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Frederick Horniman, tea merchant, politician and philanthropist, was a compulsive and passionate collector, fascinated by the power of real objects. He used his own travels and a network of agents to amass a huge collection of specimens from every corner of the world which he then made freely available to the people. These collections, well-curated and developed over the past 150 years have enabled the Horniman to become one of the few museums in the country capable of illustrating the breadth of the World’s natural and cultural diversity.

As with any collections of this nature, our collection includes objects that are today subject to restrictions that did not exist at the time of collection, including those made of controlled materials (i.e. ivory), human remains, and cultural property which we now understand it is disrespectful for us to own, store or display.

As the Horniman begins to confront its colonial history we wish to develop an ethical approach to collections development which will take into account the views of source and diaspora communities and past history of collecting.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2019

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Accredited Collections are divided into three disciplinary areas: Anthropology, Musical Instruments and Natural History. In 1997 both the Anthropology and Musical Instrument collections were designated as being of national importance by the then Museums and Galleries Commission (MGC; now Arts Council England). Detailed information about the existing collections and their history can be found within the following appendices to this policy:

• Anthropology
• Musical Instruments
• Natural History

Description of existing Ethnographic and Archaeology collections

Quality and variety of collection

The Anthropology collections of the Horniman Museum, which are estimated to number in excess of 100,000 objects, are among the most significant anthropology collections in the United Kingdom. They comprise objects from many regions of the world and include specimens of major national and international significance.

The core of the Oceanian collections was systematically assembled under the auspices of A. C. Haddon, an eminent Oceanist who acted as Advisory Curator between 1903 and 1915. It contains material from the three sub-areas of the Pacific, namely Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, as well as Australia, with a particularly strong focus on Papua New Guinea. Numbering almost 7,000 artefacts, it is distinguished by its particularly fine quality objects and important source collections from which many of them were derived. Notable among these is a group of 32 artefacts formerly belonging to James Edge Partington (1913), Fijian material from Sir Everard Im Thurn (1918–20), J. K. Hutchin’s Rorotonga collection (1903) and Papuan collections made by W. H. Abbot from Collingwood Bay (1903), C. G. Seligman and Cooke Daniel (1906), A.C. Haddon (1906, 1912) and later L. P. Robbins (made in the 1890s, but purchased in 1932), and Lord Moyne (1936).

Many of the objects within the Asian collection were acquired through purchase by Frederick or John Emslie Horniman from international exhibitions such as the Great Exhibition (1851), the India and Colonial Exhibition (1886), the Vienna Exhibition (1889) and the Anglo-Japanese Exhibition (1910). Others were purchased in the course of world travels (India and Sri Lanka (1894); USA, Japan, China, Burma and southern India (1895)), while still others came through dealers and auction houses and through the assistance of agents and acquaintances (the Rev Robert Davidson, western China (1895); Sir Somers Vine, India (various dates)). The collections have been further increased in the 20th century through systematic field collecting carried out by curators and other anthropologists. Notable among these are the Andaman collections made by Montague Protheroe (1908) and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, one of the founders of modern anthropology (1910), Maldive collections made by Stanley Gardiner, Charles Hose’s spectacular collection from Borneo and Sir Henry Cotton’s and Maj-Gen K.J. Kiernan’s (1969) Naga collections from Assam (1916 and 1969 respectively). Important curatorial collections include Otto Samson’s extensive field collections from India, Sikkim and Tibet (1936–7), Ken Teague’s collections from Central Asia (1991–2001) and Fiona Kerlogue’s collections from Japan and South-East Asia (2001–9). Other important material has been donated, such as the Mears collection of Chinese Qing dynasty material. In recent years the Museum has also purchased good material from anthropologists such as Genevieve Duggan’s field collection of textiles from Savu, Indonesia; Willemijn de Jong’s field collection from Flores, also in Indonesia; and Susan Conway’s fieldwork collection of Thai textiles.

Amongst the most important of our collections from Europe are the Lovett collection, chiefly of English ‘folklore’ material acquired between 1906 and 1933; material from Mary Edith Durham from Montenegro (1907) and Albania (1920); an extensive collection of material covering all aspects of rural life in Romania presented to the Museum by the Romanian government in 1957; a collection of propaganda posters from the former Soviet Union collected by Chris Tsielepi; and the Pennington collection of costume from the former Yugoslavia acquired in 1981.

The African collection contains a considerable variety of material and represent aspects of many different lifestyles (hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, agriculturists and indigenous politics as well as contemporary urban life), stretching from the northern deserts to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Guinea Coast to the Horn of Africa. Many of the collections are associated with eminent names in African studies, including early anthropologists and scholars such as: Emile Torday, Zaire (1910); Edward Evans-Pritchard, Sudan (1920–30); Siegfried Nadel, Nigeria (1930s); Daryl Forde, Nigeria (1980s); as well as from colonial officers, missionaries and private collectors: F. H. Ruxton, Nigeria (1930s); Graham, Sierra Leone (1950s), Leroux, Zaire (1968), the Rev Lionel West, Zaire (1970); W. Holman Bentley, Congo (1905); Jean Jenkins and P. Radford, Ethiopia (1960s–70s). The African collection has continued to grow over the last half-century and includes important additions made under the directorship of Otto Samson (1947–65) and later David Boston (1965–93), as well as through the work of Horniman curators such as Valerie Vowles and Keith Nicklin.

The American collection was built from donations, particularly the Inuit and Northwest Coast collections made by A. C. Haddon, and the E. Lovett North

American Collection which was presented to the Museum by Emslie Horniman. Emslie himself made important donations of North American material to the Museum, including pre-Columbian archaeological pieces from central Mexico and Oaxaca. John Eric Horniman, Emslie’s son, also made an excellent collection of Plains Indian beaded material, including clothing, pipe bags and a bonnet. In 1961 the Museum acquired a Blackfoot Tipi, transferred from the Glenbow Museum, Canada. The Museum has also sponsored contemporary North American Indian artists. In 1966, Fred Stevens, a Navajo medicine man, executed a sand painting in the Museum; while in 1985 Nathan Jackson, of the Tlingit people of Alaska, carved a 25-ft totem pole and presented it to the Museum.

The ethnographic collections also include the former collection of the National Museum of Wales, transferred in 1981, as well as transfers from: the Smithsonian Institute; the Glenbow Museum; the Royal Museum of Canterbury, which includes an important 18th-century drill bow from Northern Alaska collected by Captain James Cook in 1778 or 1779; and the Museum of the American Indian, New York. The Museum also holds objects on loan from the Royal Collections.

The collections also include important archaeological specimens, including several Egyptian mummies and related funerary furnishings acquired through Sir Flinders Petrie, lithographic collections from various parts of Africa, various smaller pieces of Gandhara stone sculpture, pre-Columbian Caribbean stone tools and implements, pre-Columbian Mexican and Peruvian ceramics and some European archaeology.

A substantial part of this collection was part of the original gift of Frederick Horniman, although later additions were made by, for example, A. C. Haddon, as well as a large collection from the Canary Islands, transferred to the Horniman from the Institute of Archaeology in 1972 and collected by F. E. Zeuner. The early collections are of particular importance as they shed light on ‘the beginnings of archaeology’.

As with most of the major ethnographic collections in the UK, no general survey of this collection has been published. Dr Ken Teague has written on the early period of the collection and two manuscripts, in the Horniman Museum Archive, chart their overall historical growth. Specific historical aspects of the collection have been discussed by Annie Coombes and Anthony Shelton. A summary statistical survey has been published by the Museum Ethnographers Group, while the Oceanic collections are reported in the 1979 UNESCO survey. The mask collections have been extensively reported and surveyed in Anthony Shelton’s Masks, the footwear collections are documented in Natalie Tobert’s Feet of ingenuity, and the headwear in Pitt and Norris’s Catalogue of headwear. Other parts of the collection have been described in various published guides to exhibitions and in academic monographs and journals. In the catalogue Wrapping Japan, for example, Fiona Kerlogue gives an overview of our Japanese collections, and her article ‘Theoretical perspectives and scholarly networks: the development of the collections from the Malay world at the Horniman Museum 1898 –2008′ provides an extensive examination of the Museum’s Malaysian collections. The Museum’s own series Contributions in Critical Museology and Material Culture has also included articles on different aspects of the collections. The two volumes on Collectors edited by Anthony Shelton, Nicky Levell’s Oriental visions, and Re-visions edited by Karel Arnaut, cover different aspects of the collections.

Demonstrable quality, uniqueness or rarity

Oceania

Within the Pacific collection there are notable holdings from the Bismarck Archipelago, two chalk figures and five tatuana masks from New Ireland, extensive Papuan Gulf material including gope boards, personal decoration, etc. The collection contains two Solomon Island canoes, three particularly fine anthropomorphic prow ornaments, a Cook Island canoe and models and canoe attachments from elsewhere in the Pacific. There are also two important and rare dance paddles from the Easter Islands and a rare whisk handle from the Astral Islands.

The collection is continuously being improved and boasts notable acquisitions such as a collection of Baining masks from the 1950s and 1970s used in night ceremonies and a well-documented field collection, including video footage and photographic documentation, of 13 uvol headdresses from the Melkoy people. This is one of only two of its type in the UK and forms part of the original van Bussal collection shared between the Museum of African and Oceanic Art, Paris; Museum für Völkerkunde, Stuttgart; and the Royal Albert Museum, Exeter. Other acquisitions include two contemporary dance headdresses from the Torres Strait, Australia, acquired to compliment two fine 19th century examples in tortoiseshell held by the Museum.

Asia

The Asian collections account for about 42% of the total holdings, or approximately 41,023, items and are particularly rich in art, masks and puppets, and material culture from India, China, Japan (including objects from the Ainu), Sri Lanka and Burma. Many of the Indian and Japanese holdings formed part of Horniman’s original collection and include important examples of stone sculpture, ritual objects and Japanese, Chinese and Indian costumes.

The Mary Burkett collection of felt from the Middle East, acquired in the 1980s, is regarded as the reference collection for such material in the UK. Rare individual items include a Brunei gantang or rice measure, believed to be the only one in a UK collection; a pair of enormous cloisonné vases; a summer palanquin and a bamen, or horse mask from Japan; rare documents relating to secret societies in China; a mask and funerary post from the Jorai people of Vietnam; a bearskin war coat from Borneo; and so on.

Africa

The African collections, numbering an estimated 18,486 objects, represent 19% of the total ethnographic holdings. The geographical range of the collection is extensive, covering the whole of the continent, with virtually every modern African state represented. The collections boast several important pieces include two Afo figures donated by Ruxton, Nkisi Nkondi figures, an Ibibio figure with suspended sword, and several groups of African masks. Consequently, several of our important pieces have been included in major exhibitions both locally and internationally in institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts, the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Word Cultures in Göteborg, Sweden.

Americas

The American collection contains about 8,500 objects, including artefacts from North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. It holds exceptional pieces, like the Inuit bucket decorated with bone figures, and three Inuit masks. Also included in this collection are 59 Northwest Coast pieces transferred from the Museum of the American Indian, New York (1934), which include fine examples of Haida material; two Kwatiutl masks and related material transferred from the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (1958); as well as field collections and purchases such as a collection of Inuit seal skin clothing from the Church Missionary Society (1965).

Europe

A unique aspect of the collection is that it contains substantial and important folk art collections from western and central Europe as well as Scandinavia. Until recently, the Horniman has been the only museum in the UK committed to research in this area. Notable among these collections are extensive holdings of textiles, costume, wooden utensils, paintings on glass, agricultural and domestic implements, puppet theatres and masks from Romania, Poland, Norway and the Tyrol region. In the opinion of Deborah Swallow, Director of the Courtauld Institute and former Keeper of Indian Collections at the V&A, ‘the Horniman certainly has the widest range of early 20th century European folk costume in this country and possibly in Europe as a whole’.

The Museum’s European collections include rare items from Scandinavia such as calendar staffs, ceremonial drinking cups and mangle boards. Archaeological material includes some of the earliest evidence of human activity in England as well as Danish material from the collection of the first Lord Avebury. Other individual items include a coracle from Ireland, a set of penitents’ costumes from Spain, and carnival masks from Sardinia.

Aesthetic significance

Although from 1901 the Horniman has focused much of its collecting policy on material culture, the collections nevertheless also contain objects of outstanding aesthetic significance. Material of this nature arrived under the directorship of Otto Samson (1947–1965), formerly a curator of the Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg, who had a special interest in art. Samson used his extensive continental connections to make collections of Yoruba gelede masks from the Republic of Benin and built an extraordinary collection of masks from the Pende, Yaka, Suka, Kuba and Congo peoples of Zaire.

The African collection contains important historical and archaeological collections, including extensive Egyptian burial material, some superb examples of 19th-century high status Aymara metalwork and primitivist paintings from Ethiopia, and Benin brasses and ivories, purchased from W. J. Wider of the British Punitive Expedition of 1897.

Objects of outstanding aesthetic significance may also be found in other regional areas of the collections. For example, many of Frederick Horniman’s early purchases of statuary and other religious artefacts from Asia are aesthetically strong, especially examples from Japan and India. Some of the Chinese archaeological ceramics are of fine quality. There are also a small number of 20th-century paintings from Bali, India and Mongolia.

Items of aesthetic significance in the European collections fall chiefly into the category of naïve art, such as scrimshaw, icons and wooden carvings. There are also examples of sculpture and ceramic art from the Greek and Roman period as well as mediaeval alabaster religious sculpture.

Cultural significance

Since the 1950s, the Museum has focused on building ethnographic archives representing the material culture of people from all parts of the world. These collections are the product of in-depth field research and provide extensive documentation of the cultures concerned, of technologies used and of the structure of human society in different ecological zones. Outstanding among these unique resources which provide type specimens of material culture at specific historical times are:

• Colin Turnbull, the Mbuti people of Zaire (1956–9);
• James Woodburn), the Hadza of Tanzania (1966;
• Valerie Vowles (with the National Museum and Art Gallery, Gaborone), the San of Botswana (1970–71);
• Jeremy Keenan, the Tuareg of Algeria (1971);
• Eric Bigalke (with the East London Museum, South Africa), Transvaal and Transkei;
• Jean Brown and Cordelia Rose (with the Institute of African Studies, Nairobi), the Samburu of Kenya (1972);
• Nancy Stanfield, the Yoruba of Nigeria (1970s–80s);
• Keith Nicklin, Luo pottery from Kenya (1987);
• Keith Nicklin, Southeast Nigeria groups (1980s);
• Keith Nicklin, the Yoruba of Nigeria (1990);
• Keith Nicklin, the Ogoni of the Delta region of Nigeria (1992);
• Natalie Tobert, Sudanese material culture (1996);
• Rodney Gallup, collection of 65 masks and other material from Mexico (1960 and 1967);
• Marion Wood, collection of Navajo textiles and weaving implements, including dyes, Arizona and New Mexico, USA (1980);
• Natalie Tobert, collection of modern Pueblo pottery, Arizona and New Mexico, USA (1992);
• Anthony Shelton, collection of 40 Hopi Katsina dolls representing principal spirit beings, and tracing stylistic development in carving from 1950s–80s (1996);
• Nicholas Guppy, collection of Wai Wai material culture, Guyana (1969);
• Philip Peberdy, collection of Wai Wai material culture, Guyana (1949);
• Anna Lewington, ethnobotanical collection illustrating folk medicine of Highland Ecuador (1986);
• Gosewijn van Beek and Kateline van Beek-Auer, the Bedamuni, Western Province, Papua New Guinea (1978–9);
• Marilyn Strathern, Mount Hagen peoples, Papua New Guinea (1966);
• Cambridge Expedition to Budhopur, Pakistan (1960–61);
• Beryl de Zoete archive of film, photography and artefacts (collected 1936);
• Ken Teague, Uzbekistan (2001);
• Fiona Kerlogue, Cambodia (2003);
• Fiona Kerlogue, Bali (2008–9);
• Romanian government, transferred from Museum of Peasant Art (1957).

Description of existing Musical Instruments collection

Quality and variety of collection

The Horniman Museum aims to include sound-producing objects from all periods of history, from all parts of the world, and from all musical traditions in the Musical Instrument collection. It is currently responsible for some 9703 examples, which are used extensively by all sectors of the public, including specialist scholars and musical instrument makers. While the MGC report Museums of music was inconclusive as to which museum had the largest collection in the country, the authors acknowledged that the Horniman ‘has some claims to being more comprehensive than any other in the UK’. The Museum’s instruments feature in numerous works of reference.

In 1901, Frederick Horniman’s gift to the public included some 200 musical instruments. Until the 1950s, the Museum’s Ethnography Section was responsible for the Musical Instrument collections. The quality and variety of the instruments acquired during that period reflect the ethnography holdings, since they were obtained from the same sources. Collections of objects for both the Anthropology and Musical Instrument sections, such as the systematic ethnographic material culture archive of the Bedamuni of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea (van Beek, 1978–9), and the musical instruments, costumes, masks and video performance of Chhau dance from Orissa and Bihar, provide tangible evidence of the continuing policy of documenting connections between the instruments and their cultural contexts. This policy is carried through into exhibitions curated by staff, as seen in temporary exhibitions such as Music from India and the permanent exhibition in the Music Gallery, where short extracts of video footage, from longer films documenting performance technique and contexts, are an integral part of the exhibition. The Boosey & Hawkes display includes a range of material from the archives that contextualises instrument use and consumption. Instrument makers’ tools and footage of instrument makers at work are also included. The At Home With Music display, opened in 2014, includes silent footage showing both exterior and interior views of the types of instruments on display and close-ups of the actions or working parts. In addition, it includes four accessioned historical keyboard instruments maintained in playing order and used on a regular basis for public performances.

In 1947 the status of the musical instrument collection was consolidated by the acquisition of the Carse Collection of over 300 historic woodwind and brass instruments from the European orchestral and band tradition. The collections of Percy Bull were added the following year, and in 1956, the transfer was made of a large part of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s collections of instruments from countries outside Europe. Jean Jenkins, the well-known ethnomusicologist and broadcaster, was appointed to the post of Curatorial Assistant in the early 1950s and became the first Keeper of Musical Instruments when the musical collections were formed into a separate department in 1960. Under her guidance, the ethno-musicological collections were developed both by fieldwork and by further transfers of substantial collections of instruments from other museums. Since 1978, the Musical Instrument Section has instigated the acquisition of a number of important collections, including the Dolmetsch collection; the collection of the Concertina Museum in Belper, Derbyshire (Wayne collection); the Boosey & Hawkes collection; and the collections of instruments and recordings from rural India acquired in collaboration with the British Library Sound Archive between 2000 and 2005.

The range and types of the instruments represented in the collections is indicated below. The Museum’s instrument collection is particularly rich in historic European wind and brass wind instruments from the Carse and Bull collections.

The Boosey & Hawkes collection includes over 300 historical musical instruments, mostly woodwind and brass, including those made by Boosey & Hawkes and their subsidiaries and predecessors. It also features many instruments by other makers that illustrate important English and continental developments in design and manufacture. The Boosey & Hawkes Collection was begun in the late 19th century by David James Blaikley, a pioneer of brass instrument design and the works manager of Boosey & Co until 1930. Blaikley collected a wide range of historical and contemporary instruments from around Europe, many of which were examples of the latest developments in instrument design and technology. Boosey’s instrument makers clearly used the collection as an in-house design resource. The collection continued to grow in the 20th century, particularly during the curatorship of Eric McGavin. It is unique in that it reflects what was of historic interest and value to instrument makers and designers and is a rare survival of an instrument making firm’s factory collection. The collection also reflects the corporate history of Boosey & Hawkes and their great influence on instrumental music in Britain. This aspect of the collection has become even more significant with the closure of the instrument making arm of Boosey & Hawkes in December 2005, which marked the end of large-scale musical instrument making in Britain.

The Wayne collection of over 600 examples of concertinas and related European free reed instruments such as accordions and harmoniums represents a chronicle of the concertina, from its invention by Charles Wheatstone in 1829, with the earliest models and prototypes, through to its late 20th-century revival. It is complemented by a large collection of Asian free reed instruments from which the European instruments derive, including an elaborately gilded Japanese sho or mouth-organ, made for the orchestra of a named 18th-century Japanese nobleman. Single and double reed instruments include shawms from Africa and Asia, and the collection of bagpipes from Europe ranges from French instruments of the 18th century to a late 20th-century Polish example. Wind instrument collections made in Romania in 1867, 1957 and in the 1980s are among the most numerous of the Museum’s holdings in East European traditional instruments.

Among the stringed instruments, there are many varied examples of late 19th- and early 20th-century Indian long-necked lutes. Lyres from East and Central Africa are one of the strengths of the collections, as are zithers from many parts of the world. The bowed instruments are similarly representative of the world’s traditions; historic European examples include a number of kits and viols with some important English examples in the Dolmetsch collection. The 30 stringed keyboard instruments range from 17th-century Italian virginals to 20th-century player pianos, including later instruments of the early music revival by Arnold Dolmetsch. Among the collection of organs is a composite instrument with a rank of 17th-century Iberian pipes, a bureau organ attributed to the great London 18th-century maker of Swiss origin, John (Johannes) Snetzler, and a fine example (in playing order) of a late 18^th-century English chamber organ attributed to Joseph Beloudy. The mechanical musical instruments include late 18th-century barrel organs, musical boxes, instruments reproducing recorded sound and an orchestrion (a large barrel organ) probably made for a German roller-skating rink, which once stood in the main hall of Frederick Horniman’s private museum, greeting visitors with favourites such as the overture to Hérold’s Zampa (1831). Electro-acoustic guitars and electronic synthesisers also feature in the collection and are part of a considered policy of collecting musical instruments from popular music traditions.

The Museum houses a large number of drums used in dance and ritual, from all parts of the world. Many have associated documentary evidence or video footage of how they were used. Bells and rattles include archaeological material from Roman Britain, Egypt, China, Luristan, and Peru; instruments used in religious rituals and dances in Africa, Asia and the Americas; and horse bells and other animal bells from the UK, Europe, Asia and Africa. South-East Asian gamelan orchestras of percussion instruments with bronze keys are played in both Java and Bali, and examples have been collected by a number of music colleges and museums in the UK. The Horniman Museum houses a village gamelan ringgeng, with iron keys, the only example of this vernacular version of the gamelan ensemble in the UK.

The Horniman houses over 75 examples of an instrument found in many of the musical cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, the plucked lamellaphone mbira. This instrument is rapidly disappearing in Africa, and many of the Museum’s examples are now no longer made. An example of a mbira dza vadzimu is the subject of a focused collection on the technology of making this instrument.

This year, the Horniman’s double manual Jacob Kirckman harpsichord of 1772 has been joined by three other contrasting historic keyboard instruments that have also been restored to playing condition and are used principally for performance-demonstrations in the Music Gallery. They are virginals by Onofrio Guarracino of Naples made in 1668, a square piano by Adam Beyer, made in London in 1777 and a chamber organ attributed to Joseph Beloudy of London, made circa 1800. They were purchased by the Horniman from the Finchcocks collection, with generous sponsorship from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Demonstrable quality, uniqueness or rarity

The Adam Carse Collection of over 300 woodwind and brass instruments from the Western orchestral and band traditions contains many outstanding items including:

• a horn by William Bull of London, made in 1699 and the earliest dated example of this instrument made in England;
• a pair of flutes by Thomas Lot of Paris, complete with its shagreen-covered and silk-velvet lined case, which may have been made for a member of the French Royal family in the 18th century;
• a group of recorders, flutes and oboes by Thomas Stanesby and Thomas Stanesby Jr who were among the most highly-regarded makers of woodwind in
• London during the early 18th century (the oboes are particularly rare);
• an important experimental model of bassoon by Schott of Mainz, incorporating a prototype version of Almanräder’s keywork;
• a tenor saxhorn by Adolph Sax inscribed ‘La Famille Distin’ and ‘T. Distin, London’ (this instrument may have been presented to the Distins on their 1844 visit to Sax in Paris; Saxhorns, through the agency of Distin, became the mainstay of the British brass band);
• Carse’s library, which includes 19th-century books not held by the British Library or the Bodleian Library;
• Carse’s archive, which includes rare ephemera from the 18th and 19th centuries.

A collection of more than 300 instruments from oriental art traditions as well as a number of folk traditions, built up in the 19th century, was transferred from the V&A in 1956. This collection includes:

• an outstanding group of classical instruments made, possibly for the Persian court, in Shiraz during the 18th and early 19th centuries, including the earliest extant Persian kamanche (spike fiddle) which dates from c.1800, and was collected by Sir William Ousely, British ambassador to Persia – an instrument which should be brought to the attention of the authors of a recent scholarly study who state ‘… that … to our knowledge, no Persian musical instruments currently exist that belong to a period prior to 1850′;
• a large group of Romanian, Turkish and Georgian instruments bought at the Paris Exhibition of 1867
• a large group of 19th-century African instruments including a Zande harp described as ‘un chef-d’oeuvre de la lutherie zandé du début du XIXe siècle’.

The Victoria and Albert Museum transfer also includes unique examples of Western instruments, such as the late 18th century monochord by Longman and Broderip of London. The makers claimed that this instrument facilitated tuning by amateurs in all kinds of keyboard instruments, and it is the subject of an entire article in volume 52 of the Galpin Society Journal.

The report by Kate Arnold-Foster and Hélène La Rue identifies some of the areas where the Horniman Museum has the only public collection in Britain of a particular group of instruments. These, and other notable examples, are:

• popular music:
  • a collection of popular instruments including electric guitars and guitar synthesisers from 1937 to the present;
  • a collection of popular keyboard instruments including electronic instruments from the 1950s to the present;
• the Wayne collection of over 600 concertinas and other European free-reeds including the 19th-century ledgers of the C. Wheatstone & Co concertina factory; described as a ‘spectacular collection of instruments’, this acquisition answers the lack of a public collection demonstrating the work of Wheatstone.

The collection includes many individual instruments of outstanding quality and interest. For example, the German baroque lute by J. C. Hoffmann of Leipzig is the only known example of a Bach-period lute in original condition. The Friends of the Horniman have sponsored the Museum in commissioning a technical drawing of this instrument and as a result a number of working copies of it now exist.

Dolmetsch’s first harpsichord, known as the Green Harpsichord (M72-1983), signifies the initiation of the modern revival of interest in building early keyboard instruments within the authentic performance movement, the ramifications of which continue to the present day.

Collections of comparable significance

In terms of its overall collection size and quality the Horniman Museum should be rated with major American and European collections such as the Metropolitan Museum and the Brussels Musical Instrument Museum. The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, is of a similar rank and scope in terms of its ethnographic musical instrument material, but it has nothing comparable to the historic wind instruments of the Carse and Boosey & Hawkes collections, the historic stringed instruments and instruments of the early music revival in the Dolmetsch collection, nor does it have the comprehensive range of European free reed instruments represented in the Horniman’s Wayne collection. The Bate Collection, Oxford, is similar in scope to the Carse collection in its focus on European wind instruments, but its holdings are not as extensive. The only other collection of similar scope in the UK is that at the British Museum, which is only about a third of the size.

Aesthetic significance

The internationally important collections of the Horniman Museum are a resource which has been utilised by authors over many decades to illustrate the aesthetic significance of musical instruments in Britain, Europe and throughout the world. In addition, certain significant and rare objects, such as the violone attributed to Maggini, have been used as models by modern instrument makers, not only to replicate but also to inform and elucidate their craft in general. In the major travelling exhibition Eighteenth century musical instruments: France and Britain a selection of the English instruments in the collection of the Museum, such as the double manual harpsichord by Jacob Kirckman, London, 1772, and the Broadwood square piano of 1799 were used to illustrate ‘the English … preference for the sobriety and elegance of line and … a remarkable concern for perfection of craftsmanship’. Such accessible research initiated a recognition and appreciation, hitherto lacking, of 18th- and early 19th-century keyboard manufacture in England – and influenced the course of scholarship in the decades that followed.

Of all the surviving examples of the fife and drum (galoubet-tambourin), it is a tambourin drum at the Horniman Museum dating from the time of Louis XVI that the authors of a recent publication consider to be the most important, on account of the quality of its carving, its ‘equilibrium and sobriety’.

A five-stringed sitar (1970.429) dating from c.1855 and originally in the collection of the India Muse um was loaned for an exhibition of music at the Mughal courts of India, staged in the Museé de la Musique in Paris in 2003. It is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue and described as ‘A beautiful example of the excellence of the artisanal skills of Dhaka’. Also shown in this exhibition and its exhibition catalogue is a 19th-century Turkish frame drum (HML 24.8.56/96), to illustrate a type known to have been used in the Mughal courts of the 17th century.

In his copiously illustrated survey of the Chinese spike fiddle huqin, Colin Huehns makes the following observation with regard to an example of this instrument (1975.510) in the collection of the Horniman Museum: ‘The level and complexity of the ornamentation in this instrument far exceeds that on any other Chinese instrument of any sort that I have ever encountered’.

Since the primary function of the majority of musical instruments lies in the sensory domain of sound rather sight, the Museum’s examples are frequently used to convey information about the aesthetics of music. Horniman instruments were used in the display that was ‘designed to show the instruments which Handel employed in his orchestra throughout his life in England’ in the major exhibition illustrating the life and times of that composer, which was held in the National Portrait Gallery in 1983.

In 2006 a harp-lute by Edward Light, London, c.1810, with a painted floral border, was loaned to Taplow Court, once a home to members of the English aristocracy. This instrument (MT537-1998) was shown in an exhibition entitled Taplow Court and Music.

Historic significance

The musical instrument collection is associated with some important historical figures. These are listed here.

The collection of instruments owned and made by Arnold Dolmetsch (1858–1940) was purchased by the Museum in the early 1980s. The value of his work to the nation is chronicled in the Dictionary of National Biography. His collection includes material which documents the links between the revival of early music and the Arts and Crafts movement at the end of the 19th century. Arnold Dolmetsch had a wide circle of friends and admirers, among them the writer George Moore. Another of his champions was George Bernard Shaw who considered the first clavichord which he made in 1894 to be ‘a little masterpiece, which seems to me likely to begin such a revolution in domestic instruments as William Morris’s work made in domestic furniture and decoration … I therefore estimate the birth of this little clavichord as, on a modern computation, about forty thousand times as important as the Handel Festival’. One of Arnold Dolmetsch’s clavichords (M74-1983) made not long after he settled in Haslemere that is in the collection of the Horniman Museum has been used as a source for a recent article in the journal of the International Clavichord Society. Recent acquisitions have cemented the significance of the Horniman’s holdings in clavichords important to the early music revival, including a rare early example of 1895 by Dolmetsch which had been presumed lost (2015.152).

Dolmetsch’s close friends and supporters included the poet W. B. Yeats and the artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones, who decorated one of Dolmetsch’s early clavichords. The impetus for Dolmetsch to make his first harpsichord, the Green Harpsichord, may actually have come from William Morris himself, and the decoration, though never completed, was undertaken by others in the original Arts and Crafts circle: Helen Coombe, Selwyn Image and Herbert Horne. This instrument (M72-1983) has been the subject of recent research by scholars ranging from keyboard specialists to art historians and musicologists.

Instruments by Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875), the inventor of the concertina, form the core of the Wayne collection which was purchased by the Horniman Museum in 1996. The Wheatstone prototypes, patent models and early production models include different types of instruments by the maker: acoustical apparatus, monochord devices and pitch devices. Wheatstone was principally famous as a physicist. His inventions such as the Wheatstone bridge, the Playfair cypher and his innovatory use of electromagnets in electric generators are documented in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Research into the ledgers of the Wheatstone concertina factory (available online on http://www.horniman.info) shows that the first owner of one of the concertinas in the Horniman collection (M114a-1996) was another famous scientist, Alexander J. Ellis (1814–1890), inventor of the cents system of measuring intervals between musical notes and author of the paper ‘On the musical scales of various nations’. In keeping with his experiments, this concertina was tuned to ‘just’ intonation, rather than the more conventional equal temperament used today.

In 2003 the Museum loaned to the Wilberforce House Museum for an exhibition on the theme of slavery one of a pair of large Fante drums from Ghana (M32b-1985), that were presented to their donor in 1953 by the then President of the Ekumfi State, Nana Kaykin VI. The drum is displayed as one of the musical instruments of a contemporary West African community whose enslaved members were deported to the Americas. The two drums were tuned around a minor third apart and imitated speech rhythms and tones of the Fante language.

The Boosey & Hawkes collection was begun in the late nineteenth century by David James Blaikley (1846–1936), works manager and instrument designer at Boosey & Co. Blaikley’s work as an acoustician was pioneering and was presented at the Royal Society. His most important contribution to wind instrument design was the development of a successful compensating valve system, which enabled brass instruments to play better in tune. His compensating systems are still in use today for many of the larger brass instruments such as euphoniums and basses. The Boosey & Hawkes collection includes several prototype compensating instruments made by Blaikley and a number of instruments collected by Blaikley, which still bear labels in his hand.

The collections include examples of instruments owned by notable performers: a Boosey & Hawkes sessionair trumpet made for and played by Grisha Farfel, front man of the Billy Cotton Band; a hallmarked slide trumpet by Köhler that belonged to Thomas Harper Jr, noted virtuoso and trumpeter to Queen Victoria; a basset horn by Pask and several clarinets belonging to Henry Lazarus, noted virtuoso and professor; a tárogató by Schunda, which was brought to England by Hans Richter for performances of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde; Northumbrian smallpipes associated with the famed wood engraver Thomas Bewick and Punch cartoonist Charles Keene; and a horn associated with Giovanni Puzzi, a favourite performer of the Duke of Wellington and Queen Victoria.

Cultural significance

Musical instruments were among the ethnographical material collected by the anthropologists working from the 1950s until the present time.

Africa

Jean Jenkins, the curator of musical instruments from the early 1950s to 1978, made a large collection of musical instruments relating to religious ritual, and sound recordings in Ethiopia in the mid-1960s. This represents the most complete and up-to-date documentation of traditional Ethiopian music before the destruction of that ancient culture in the Marxist revolution; it was complemented by the acquisition of a collection of archival film and photographs assembled by James Potts in the early 1970s.

Americas

In 2015 contemporary examples of the percussion instruments played in the street bands of Rio de Janeiro were collected, together with images of video footage of performances on similar examples during Carnival in the city. The instruments and the footage acquired will be shown in the Music Gallery in a section of the exhibition devoted to seasonal festivals.

Asia

The Horniman Museum’s ‘post-Soviet cultures’ collecting project was developed during the mid- to late 1990s, a decade dominated by the seismic shifts in the former republics of the USSR after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Museum made extensive collections of modern examples of traditional instruments from Belarus and Uzbekistan, in collaboration with experts in the field who had made the study of the traditional music of their own cultural areas their life’s work, and who were able to provide excellent contacts to musical instrument makers and musicians. Thus in Uzbekistan the Museum had the opportunity to document both instruments built for modal scales played solo or in small ensembles for music using a single melodic line, and others that had been adapted to accommodate 12-note chromatic equal-tempered western scales and were played in large folk orchestras, where traditional music was harmonised and treated in the grand symphonic style, a process of eroding traditional material and intangible culture and replacing it with the dominant Russian norms, as documented in A. I. Petrosiants’ Organology: Uzbek folk instruments. Musical instruments from the collection made in Uzbekistan were loaned for an exhibition at the National Museums of Scotland in 2000.

India

Frederick Horniman’s professional interest in tea may have spurred on his journey to India to collect for his museum in 1894 and 1895, where he acquired a number of musical instruments. The Museum added to this collection throughout the 20th century, but with the exception of the percussion instruments and flutes acquired by British missionaries from their converts (marginalised communities of Bhil and Santal whom they described as ‘out-castes’), most of the instruments that came to the Horniman during that century were associated with Hindustani and Carnatic music – north and south Indian classical music traditions.

In 2000, in collaboration with the British Library Sound Archive, the Museum sponsored a project to make collections that represented some of the regional musical traditions of Indian, and their cultural and linguistic diversity. Musical instruments were commissioned from makers representative of the four main language groups of India (Dravidian, Indo-European, Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic). Music and instruments were collected from temple drummers of rural Kerala, musician-farmers from Sora Adivasi communities, monastic and lay communities on the island of Majuli in Assam, and farmers and artisans from the plains of Punjab and the Himalayan mountains of Arunachal Pradesh. Broadcast quality audio and video recordings of the music played on the instruments were acquired by the BLSA, with copies made for the main music archive for ethnomusicology, the ARCE in Harayana, India. These collections and their documentation were displayed in the Horniman Museum’s temporary exhibition of 2008, Music from India. The involvement of members of London-based communities of Indian heritage was a key element of the exhibition, which showcased their performances and projects. The Horniman also worked with a new museum of Adivasi culture in India for the exhibition. The exhibition generated two conferences: one on Indian music, partnered by the British Forum for Ethnomusicology; and one on museums and empowering marginalised communities, that was held in collaboration with the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Vadodara, Gujarat and the University of East Anglia.

Britain

England was a renowned centre for the manufacture of viols from the 16th to the 18th centuries, and scholarly surveys of this instrument regularly include examples of Horniman Museum instruments.

The collection of 600+ concertinas and related free reed instruments, together with ledgers and recordings, chronicles the history of the invention of the concertina, one of the very few instruments invented in Britain, and its manufacture in the 19th century. Piano manufacturing was a major industry in London in the 19th century, and the Horniman Museum holds examples of the work of the London-based piano makers Adam Beyer, John Broadwood, Robert Wornum, George Garcka, William Rolfe and John Brinsmead.

The Winds of Change project takes its impetus from the Boosey & Hawkes collection and archive. It is focused on documenting changing orchestral and band instrument design and performance practice in Britain from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century and building a representative collection of instruments. During this period, the instruments used and the sound produced by British players was distinctively different from that of Germany and America. In the early 20th century, English orchestras began to tour internationally and German and American orchestras visited Britain. World War II accelerated the travel of musicians and instruments. Soon after, most wind players throughout Europe and the US used similar instruments and distinctive national schools were replaced by a homogeneous sound. The recent closure of the Besson factory in London, Britain’s last large-scale instrument manufacturer, has underscored the importance of building a systematic collection of British instruments from this period and of documenting the stories of their makers and players. This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which granted two Collaborative Doctoral Awards to the Horniman Museum and Goldsmiths College to enable two students to undertake PhD research on this topic using the Boosey & Hawkes collection and archive.

Technical or operational significance

Wind instruments in the Carse collection have been used as sources in a number of works of reference tracing the evolution of different wind instruments. The Leslie Stephen collection of models of 81 piano actions provides a comprehensive overview of the development of the piano.

In 1960 a modest but representative collection of seven guitars was given to the Museum by Terence Usher, Professor of Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. These were carefully selected by Prof Usher in order to illustrate the principal lines of development of guitar design from the end of the 18th century until a little after the middle of the 19th century, a period of major change in which the Spanish guitar changed from a smallbodied instrument of simple internal construction, to an instrument whose body encloses approximately double the air-space and whose belly is supported by a complex bracing system designed to produce the maximum volume of sound and depth of tone.

The Wayne concertina collection chronicles the development of the instrument, and the different types and systems developed by all known British and some continental makers. A catalogue was acquired with the collection, documenting the evolution of the concertina with illustrations of almost every instrument in the collection. Over 129 specimens of various early and later models of the Wheatstone concertina and related prototypes and patent models are represented here. This section of the collection, with a diagnostic analysis of the features of the earliest concertinas is described in an article by Neil Wayne in the Galpin Society Journal. The collection has an extensive archive including the Wheatstone factory day books from 1830 to 1891 and diary from 1866 to 1894. This provides valuable evidence regarding the organisation of a musical instrument factory in London in the 19th century.

The Boosey & Hawkes collection was the museum collection of the Boosey & Hawkes company. It was established by the company as a resource for instrument makers and designers, and therefore focused on technologically significant and/or innovative instruments. As such they still have iconic status: three oboes from this collection by Triébert using different key systems were lent to the Royal Academy of Music’s temporary exhibition Re-thinking the oboe in 2013. The Boosey & Hawkes archive comprises a comprehensive sequence of instrument production records for the firm and its predecessors, product catalogues, ephemera and approximately 3,000 technical drawings of musical instruments and instrument making tools. The archive provides an unprecedented level of information about instrument manufacture, use and design. This allows the history of surviving instruments to be traced by serial number and also enables researchers to gain a much more accurate view of instrument production and consumption than can be gained by studying instruments alone.

The role of the collections and archives in research

In addition to the illustrative examples cited above, the collections and archives are regularly referred to in refereed journals, research publications, books and the popular press. References frequently appear in leading scholarly publications focusing on musical instruments such as the Galpin Society Journal, the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society and the Historic Brass Society Journal. Instruments and archives have also been cited in more broadly focused musicological journals such as Early Music and the Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle. Over fifty citations to Horniman instruments appear in articles in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Collections and archives also attract the attention of the popular press. Articles in The Guardian, The Times and Classical Music Magazine recognised the importance of the Boosey & Hawkes collection and archive to national heritage.The Museum’s instruments and archives are also regularly referred to in papers presented at international conferences, many of which are associated with the societies mentioned above. The profile of Horniman instruments and archives is also growing online through academic sites such as the lists of surviving instruments by various makers maintained by Edinburgh University, the Galpin Society and the serial number information drawn from the Wheatstone production records at concertina.com. Horniman instruments also feature in the recent MINIM-UK project, in which musical instruments in UK collections appear online, sometimes accompanied, as in the case of the Horniman’s Kirckman harpsichord (1972.211), with audiovisual examples. These object records were subsequently exported to the MIMO website that holds the world’s largest database of musical instruments.

Horniman Museum instruments and archives have become an increasingly important resource for university teaching as well as for individual researchers. Goldsmiths College and the Courtauld Institute are among those who regularly make use of these resources in their teaching.

Overview of existing Natural History collection

Quality and variety of collection

Natural History contains over 250,000 specimens of local, national and worldwide origin. The collection includes several thousand specimens acquired in the 19th century as part of the original Horniman bequest. Many thousands more specimens were added throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries for the purpose of display, education, reference and research. The collection is varied and contains a range of biological and geological material and its associated data. This includes taxidermy mounts, study skins, articulated skeletons and bones, dried pressed plants, mollusc shells, birds’ eggs, pinned insects, freeze-dried specimens, histological slides, models, fluid-preserved material, fossils, minerals and rocks. The collection also contains a small number of human osteological remains. Some parts of the collection have associated field notebooks, photographs and other archival information which enhances their significance and increases their potential for study in areas of ecology, conservation biology, environmental science, evolutionary biology and taxonomy.

Collections of comparable significance

The Horniman Natural History collection is the third largest in London outside the Natural History Museum and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Nationally, the collection is comparable in size and function to many other medium-sized regional museums in Britain. Whilst the Horniman does not hold large numbers of specimens of major scientific importance, such as significant numbers of type specimens, it does hold some specimens of international scientific and cultural importance collected from the 19th to the 21st centuries. These are considered in more detail below. In addition to the stored Natural History material, the Horniman is fortunate to retain a sizable Natural History gallery dating from the turn of the 20th century. This contains around 4,000 individual specimens, generally acquired during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Scientific importance

The Horniman Insect Collection

Frederick Horniman amassed a world-wide collection of butterflies, beetles and other insects, most of which are retained within the Museum’s collection. The collection contains one of the surviving type specimens of Papilio hornimani, the Horniman Swallowtail first described and illustrated by the Victorian entomologist W. L. Distant in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1879. More than a century later, Vane-Wright published further work on the taxonomy and conservation of this species, a butterfly that is only known from the northern group of forests in Tanzania and the Chyulu Hills of southern Kenya.

The insect collection also contains specimens of several other species described and named in honour of Frederick Horniman: the moth, Eusemia hornimani, (now Heraclia hornimani); a true bug, Tesserotoma >hornimani; and the ‘Horniman beetle’, Ceratorhina hornimani (now Cyprolais hornimanni), from Cameroon, first described by naturalist and explorer Henry Walter Bates in 1877. Many more specimens were collected by famous 19th-century collectors, explorers and entomologists, including Alfred Russell Wallace, mostly from west and east Africa, Asia and South America, with accompanying descriptions published in scientific journals during the latter half of the 19th century.

Hymenoptera Ichneumonidae – parasitic wasps

Between 1992 and 2006, Dr J. P. Brock added over 10,000 specimens, mostly Ichneumonidae or parasitic wasps, to the Museum’s collection of British insects. Most were collected from National Nature Reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the south east of England. Many specimens were also identified, published and added to the collection by specialists from the UK, Germany, Poland, Finland and France. The collection of Ichneumonidae includes species and specimens that are first records for Britain, with little or no representation in other museums. In 2017, a full taxonomic revision to the 138 British species of Banchine wasps was published by J. P. Brock and includes the designation of several type (name bearing) specimens held in the Horniman collection or elsewhere.

Dr Mark Shaw, former Keeper of Geology and Zoology, National Museums of Scotland wrote in 1997:

There are only two other large and active collections of Ichneumonidae in the UK (both in National Museums) and only about half a dozen other museums in Britain have worthwhile holdings even of less actively used (older) material. The Horniman Museum is one of only 2 or 3 centres where the specimens provide a good snap-shot of species representation, distribution and abundance in a particular period of time, and also where modern taxonomic identification has taken place.

A similar view was expressed by Dr Gavin Broad, Curator of Hymenoptera at the Natural History Museum in 2007, who adds:

This collection is particularly rich in specimens from lowland heaths and fens. Lowland heaths are poorly represented in the major collections of Ichneumonidae in the UK. The collection includes some ‘type’ specimens and more will result from the forthcoming revision of the British Banchinae.

Early stages of Lepidoptera

The insect collection at the Horniman Museum also contains valuable specimens of the early stages of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), including a comprehensive larval collection of British species and some unique world material of strategic importance for work on evolutionary relationships. These include rare families such as Callidulidae (from field work in Sri Lanka), Mnesarcheidae (New Zealand), Carposinidae (Japan), Schreckensteineidae (UK) and Mimallonidae (Brazil); and also the Zygaenoid group (including ontogenic series material for Heterogynidae).

The Bennett Fossil Collection

In 1987, the Museum acquired the collection of the amateur fossil collector and past president of Croydon Natural History Society, Walter H. Bennett (1892–1971). This is a large collection that comprises over 175,000 individual fossil specimens. It covers geological periods from the Cambrian to more recent times. Bennett travelled extensively, collecting fossils from many parts of the world. Most came from Britain and Europe and include material collected from important geological sites such as the Solnhofen limestone in Germany and other European locations, for example, Italy, France and Cyprus. Other material was collected from farther afield. The collection contains a small number of specimens from the Burgess Shale in Canada, one of the first designated World Heritage Sites, where it is now almost impossible to collect. Specimens from other significant North American sites, including the Green River Eocene Shales, are also present in the collection.

Writing in 1993 on the significance of the Bennett collection, P. Doughty, former Keeper of Geology at the Ulster Museum, stated

This is a research collection of consistently high standard and contains material from classic sites in Europe and North America of particular value for future research. Long series from South London, Surrey and Kent give added value and dimension to the collection.

In 1971, C. P. Nuttall of the then British Museum (Natural History) also underlined the scarcity and value of many items in the collection. This was reiterated more recently by Matthew Parkes,Geology Curator at the National Museum of Ireland, who conducted a review of the collection in 2013.

Wyatt Geology Collection

This collection contains examples of rocks, minerals and fossils, mostly collected around the British Isles by the amateur field geologist Arthur Wyatt (1910–1977). Approximately 1700 specimens were collected throughout the1960s and 1970s. The collection contains excellent data including detailed field notes and reference photographs of the geographical localities where specimens were collected. Each specimen also has an associated grid reference. Few of our geological specimens contain such precise information about where the specimens were collected, adding further value to their potential for use in research.

Historic and Cultural Significance

Horniman’s taxidermy collection

The Horniman bequest originally contained a number of taxidermy mounts donated or purchased from the naturalist and hunter James Hubbard. These were originally displayed in the Canadian section of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, South Kensington, London in 1886.The collection included several large taxidermy mounts, a Polar Bear, Moose and our well known Walrus. Most of these were de-accessioned and removed from the Museum in 1948. Only the Walrus and some smaller taxidermy mounts remain in the collection today.

The Hart Bird Collection

Edward Hart (1847–1928) was a fine exponent of the genre of display of mounted birds as they would have been seen in their natural environment. Although the original concept is said to have been developed by E. T. Booth, whose collection is housed in the Booth Museum, Royal Pavilion and Museums Brighton and Hove, Hart not only recreated the ground and trees from which his birds came, but also displayed them against painted backgrounds. The Horniman Museum holds the greater bulk of Hart’s material, extending to 250 cases and totalling nearly 1,000 individual specimens. Dr P. A. Morris, Britain’s leading scholar on the history of taxidermy writes:

With the 20th century came an awakening interest in ecology and behaviour. Hart’s cases show that well. They encapsulate more than just the bird’s structure and taxonomic status. This dichotomy of views on taxidermy display strategy is well documented in the literature. Whilst others also created diorama style cases, Hart managed to achieve extraordinary effects with perspective (unrivalled by anyone else, especially in comparatively small cases) and created an illusion of space within a glass fronted box that nobody else has yet matched. The collection remains largely intact when so many similar collections by Gentleman Naturalists (themselves an important social phenomenon) have been broken up or lost to neglect. The collection is well documented in Hart’s own notebooks; few collections have this amount of information about the specimens.

Other collections

Other parts of the collections which have a strong scientific or historical significance include;

• good quality mounts of two extinct species, the Huia Bird (New Zealand) and Passenger Pigeon (North America);
• cast material of Homo mousteriensis hauseri: made from the original type, which was destroyed during WWII, this is the only extant first generation cast and is of considerable international importance;
• the Moore Collection of tropical butterflies and other orders contains specimens collected around the world from the 19th century to the 1950s and is likely to contain some important unpublished material;
• the J. Platt Barrett Collection of butterflies and months from Britain and Sicily contains, amongst other specimens, a much figured specimen of the Marbled White Melanargia galathea;
• the Collins collection of British Coleoptera contains material determined by important authorities such as Last, Britten and Donisthorpe;
• material collected on the HMS Challenger Expedition and Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition;
• various animal skulls from the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons, illustrated in J. F. Colyer’s Variations and diseases of the teeth of animals.
• Gorilla skull (NH.H.2), figured in Gorilla Pathology and Health with a Catalogue of Preserved Materials, 2017.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2019

Licence: CC BY-NC

The museum collects, documents, preserves, exhibits and interprets material evidence relating to The King’s Royal Hussars and its predecessor regiments:

• The Royal Hussars (PWO)
• The 10th Royal Hussars (PWO)
• The 11th Hussars (PAO)
• The 14th/20th King’s Hussars
• The 14th Hussars
• The 20th Hussars

….. from 1715 to the present.

The collection comprises over 2500 accessions totaling approximately 15,000 individual objects consisting of:

• Archives including documents, books and photographs
• Art objects including commemorative trophies, paintings, engravings, prints and sketches
• Textiles including uniforms, guidons, flags and personal items
• Decorations, medals, badges and miscellaneous uniform accoutrements
• Military equipment and weapons, including swords and firearms
• Two light wheeled reconnaissance (Dingo) vehicles

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2020

Licence: CC BY-NC

The theme of the collection is the local history of the historic township of Horsforth and was started in July 1988. The Collection includes the following categories related to Horsforth and its people:-

• • Local Documents
  • Photographs and Paintings
  • Costume
  • Local Geology
  • Small items of furniture
  • Household Items
  • Ephemera

All periods up to the present day are included in the collection with provision that the museum has the facilities for dealing responsibly with the type of material and its importance is not such that it should be curated in another thematic, regional or national museum or archive.

The present collection consists of around 10,965 objects etc, and is divided into approximately :-

Documents	2,170
Photographs	4,084
Objects	3,042
Clothing and accessories	770
Books	740
Maps	159

The scope of the collection is to be limited by the current situation of staffing, storage and conservation facilities, including due regard the resources required for full documentation procedures. That as a general principal, the resources (staff and financial) of the museum must primarily be applied to maintaining adequate acquisition procedures or cease acquisitions until such resources are available.

The geographical area is defined as the historic township boundary of Horsforth but they may extend to include adjacent areas having strong relevance to the township’s activities (e.g. The Horsforth railway stations, the Newlay Industrial area, the Hawksworth ‘Horsforth’ quarries and the Airport). Material originating from beyond this area and not demonstrating a strong connection with Horsforth is not to be acquired.

The period covered will extend to the present day but the Museum Mentor will advise on the acquisition of any early material and may require it to be lodged at a more suitable museum or archive.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2019

Licence: CC BY-NC

Personalia

The collection features artefacts belonging to Sir Frank Brangwyn artist and muralist. He worked for the William Morris workshop and locally worked on large murals such as those in Christ’s Hospital, Horsham. Edward Johnston, famous for designing the lettering for the London Underground also came to live in Ditchling in 1913 until his death in 1944.

Decorative/Applied Art

Mainly British and European glassware.

Agriculture

Agriculture and farming collections include a small reserve collection of hand tools. Most of the collection is on public display.

Arms and Armour

This collection comprises c.400 ethnographic items and c.200 British arms and armour.

Ethnography

Ethnographic material originates from Asia, Africa, American, Europe (non-British), Polynesia and Australia.

Fine Art

Around 1,000 British pictures and prints, the majority is of local theme of origin.

Geology

Geology specimens comprise c.400 locally found (Sussex), c.1800 British and c.300 Worldwide.

Social History

An extensive collection including folk art, advertising, packaging, commerce, personalia, domestic, business, toys and games, pastimes and transport.

Costume/Textiles

Nearly 4,000 items comprising costume (male, female, juvenile), accessories (shoes, handbags, fans, hats/gloves) and the Honeywood collection of c.200 textiles.

Numismatics

c.600 medals including military and agricultural. Most came from Hull Grundy in the 1970s. There are also c.750 – 1,000 coins of local, British, worldwide origin, some of archaeological age.

Archaeology

Over 10,000 items of archaeology ranging from locally found material to British World Wide (inc. Roman and Greek items). A great deal of local material consists of flints picked up in field walking. The collection also includes 11 ancient Egyptian objects.

Ancient Egyptian Collection

The museum holds 11 ancient Egyptian objects which are part of the Archaeology collection, counting out some forgeries. The museum once held some 75 Egyptian items, including jewellery and funerary items. Most or all of this was loaned by Captain C. Lucas to the Museum Society in 1946 and eventually donated. Most of this was stolen or lost somewhere in the years 1974-1979. Lucas had bought the items in London in the 1920s and 30s. Classes of objects represented in the collection include: canopic jars; coffin (fragment); faience figures; jewellery; animal remains (mummy); pottery; shabtis; stone figure (head, prob. a fake).

Subjects

Ancient civilizations; Antiquities; Antiquity; Egyptology; Archaeological objects

Photographic

There are some worldwide and British photographs, but most subjects are of a local nature.

Archives

A large collection comprising maps, manuscripts and printed ephemera.

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Militaria

Museum collection relates to The Life Guards (1st and 2nd), Horse Grenadier Guards, Royal Horse Guards (Blues), 1st Royal Dragoons (Royals) and The Blues and Royals, covering over three hundred years of the history of the Sovereign’s mounted bodyguard. The collection contains Uniforms, Weapons, Standards, Guidons, Drum Banners, Horse Furniture, Campaign and Gallantry Medals, Regimental Medals from the 17th Century. Silver, including Silver Kettledrums presented to the 2nd Life Guards by William IV, hallmarked and dated 1831, and many other personal gifts from the Monarchy such as Oil Paintings, Water Colours, Prints and many other curios of the Regiments. The Library contains Officers and Soldiers records from the latter part of the 17th Century, Order Books, Courts Martial, Historical records of the Regiments, Marriage and Birth Records. Documents signed by Charles II, James II, etc., private letters, private journals, War Diaries. Records of State occasions and Photographic Records from the mid 19th Century. In total there are 40 items of arms and armour, 1130 costume and textile, 300 decorative art, 20 musical, 7,000 photographs and 5000 archives.

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC