons 1987 (even though it says 1982 in the obit?).

See French-Sheldon, May

active:

image: L0015159

work at WHMM

biographical notes

sources

WC archive materials:

[[library staff]]

S. B. Gardner

Library assistant c.1928.

Sub-Librarian, 1931

See [Symons 1993). [Symons 1987), 39.

[[library staff]] librarian

Gaskell, E.

Librarian. in post 1964-1973

[[library staff]] librarian WIHM

Theodor H. Gaster (1906–1992)

scientific staff; Semitic, Egyptian, Mesopotamian material. Semiticist, Biblical scholar, and scholar of history of religions

image: https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/theodor-herzl-gaster/

Work at WHMM

active at WHMM 1928 - c.1939/40

Researched and catalogued Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian material. Produced gallery displays at Euston Road, including the Assyro-Babylonian cylinder seal display pictured in M0011148.

Biography

Educated at the University of London, Gaster received an undergraduate degree in classics in 1928 and a master's degree in Near Eastern archaeology in 1936. Possibly left WHMM and returned in the period c.1933-39? (see Symons 1987, 38). Was working Dec 1937 – July 1939, and took over care of the Egyptian material from R.M. Cox in Sep 1938. Left WHMM to pursue PhD at Columbia University, USA, c.1939/1940. Professor of Religion, Barnard College, Columbia University, 1966–72. Author of Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament; Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East.

WA/HMM archives

Oral history

"I remember the constant thrill of recovering some of the most precious antiquities from the Ancient Near East which Wellcome had purchased years ago and which no one had heard of since. They had been packed away in boxes at Willesden and elsewhere and were gradually being unpacked. There was the missing part of the Cesnula Cypriotic collection, most of which went to the Met. Museum in New York; there was also a large portion of the Petrie collection of Egyptian amulets and scarabs, most of which went to university college.; one day I found in an old cigar box some very charred bits of papyrus which were the fragments of the famous ‘Astarte myth’ from the Amherst Collection (subsequently sold to the Morgan Library). Some of the best stuff got sold by auction after the Old Man died."

Symons 1987, pp.14-15.

sources

• Symons 1987, oral history pp.14-15.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Gaster

• Obituary: Joseph R. Armenti Theodor Herzl Gaster (1906-1992) Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Vol. 58 (1992), pp. 19-22 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3622623

Tags: museum staff; Egypt; Middle East; scientific staff

Catherine Georgievsky [autograph department] [active 1930s, 1940]

active: work at WHMM: Travelling to undertake collecting work in Czechoslovakia, photographing mud spa and mineral water bottling station. (see below) – photos are in the collection. biographical notes: sources: WC archive materials: image:

Photographs taken by Georgievsky are on Tandem Vault, from the collection as have sierra numbers. Taken of medicinal mud bath in Czechoslovakia. “Franzensbad Spa in Czecho-Slovakia: wooden baths on wheels filled with used medicinal mud bath, being emptied by workmen. Photograph by Miss Georgievsky, 1935.” ICV No 30311. V0029829. Sierra record number: b11946507 Photograph by Georgievsky, 1935

[[museum staff]] [[travelling agent]]

Alec [A.W.J.] Haggis (b.1889-d.1946)

Assistant conservator (=assistant curator), active 1941-1946 (check these dates – from Symons, but isn’t haggis around earlier too?)

work at WHMM: photographing churches in east Anglia with Barbara Pycraft (Duncum).

Wrote an unpublished biography of Henry Wellcome, c.1941. The ms is now in WAHMM archive.

[img[L0016896-snipped.PNG) image: L0016896 (Tandem Vault).

[[museum staff]] Europe curator

G. J. Hipkins

library assistant. in post by 1928 during move to [Willesden). Left WHML in summer 1930 to go to the Royal Society of Medicine.

See [Symons 1987 unpublished), 39.

[[library staff]] librarian

D Hooper [materia medica department]

active: work at WHMM: biographical notes: sources: WC archive materials: image:

[[museum staff]] [[scientific staff]] [[materia medica]]

Dorothy (Dolly) B. Holz scientific staff, active 1928- [1929]-

Graduate of St Hildas, Oxford active: left WHMM to become secretary to Gilbert Murray.

Staff reports 1929 list work including accessioning geological specimens (with Mr Lacaille), arranging ethnographic display cases (with Rosa Burstein) WAHMM/RP/Sta/1 , canvas 80.

work at WHMM: biographical notes: sources: WC archive materials: image:

[[museum staff]] [[scientific staff]] prehistoric geology

P. M. Kemp

mentioned in staff reports, 1929. (WAHMM/RP/Sta/1), canvas 87.

[[museum staff]] cosmogeny

T.W. Huck (b.1882-d.1918)

Librarian. in post 1913-1918 pictured in group portrait L0014474 c1914-1918, and in Symons 1993, page 13. Huck died in the First World War.

Huck was one of four original staff members of the permanent WHMM in 1914 under C. J. S. Thompson (with Shirreff, Amoruso, Carline). Died in First World War.

[[library staff]] librarian

Miss Smith Secretary to Louis W.G. Malcolm

[[administrative staff]] [[museum staff]]

Miss Jones active [1928]

worked at Willesden warehouse with Mr Port, overseeing the scientific staff. see Symons 1987, 18 (oral history of Joan Raymont). Carried out accessioning at Willesden, until it was moved to the Euston Road premises and carried out by scientific staff, inc Margaret Rowbottom, in the gallery spaces: “Previously accessioning had been done at Willesden by Miss Jones, but it had been quite impossible for her to keep up with the rate at which material was being acquired.” (see Symons 1987, 35, oral history of Margaret Rowbottom)

[[museum staff]] registration

Joan Wilson Lillico. Folklorist and anthropologist. Life dates: 12 March 1911 - 2001

Work at WHMM

Employed from 1935 as an assistant in the museum’s ‘Ethnographic Section’. Working under Rosa Burstein, she catalogued anthropology collections as part of the large-scale re-registration of objects. From handwriting samples in accession registers, Lillico registered objects from Nigeria collected by the anthropologist M.D.W. Jeffreys. In the late 1930s she worked on object displays for the ethnographic gallery at Euston Road.

Biographical note

Joan Lillico was born in 1911 in New Zealand. Her education listed in her staff file (WA/HMM/ST/Lat/A.136): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/qas45uzj/items?canvas=36

Completed a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Newnham College, University of Cambridge 1935 (Smith 1998). Joined WHMM in December that same year, aged 24, with letters of recommendation from Dorothy Garrod and J. H. Driberg (copies in Lillico's staff file).

Elected as a Fellow of Royal Anthropological Institute, 1937 (RAI archives, census of British Anthropologists).

Lillico moved from WHMM to a post at Bristol Museum by 1949 (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/qas45uzj/items?canvas=15) and remained at Bristol Museum until retirement in the 1970s (MacClancy 2013).

She died in 2001 in Bristol, UK.

WA/HMM archives

• WA/HMM/ST/Lat/A.136 - Staff file. Includes letters of engagement and resignation note.

• WA/HMM/RP/Sta/11 - Lillico's monthly staff reports in folder of reports for 1935-1945.

Handwriting samples

See staff file WA/HMM/ST/Lat/A.136

Sources

MacClancy 2013.

Smith, Pamela Jane. 2000. "Dorothy Garrod, first woman Professor at Cambridge." Antiquity, vol. 74, no. 283, Mar. 2000, p. 131. (Lillico was interviewed in 1998 regarding her former tutor Dorothy Garrod.)

Lillico family tree (ancestry.com)

Joan Lillico, RAI history wiki

Oral history in Symons 1987. Includes discussing work on the ethnographic collections in the 1930s, pp 31-32:

We worked in an enormous gallery divided into compartments by screens and empty packing cases and spent most of our time identifying and cataloguing the thousands of objects bought in Sale Rooms. We were helped with the heavy work of lifting, opening cases etc. by two men, Webb & Stow. … I gather he and Webb between them did a lot of the bidding at sales when Sir Henry was building up the ethnographic collection.

Tags: museum staff; scientific staff; anthropology; 'Ethnographic section'

R. H. Kidd

in post 1916-17

In Symons' list of 'secretaries and other senior staff'

[[to research]] [[museum staff]]

Charles Marmoy

library assistant, in post from late 1930.

From oral history of Charles Marmoy, describing working in the Library at [Willesden) around 1930 ([Symons 1987 unpublished), 40):

<<< "When interviewed I was told of plans to open a new museum and library in town; now we learned that owing to the Great Depression these plans were to be shelved, a great disappointment to all. We were faced with life in a backwater: there were no visitors, the only use of the library being an occasional request for a book to be sent up to Wigmore Street. It was perhaps as a result of an urgent request that I went myself to the Museum and remember catching a glimpse of Henry Wellcome himself. Otherwise my work consisted of unpacking the many bundles and boxes received from the book auctions, entering up in a ledger those items worth keeping, and making simple cards by hand after checking with the catalogue. The more important items which were put into the historical collection were dealt with by the Librarian or the senior assistant and cards were typed by the secretary, [Miss Rose)."

<<<

See [Symons 1987 unpublished), 39-43

[[library staff]] librarian

C. J. S. [Charles John Samuel] Thompson (b.1862-d.1943)

Pharmacist and writer.

• Personal Librarian to HSW from 1897, collected books and mss for him.

• BW&Co employee from 1898, collecting and doing historical research for use in company publicity. At this time became BW&Co librarian at Snow Hill buildings, London.

• Collecting for historical medical exhibition from c1903 - 1913

In post as WHMM Curator 1913-1925

[[museum staff]] [[travelling agent]] curator [[library staff]]

John Michieli

photographer for WHMM, 1929-66. Sources: Symons 1987, note 12.

[[museum staff]]

Dr Paira Mall (b.1874-d.1957) linguist specialising in South Asian languages, medical doctor. active 1910 - c.1926

Researcher at WHMM from 1910, collector on the Indian subcontinent from 1911 until c.1924. Conducted manuscript cataloguing until c.1926.

[[museum staff]] [[travelling agent]] [[research staff]] [[south Asia]]

Born Ludwig William Gunter Büchner in Bourke, New South Wales in 1885, to Mechanics Institute librarian Otto L.G. Büchner and Catherine Malcolm. Early life marked by tragedy: father left when Ludwig was about 9 years old. Aged 11, a house fire burned to death 4 younger siblings left in Ludwig's care whilst his mother went to work.

Educated at Katoomba public school, Sydney Technical College and Ballarat School of Mines (1907-1909, 1911). From 1906 junior assistant at Australian Museum, Sydney. Attended University of Melbourne 1908 onwards as a Government Research Scholar under Professor R.J. Berry at the anthropological laboratory in the Anatomy School, and obtained numerous scholarships: was undertaking doctoral research in anatomy at Zurich University when war broke out.

Sent to France with the Imperial Expeditionary Force in August 1914. Obtained commission in Royal Field Artillery at Portsmouth in 1915, as L.W.G. Büchner-Malcolm. Lieutenant Büchner-Malcolm was attached to the Nigeria Regiment, West African Frontier Force where he took part in the Battle of Banjo in Cameroon in November 1915 (see https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/72898-australians-in-africa/?do=findComment&comment=660100), and undertook research into the Eghap people of central Cameroon. He remained in the Artillery until 1919. King's Messenger (diplomatic courier) at the Paris Peace Conference.

From about 1919 onwards, he used his mother's maiden name exclusively, and changed his name to Louis William Gordon Malcolm or L.W.G. Malcolm. After the war he matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and worked/volunteered at the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He graduated in 1921 with a Master's degree in Anthropology.

In 1921 he joined Bristol Museum and Art Gallery where he was assistant curator of archaeology and ethnology, before joining the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum as Conservator (chief curator) in 1925.

In 1932, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Cambridge on 'Medical Museums: an historical and bibliographic study'.

After leaving WHMM at the end of 1934, he joined the Inspectorate of the London County Council as a Liaison Officer organising the use of museum collections for teaching in London schools, and in 1937 became Curator of the Horniman Museum, a position he held until his death on 9 September 1946.

Handwriting sample: difficult to find, as Malcolm usually has documents in typescript. Some ms notes in WA/HMM/CO/Wel/E/2 and in museum register WA/HMM/CM/Acc/7 (in red ink, signed on opposite page).

Biographical and Archive Sources

• Lacaille, A.D. Typescript copy of obituary written for the Museums Journal in WA/HMM/EX/F/1

• Clarke, Ian D. (2016) A Peep at the Blacks: A History of Tourism at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, 1863-1924, 3.5

• Clarke, Ian D. (2015) From Katoomba to Ballarat to France and West Africa. Biography of L.W.G. Malcolm, Gold Museum Ballarat

• Jeffreys, M.D.W. (1966) 'Witchcraft in the Calabar province' African Studies, 25:2, pp.95-100 https://doi.org/10.1080/00020186608707234

• Kröller, Eva-Marie (2021) The McIlwraiths, 1853-1948. Chapter 7, T.F. McIlwraith at Cambridge

• Tuchscherer, Konrad (1999) 'The Lost Script of the Bagam' African Affairs, January 1999, vol. 98, no. 390, pp.55-77 https://www.jstor.org/stable/723684

• Woerlee, Bill (2007) Australians in Africa post on Great War Forum

• 'Four children burnt to death' Burrowa News (New South Wales), Friday 10 July 1896, p.3

• 'Katoomba News' Nepean Times (Penrith, New South Wales), Saturday 4 July 1896, p.6

• 'Personal Items' Ballarat Star (Victoria), Friday 24 November 1911, p.2

• 'In the Public Eye' The Herald (Melbourne, Victoria), Monday 6 July 1914, p.10

• 'Student joins Artillery' The Herald (Melbourne, Victoria), Wednesday 3 March 1915, p.8

• 'Personal' Sydney Morning Herald (New South Wales), Tuesday 4 September 1917, p.6

• Medal card for Malcolm, L W G, Australian Volunteer Hospital Regiment. The National Archives WO 372/13/90938

• 1914 Star medal card for Malcolm, L W G. The National Archives WO 329/2504

• Probate Office. Grant of Administration (admon) for Louis William Gordon Malcolm of 7 Monahan Avenue Purley, dated 4 December 1946

Published Bibliography

• Büchner, L.W.G. (1913) 'Notes on certain of the Cape Barren Islanders, Furneaux Group, Bass Strait, Australia' Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 45. Jahrg., H.6, pp.932-934 https://www.jstor.org/stable/24240296

• Büchner, L.W.G. (1914) 'A Study of the Curvatures of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Cranium' Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 28 April 1914

• Berry, J.A., Robertson, A.W.D. and Büchner, L.W.G. 'The Craniometry of the Tasmanian Aboriginal' The Journals of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, January - June 1914, vol. 44, pp. 122-126 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2843533

• Malcolm, L.W.G. (1920) 'Notes on the Cameroon province (with special-reference to the Bamenda division)', Scottish Geographical Magazine, 36:3, pp.145-153 https://doi.org/10.1080/00369222008734314

S.A.J. [Samuel Arthur Joseph] Moorat

Moorat first worked for the library part-time and unpaid in 1923/4, while a student at University College London. He joined the staff in a paid position in 1925.

voluntary library assistant (part-time), 1923/4 library assistant, late 1925- Sub-Librarian. Chief Librarian. in post 1932-1946

Moorat retired in 1946 but continued to work on compiling a catalogue of the Western Manuscripts collections.

see [Symons 1993), 17, 19, 30 (photo), 33-34.

[[library staff]] librarian

Harry Port Chief Carpenter active c.1914- [1928]

worked at Willesden warehouse with Miss Jones, overseeing the scientific staff. see Symons 1987, 18 (oral history of Joan Raymont). W.J. Britchford, Chief Carpenter 1926-68 says Port became Superintendent of Stores and Works shortly after he (B) was appointed, meaning Port oversaw stores. (Symons 1987, 27)

[[museum staff]]

F.N.L. Poynter

Librarian. in post 1954-1964, (Chief librarian 1961-64) Director WHMM and WIHM. in post 1964-1973

[[museum staff]] Director [[library staff]] librarian

H. J. Powell

in post 1916

In Symons' list of 'secretaries and other senior staff'

[[museum staff]] [[to research]]

W. R. B. Prideaux (1880-1932)

Librarian. in post July 1921 - end of 1925

Arrived in the Library at Stratford Mews in July 1921, from the Reform Club, and worked part-time initially.

References: Symons 1993, p16

Staff file: WA/HMM/St/Lat/A.177

Marjorie Rainsford-Hannay

scientific assistant, active c.1928-1930 [1932-33**]

previously worked at British Museum; active at WHMM for a ‘couple of years’ from 1932/3 (Symons 1987, 10). Registered objects 1930, and with Rosa Burstein in 1931.

!! work at WHMM

!! biographical notes

!! sources

Registered objects 1930, and with Rosa Burstein in 1931. WAHMM/RP/Sta/1, canvas 42, 43, 67 https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aadq2es3/items?canvas=42&langCode=false&sierraId=b19106051

!!WAHMM archive materials

[[museum staff]] [[scientific staff]] ethnography

Margaret Esther Rowbottom. Historian of science. Life dates: 1908-1999

Image: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pdnsn3qb

Work at WHMM

Rowbottom joined WHMM as an assistant in the museum’s ethnographic section in 1933 after a bachelor’s degree in Physics and studies in anthropology. When first employed, she worked under the direction of Rosa Burstein, “as a general assistant to help in sorting museum material”.

Rowbottom stayed at Wellcome’s museum for her whole career, organising exhibitions, recataloguing objects, and specialising in European history of science.

Biography

Obituary by John Symons (2000)

Notes in the description of her archived personal papers PP/MER https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dncq9cpk

WA/HMM archives

• WA/HMM/CO/Sub/211 - memoranda 1937-1959

Sources

Oral history in Symons 1987, p. 36 discussing cataloguing and sorting objects in 1933:

The ethnographical category was by far the largest, and it was this material that Miss Burstein and I sorted into appropriate sub-categories for re-packing – the whole of the first floor South Gallery was devoted to this purpose. Later when we had caught up with the arrears of sorting, we were also put onto accessioning. From interest and in order that I might work on more or less equal terms with the other members of the ethnographical staff, I added anthropology to my General Degree.

Tags: museum staff; anthropology; 'Ethnographic section; scientific staff

F.G. (Frances Gordon) Shirreff (b.1881-d.1916)

Secretary, active 1913-1916. active: work at WHMM: one of four original staff members of the permanent WHMM in 1914 under C. J. S. Thompson (with Huck, Amoruso, Carline) biographical notes: sources: WC archive materials: image: photo in Symons 1993, p13. Shirreff died in the First World War. Also, in

[img[L0017014-snipped-Shirreff-detail.PNG)

L0017014 “F.G. Shirreff with his mother, Elizabeth L. Shirreff (nee Davidson) in their garden, Sparsholt Vicarage, Berks (now Oxon). circa 1905.”

[[museum staff]]

Mrs J. Shawe

in post 1917-19

In Symons' list of 'secretaries and other senior staff'

[[to research]] [[museum staff]]

Born 1870 in St. Helier, Jersey. Died 31 July 1927 in St. Helier, Jersey. Married Mabel Florence de Gruchy (1875 - ?)

Archaeology at Wellcome's Gebel Moya excavations

William Joseph Sinel had a background as an archaeologist and naturalist. He was originally appointed c.1913 to do archaeological work at Wellcome's Gebel Moya excavations, aged around 43. He was recommended for the post by the ethnologist R. R. Marett (1866-1943), who knew Sinel's father Joseph Sinel (1844-1929), an established archaeologist working in the Channel Islands. According to Marett's letter of recommendation to Henry Wellcome, the younger Sinel was not formally trained in archaeology but had lots of practical experience from working with his father and was "a perfect devil for finding things". He was described as a "fanatical naturalist by profession" with a "great hand for preparing museum specimens, photographs, etc." (letter 26 July 1913, WA/HMM/CO/Ear/306).

It's not clear how many seasons William Joseph Sinel spent at Jebel Moya on Wellcome's excavations. Archive correspondence indicates that in 1915 he was back in England receiving medical treatment of quinine and prescribed rest, perhaps for malaria (letters April-May 1915, WA/HMM/CO/Ear/319).

Work for WHMM

Sinel was hired as a museum assistant at WHMM after the First World War, some time in 1918 or 1919. His work in the museum included cataloguing and registering museum objects. Accession register 5 contains some notes by him, initialled 'J.W.S.' (WA/HMM/CM/Acc/5, one in a front preface page, and another dated December 1919 written next to item R20676).

Sinel also made purchases at auction sales on behalf of the museum. A few Stevens auction sale catalogues dated Jan and March 1921 are annotated by him: https://wellcomecollection.org/works?query=WA%2FHMM%2FCM%2FSal+Sinel According to John Symons (1993, 15), Sinel was made redundant from WHMM in 1921. Museum assistant posts were no longer desired once the staff had finished retrospectively cataloguing all objects on display. WHMM curator C.J.S. Thompson hoped that Sinel would return to working in Jebel Moya when excavations resumed and asked Marett about short-term employment opportunities for him in the meantime. However the Jebel Moya excavations did not resume and Sinel sought another post. Sinel's last letter to Thompson in February 1921 states he had applied for a curator post at a private museum in Birchington, Kent.

Sinel's work after leaving WHMM hasn't been easy to track down. According to Jersey register office records he died in 1927, aged 57, while resident in St. Helier.

WA/HMM archives

• WA/HMM/CO/Ear/306 appointment as archaeologist in Jebel Moya, 1911-13 (page images 10-13)

• WA/HMM/CO/Ear/319 correspondence, 1915

• WA/HMM/ST/Ear/A.57 staff file, Aug 1919-Feb 1921

• Auction sales catalogues annotated by Sinel

Sources

• Symons 1993, pages 15, 58 (inc. a note on pronouncing the name Sinel: "short i, stressed on second syllable")

• Birth, marriage & death records (Jersey Heritage)

• Sinel family tree

Otto William Samson (b.1900-d.1976)

scientific staff, south Asian collections. active: 1938-

Anthropologist of east Asia, whose early career in Germany was interrupted fleeing persecution as a Jewish émigré. Worked at WHMM soon afterwards. In later career became curator and Director of Horniman Museum, London

work at WHMM: worked on Indian materials, following departure of Mr Chatterjee in 1938.

biographical note: Educated at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, and later in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg. Joined the staff at the Hamburg Ethnographical Museum in 1928. Worked on East Asian materials, and went on expedition to China 1931, collecting materials for the museum. Dismissed from his position in October 1933 amid mounting anti-Jewish hatred in the city. Emigrated to London, getting a job through his contacts in University College's Galton Laboratory ‘working under G. M. Morant on the collection of human remains excavated between 1911 and 1914 at Jebel Moya in the Southern Sudan’, reported by D. Swallow to be an ‘immensely difficult and unrewarding task’. (see Swallow 1989, 8). Gained an exploration fellowship from UNiv Edinburgh to study material culture of villages in Punjab and connections to Chinese cultural exchange, including collecting artefacts for Univ Cambridge Antrhopology dept, and material which eventually ended up at Horniman. Backed by references of among others, Braunholz of British Museum (husband of WHMM Joan Braunholz?.) Over 2 years, he also explored western India. Worked again at Galton laboratory, but soon started working voluntarily in the Oriental Antiquities and Ethnography Museum of BM. Worked there, partly casually paid and partly voluntarily, gaining full time position in 1942 as a technical assistant. Swallow biography does not mention employment in WHMM, though according to Symons 1987 he joined WHMM in November 1938 (p38). 1939, BM employed him as Assistant Keeper (second class) as regular keepers still away on war service. Samson became Curator of the Horniman Museum in 1947.

sources: Archer, W. G. "Dr. Otto William Samson." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 1 (1976): 93-94. Accessed April 6, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/25203700. Biographical lecture, with detail of Samsons collecting expeditions in South East Asia. Swallow, D. (1989). Oriental art and the popular fancy: Otto Samson, ethnographer, collector and museum director. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 121(1), 5-31. doi:10.1017/S0035869X0016784X

Horniman Museum info on Samson: https://www.horniman.ac.uk/agent/agent-2528/

image: not yet found

[[scientific staff]] [[east Asia]] [[museum staff]] [[south Asia]]

Marion Harry Alexander Spielmann (1858-1948)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Spielmann https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F62332 art critic and scholar

see A&M search for mss written by Spielmann held in MS series, inc published under museum research series 1925. http://search.wellcomelibrary.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1955302__St%3A%22MS.8524%22__Orightresult__X3?lang=eng&suite=cobalt

[[to research]]

Harry Stow (life dates not yet researched)

work at WHMM

Employed as a ‘factotum’ (handyman) and general manual worker (Symons 1993, p.13). Stow was among the staff members sent to bid in person at auction sales. He was active at WHMM from c.1908 to at least 1934 from his annotations in auction catalogues.

Oral history of W.J. Britchford describes Stow as a ‘right hand man’ to Henry Wellcome when W was in London, dealing with his personal needs and purchases. Oral history of Joan Lillico describes how Stow helped with unpacking cases of ethnographic material for staff to catalogue. (Symons 1987, 31-32.)

WA/HMM archives

• Earliest annotated auction catalogue October 1908 (WA/HMM/CM/Sal/21/83/2)

• Latest annotated auction catalogue July-August 1934 (WA/HMM/CM/Sal/21/874/1)

• WA/HMM/ST/Lat/A.204 - Staff file (closed), dated Sep 1915 - Nov 1941

Oral history of W. J. Britchford, describing Harry Stow (source: Symons 1987, 31):

He would go to the salerooms and bring back catalogues for Sir Henry to study and mark anything which interested him. He also went to the salerooms to bid for such items. If Sir Henry said he needed some new shirts Stow would buy half a dozen at a time, and he would purchase shaving brushes and even shoes for him at times.

Tags: museum staff; auction bidder; practical staff

Joan Raymont (married name: Braunholtz) scientific staff, Greece and Rome; materia medica active: Nov 1928 -- autumn 1932

work at WHMM: Worked in ‘Greek and Roman section of the Materia Medica’. (Symons 1987, p16.) “I catalogued and re-labelled the Greek and Roman bronze surgical instruments and terracotta votive offerings, and tried to find out all I could about them from any books I could lay hands on, and infrequent visits to the British Museum Library and Hellenic Society. … I published a paper on ‘ancient dentistry’, and wrote one on ‘donaria’, not published. When I showed the piece on dentistry to Malcolm he said it was not permitted to publish anything without permission from him.” (pp.18-19).

Cataloguing of 'donaria' (votive offerings), 1929. Staff reports 1929 (WAHMM/RP/Sta/1, canvas 99).

biographical notes: Graduate of Somerville college, Oxford in Classical Archaeology. left WHMM in 1932, after marrying Hermann Braunholtz of the British Museum Ethnographical Department. (“Our acquaintance had continued in spite of Malcolm’s objection to his staff ‘hob-nobbing’ with people from the B.M.”)

sources: oral history in Symons 1987, pp.16-19. WC archive materials: Report by Malcolm on Braunholtz’s resignation WA/HMM/ST/ Lat/A.29.

Handwriting sample: Staff reports 1929 (WAHMM/RP/Sta/1, canvas 99) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aadq2es3/items?canvas=99&langCode=false&sierraId=b19106051

image:

Quotes from oral history:

<<<

Soon after our arrival in Wigmore Street, we, the ‘scientific’ staff were supplied with stiff heavy khaki overalls of the kind worn by warehousemen and furniture removers, and dispatched to a disused factory or warehouse at Willesden. The employment situation was such that no one dared complain. Independence meant everything to me. But we had all taken the job on the understanding that we were to work at Wigmore Street, and had made arrangements accordingly. For me the journey was a long and tedious one by bus up the Harrow Road. … The factory…lay between a tannery and an anchovy essence factory, and there were appalling smells (especially on Fridays). .. The premises where we had to work were practically unheated, and the winter of 1928-9 was a particularly cold one; all of us were more or less ill. …At Willesden, we took our orders from Mr. Port and Miss Jones. … These two had over the years evolved at system and a language of their own. ‘Curious object, use unknown’, we were often advised to write or ‘It has been good’. Otherwise it was ‘shelve it’ – when all else failed.

<<<

<<<

Sir Henry was at that time buying through his agents anything and everything, almost regardless of its connection with the history of medicine – coaches, carriages, perambulators, African spears, skeletons, porcelain, Japanese netsukes, all arrived almost daily in huge consignments. As our ignorance of much of this material was almost total, the cataloguing was largely guess-work.

<<<

source: Symons 1987, pp.17-18.

[[museum staff]] [[scientific staff]] [[Greece and Rome]] [[materia medica]]

A. E. H. Swinstead

in post 1915-16. In Symons' list of 'secretaries and other senior staff'

[[to research]] [[museum staff]]

Major Julio Uribe

General in Ecuadorian military. Worked with Wellcome from 1910, as a personal assistant (factcheck) during excavations at Gebel Moya, Sudan, and also at WHMM.

[[to research]] [[museum staff]]

Edwin Ashworth Underwood, MD FRCP

Director of WHMM. in post 1946-1964

[img[M0013823-tiny.jpg)

M0013823 – directors office at Portman Square

[[museum staff]] Director

C.A. Sizer

Wellcome Institute Museum curator. in post 1969-1977

WIHM [[museum staff]] curator

Mr Webb

bid in person for items at auction sales, and carried out library work at [Willesden) (documented in 1929, see WA/HMM/LI/Rep/4, image 3).

[[museum staff]] [[auction bidder]] [[library staff]]

Welch

active: work at WHMM: biographical notes: sources: WC archive materials: image:

[[to research]]

Mr Wilkes restored paintings

[[museum staff]] [[to research]] [[practical staff]]

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Winder

Winifred Susan Blackman (1872 - 1950) was retained by Captain Peter Johnston-Saint, third Conservator of the Wellcome Museum, to collect ethnographic materials relating to the fellahin of Egypt.

Winifred Susan Blackman was born in Westmorland, England in 1872. Her younger brother, Aylward Manley Blackman, an Egyptologist, was a fellow at Worcester College, and following him Winifred went to Oxford in 1912 where she started volunteering at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Following her father’s sudden death in 1913, Winifred appealed to Henry Balfour and Robert Marett for work. (Larson 116). Balfour secured some funds to employ her an assistant and she spent many years cataloging the collection. In 1915, Winifred secured her diploma in Anthropology from Oxford. She first traveled to Egypt with Aylward and a group of his students in 1920. She went again in 1921, this time without her brother.

During her many visits, subsidized by several small grants from Oxford University, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society. From 1927-1932, Wellcome paid her 250 a year in exchange for objects related to the history of medicine (Egyptian charms, and remedies) (Larson 262-264) During her time in Egypt, Hideyb Abd el-Shafy and his wife Sadia housed and guided Winifred. Frances Larson writes “Over the years, Blackman became famous among the fellahin. To the Egyptians she was a contradiction in terms: an Englishwoman who traveled alone and lived with them as their guest. Unlike other English visitors, Winifred did not impose herself: she was there to listen, observe, and record what she saw...” (Larson 145-146)

She documented the traditional and the contemporary customs of the fellahin, the farmers of Egypt. Material that she collected is now primarily at the Pitt Rivers Museum, the British Museum, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA, with smaller numbers of objects on loan to Sir Henry Wellcome's Museum Collection at the Science Museum and at the Egypt Centre Swansea.Material that she collected is now primarily at the Pitt Rivers Museum, the British Museum, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA, with smaller numbers of objects on loan to Sir Henry Wellcome's Museum Collection at the Science Museum and at the Egypt Centre Swansea.

Winifred Blackman’s Publications:

• “The Magical and Ceremonial Uses of Fire.” Folklore 27, no. 4 (1916): 352–377.

• “The Rosary in Magic and Religion.” Folklore 29, no. 4 (1918): 255–280.

• Some modern Egyptian graveside ceremonies. London: John Murray, 1921

• The fellāhīn of Upper Egypt, London: Harrap, 1927.

• Les Fellahs De La Haute-Egypte-Vie Religieuse, Sociale Et Économique. Le Présent Et Les Survivances Anciennes. Paris: Payot, 1948

Wellcome Collection references:

• Blackman collection dossier / correspondence: WA/HMM/CM/Col/12

• Dispersal to British Museum: WA/HMM/TR/Abc/C.4/23

• One of Blackman's collecting notebooks: MS.8182

• Photographs taken by Blackman in Egypt

Image: https://rawi-magazine.com/articles/winifred_blackman/ (Paolo Del Vesco)

Other sources:

• Del Vesco, Paolo. “Jewels from the Nile: The Ethnographical collection of Winifred Blackman” Raw: Egypt’s heritage Review 7 (2015): 52-58. https://rawi-publishing.com/articles/winifred_blackman/

• Larson, Frances. Undreamed Shores: The Hidden Heroines of British Anthropology. London: Granta Books, 2021 (see page 129-155, 260-273) *297-300 have an additional extensive bibliography and archive list

• Stevenson, Alice. “Labeling and Cataloguing at Every Available Moment: W.S. Blackman’s Collection of Egyptian Amulets.” Journal of Museum Ethnography 26 (2013): 138-149.

Life dates: 1888–1957. Swedish anthropologist working across Africa and South America.

Material acquired from Bolinder includes anthropological photographs of Ibo peoples in southern Nigeria (c.1932).

Archive sources:

• WA/HMM/CO/Alp/66 1931-1933. Photographs discussed (from page image 20)

• WA/HMM/CM/Col/14 medicinal plants collected in South America, c.1933

• WA/HMM/CM/Col/95/1 medicinal plants collected in South America, undated [not available online]