Collections Without End the Ghostly Presences of Captain Matthew Mcvicker Smyth

ⅢⅢⅢ Collections without End The ghostly presences of Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth

Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson

Ⅲ ABSTRACT: Te discovery of fve photographs in 2018 in the State Library of Western Australia led us to the existence of a forgotten private museum housing the collection of Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth in early-twentieth-century Perth. Captain Smyth was responsible for the selling of Nobel explosives used in the agriculture and mining industries. Te museum contained mineral specimens in cases alongside extensive, aesthetically organized displays of Australian Aboriginal artifacts amid a wide variety of ornaments and decorative paintings. Te museum refects a moment in the history of colonialism that reminds us today of forms of dispossession, of how Aboriginal people were categorized in Australia by Western worldviews, and of the ways that collectors operated. Our re-creation brings back into existence a signifcant Western Australian museum and opens up a new discussion about how such private collections came into existence and indeed, in this instance, about how they eventually end.

Ⅲ KEYWORDS: Australia, collections, colonialism, ethnographic objects, Matthew McVicker Smyth, private museums

Tis article is about fve photographs found under “domestic interiors” in a card catalogue at the State Library of Western Australia.1 We were working on vernacular collections, seeking evidence on the collecting activities of colonial families in Western Australia. Tese fve photographs led us of not only in search of an unknown collection, but also to a growing realization that these photographs captured a particular moment in the history of colonialism that, when read from a present-day perspective, activates a whole series of questions concerning the ways in which the deployment of these photographs today may enable a consideration of issues of justice for those who were dispossessed of their land. Te images, once retrieved, showed an extensive display, in what appeared to be a domestic drawing room, of glass cases of mineral specimens, together with an extensive, aesthetically organized display of Indigenous Australian artifacts, amid a wide variety of ornaments and decorative paintings. Te catalogue entry stated that all fve photos were of Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth’s collection held at 21 Bruce Street, Nedlands, which was his home. Our research resulted in correcting this entry, for the display was not a private domestic one but a public display in Elder House in central Perth, where the Elders Company, an agricultural business, had their headquarters. Elders also provided a space for the Nobel Explosives Company

Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 6 (2018): 94–111 © Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/armw.2018.060108 Collections without End Ⅲ 95 representative, who was Captain Smyth. As a sales consultant for Nobel Explosives, Captain Smyth was responsible for the selling of explosives used in opening up the land for both the agriculture industry and the mining industry. Tese industries were integral to the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their land, making the content of the collection as well as the photographs themselves embodied representations of these processes. Tis article details the history of the collection and its collector; attempts an analysis of the collection of which, as far as we can tell, only the minerals survive; and asks a series of questions as to what our responsibilities in the present might be toward the interpretation and management of this photographic material.

Recovering the Shadowy Figure of Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth

With only a name as a clue to the collection, we began, naturally enough, with establishing who Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth was.2 He appears in only one of the three images taken by E. L. Mitchell, a leading photographer in 1920s Perth (see Figure 1). Despite being seated at his desk, he moved at the precise moment in which the photograph was being taken, giving him a somewhat ghostly presence. Te task of fnding out who he was proved to be a hunt.

Figure 1. Inset showing Captain Smyth, 1920, from “Matthew McVicker Smyth with his Western Australian Mineral and Aboriginal Artifact Collection at His Ofce in the Princes Building, 23 William Street, Perth.” State Library of Western Australia; Series: E. L. Mitchell Collection of Photographs, BA533/422–424. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia. 96 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson

Figure 2. “Elder House, 1932.” State Library of Western Australia; Series: West Australian Newspapers Collection of Photographs, BA559/1464. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia.

Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth was a man of Empire. According to Dr James Battye, the frst director of the State Library and the author of the Cyclopedia of Western Australia (1912), Smyth was the son of Matthew Smyth from Paisley in Scotland3 and was born on 1 December 1867. We are not sure where he was born,4 but he grew up in Dublin, where he was educated. He pursued commercial interests, and came to Australia in 1887 (Battye 1912: 354). He married Marie Margaret McIntosh on 20 December 1894 in Sydney (Sydney Morning Herald 1895: 1). In 1899, he went to the colony of Queensland, Australia, “to pursue commercial opportunities with the explosives department of Messers. Brabant and Co. of Brisbane who were agents for Nobel Explosives Ltd, Glasgow” (Battye 1912: 354). He returned to Glasgow in 1909, leaving behind a son (Allen/ Alan) and Marie in Sydney. By 1910, he was back in Australia, this time alone in Western Australia acting again as a representative for Nobel Explosives and working out of the Elder House on the corner of St. George’s Terrace and William Street (Battye 1912: 354) (see Figure 2). Elder, Shenton & Co. Ltd. was the Western Australian agent for the Nobel Glasgow company of explosives, which, as explained by Battye, had subagencies that were “in active operation in every mining centre in the State” (1912: 354). Battye went on to state: “On the discovery of any fresh felds of mineral wealth, the Nobel-Glasgow Company makes immediate arrangements to meet the explosive requirements of the mining community, and in the agricultural districts supplies are obtainable at all the principal towns for the purposes of land-clearing, well-sinking, etc.” (1912: 354). Collections without End Ⅲ 97

Tis meant that Captain Smyth traveled the state, selling explosives for every new mine that opened and visiting its country towns. Te Kalgoorlie Miner states:

Captain McVicker Smyth is well-known throughout the mining felds of West Australia. He may be met any day, driving his motor car along even the most unfrequented of the back- block tracts, and his interest in the country and in all that he sees never seems to sleep. It was in 1910, whilst making an initial tour of the mining districts of the state, soon afer his arrival from Glasgow, that he conceived the idea of making a collection of minerals and aboriginal curios. He began at once. (1921: 1)

His activities were interrupted by World War I, during which he served in the Australian Impe- rial Forces in the 8th Battalion at Gallipoli as well as in France with the 5th Pioneers where he achieved the rank of captain.5 Afer the war and throughout the 1920s, local newspapers throughout the state gave news of his travels and discussed his growing collection, encouraging people to visit it in his rooms in the Elder House in Perth. Tese reports stopped when he retired in 1939 and had to vacate his rooms. From there, the trail grows cold. We know that he had remarried on 26 October 1927 to Violet Ethelwynne Shaw from Denmark in the South West of Western Australia (Albany Advertiser 1927: 3). Tey lived for the rest of their lives at 21 Bruce Street, Nedlands, in Perth. He died on 10 July 1950, and was survived by his wife, his son Alan from his previous marriage, and his grandson Bruce, who lived in Colombo (Sri Lanka) at the time (West Australian 1950: 26). We know from Battye’s entry in the Cyclopedia that Smyth was a “stanch (sic) Imperialist, and takes an active interest in the afairs of the Overseas Club” (1912: 354), which was a club for men aimed at supporting the ideals of the British Empire. Battye also tells us that Smyth was a keen military man, having joined the new Commonwealth Military Forces while still in Queensland, and that he was on the Reserve Ofcers List. In the Kalgoorlie Miner (1921: 1) newspaper article referred to above, we learn that he had wanted to fght in the Boer War but was judged too short, something that did not impinge on the decision to take up his ofer of voluntary service in the Australian Imperial Forces “in the great struggle with Germany.” Tat this service to the cause of Britain and its empire was important to Smyth’s sense of self is clear from a close analysis of the extant photographs of the display of his collection. As the Kalgoorlie Miner tells us, our analysis revealed that he did indeed display a photograph of himself and his son in military uniform on his desk (see Figure 1 on the lefhand side of his desk). Allen McVicker Smyth had served as part of the 4th New South Wales Battalion (1916–1919). Te photograph stayed there until 1927, when a photograph of his new wife took its place. Positioned throughout the room were also his and his son’s souvenirs from the war years that, as newspaper reports tell us, consisted of “historical war pictures, noticeable among them being Inkerman, Balaclava and Quatre Bras . . . some fne views of Egypt” (Kalgoorlie Miner 1921: 1); “sand-worn pebbles from Tel-el-Kebir, Persian knives, a piece of oak from Nelson’s ‘Victory’” (Daily News 1927: 4); as well as “a piece of the Sphinx, and a piece of alabaster from the foor of the temple of the Sphinx, and some rock from the tanks of the Pharaohs” (Daily News 1927: 4). Clearly, Smyth and his son were not above souveniring various items from the lands they went to as part of the war efort. Smyth’s faith in the Empire however, went beyond his fascination with and involvement in the military. If we zoom in on the photographs, it is clear that the pictures on the wall also included an image of the Overseas Club above the entry door (see Figure 3), as well as numerous adverts and installations with Nobel Explosives materials (see Figures 1 and 4). While it would be easy to merely suggest that Smyth’s collecting activities were deeply embedded in his work and that advertising the mineral samples in particular served to foster commercial interests in mining that would in turn generate profts for his company, we think there is more at stake 98 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson

Figure 3. Inset showing the print of the Overseas Club, 1920, from “Matthew McVicker Smyth with his Western Australian Mineral and Aboriginal Artifact Collection at His Ofce in the Princes Building, 23 William Street, Perth.” State Library of Western Australia; Series: E. L. Mitchell Collection of Photographs, BA533/422-424. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia.

Figure 4. Inset showing various advertisements related to Nobel Explosives’ products, 1933, from “Matthew McVicker Smyth with his Western Australian Mineral and Aboriginal Artifact Collection at His Ofce in the Princes Building, 23 William Street, Perth.” State Library of Western Australia; Series: Illustrations Ltd. Collection; 8292B/A/8379/1, 2. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia. Collections without End Ⅲ 99 here and that what we have in front of us is an attempt to embody a particular worldview that informed his persona, his collecting practices, and his display. Te Overseas Club (see Figure 3) was an imperial institution whose creed was to ensure that the British Empire stood for “justice, freedom, order and good government” and whose members pledged themselves as “citizens of the greatest Empire in the World, to maintain the heritage handed down to us by our fathers.”6 Te image contains the creed of the club, which sits below a stanza from one of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poems:

We sail’d wherever ship could sail We founded many a mighty state Pray God our greatness may not fail. Trough craven fears of being great.7

Te Club’s objectives, it went on to say, were:

1. To help one another. 2. To insist on the vital necessity to the Empire of British supremacy on the sea. 3. To urge on every able-bodied man the necessity of being able to bear arms. 4. To draw together, in the bond of comradeship, the peoples now living under the folds of the British fag.

In joining the Club, Smyth was networking but he was also ensuring that his connections back to the motherland were maintained. Tat he saw Australia as part of the British Empire cannot be disputed. He displayed an image of King George V in the centre of the back wall of his display (see Figure 5a) with the Union Jack arranged in a bow atop of the picture. Next to it hung a set of identical Aboriginal spearthrowers on either side and next to them a pair of images of the Australian Imperial Forces subjugating native populations. King George VI (then Duke of York) was even a visitor to his “museum” in 1930 during his visit to Australia.8 Nobel Explosives was itself a company that rose to prominence within the commercial opportunities aforded by the Empire. Founded by Arthur Nobel and headquartered in Glasgow, the company’s advertising rhetoric was steeped in imperial language, a language that Smyth lived and breathed every day of his working life. In one image above Smyth’s desk (see Figure 4), and surrounded by Indigenous weapons, are displayed a series of Nobel Explosives adverts. Te central image, above a display of mineral samples, has a depiction of a peaceful lake with a fock of ducks in fight. On the lef lower corner, it is possible to see emerging two guns taking aim from the banks of the lake. On the right corner are some cartridges. Tese, we learn, are called Eley, Kynoch, Nobel Cartridges. Underneath the image the tagline tells us that these are “All British – from Cap to Turnover.” On either side of this image are more adverts for Nobel Cartridges, this time for hunting rabbits as well as ducks with the help of the hunter’s friend – dogs – and the necessary cartridges of course. Beneath them, on either side, is a series of framed photographs of the company’s ammunition factory in Melbourne. On top of the display cabinet and underneath the central picture is an image of a Union Jack with a nineteenth- century naval sailing ship. When taken together with other displays of artfully organized cartridges (see Figures 1 and 4), it is clear that Nobel Explosives was a company that drew the Empire, hunting, and control of resources together. Tis was not unlike the collection that McVicker Smyth assembled. 100 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson

Figures 5a and 5b. Photographs of Captain Smyth’s museum in 1920 with restricted material obscured. From “Matthew McVicker Smyth with his Western Australian Mineral and Aboriginal Artifact Collection at His Ofce in the Princes Building, 23 William Street, Perth.” State Library of Western Australia; Series: E. L. Mitchell Collection of Photographs, BA533/422-424. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia. Collections without End Ⅲ 101

Hunting and Collecting: Smyth’s Aboriginal and Geological Collection

Smyth’s collection is dominated by geological specimens and Aboriginal objects. Clearly, his work for Nobel Explosives allowed opportunities for collecting both, making this collection an example of a “circuit” collection, a collection gathered as a result of regular travel across a region (Peterson et al. 2008: 13). Te small number of images of the collection reveal a single rectangular room flled with up to twenty display cabinets and richly furnished. Te photographs were taken in 1920 (by E. L. Mitchell) and in 1933, and thus capture two phases of display in the museum. Te frst is defned by a portrait of King George V (r. 1910–1936) and applies to three of the photographs, and we have thus designated it the “Georgian Phase.” Te two 1933 photographs show a slightly diferent arrangement of cabinets in the same room and no portrait of the King; as this room has more framed adverts for cartridges, it can be designated to refect the “Cartridge Phase.” Te collecting of geological specimens was a long established practice, with the contents refecting the intentions and interests of the collector, sometimes distinguishing between geological specimens (including fossils), which were used to help reconstruct Earth’s geological history, and collections of precious metals and gems, or, as in the case of Smyth, mineral specimens. Te mineral specimens were used by the captain to educate prospective investors about the availability of resources for economic extraction:

We have practically every known mineral in the world within the compass of Western Austra- lia. Te trouble is that this country is not tickled yet. Furthermore, the mingling of minerals in various kinds of stone has upset the ideas of many geologists. It was originally thought, for instance, that gold was only to be found in certain varieties of stone. Western Australian discoveries have shown how false such an assertion is. (Daily News 1927: 4)

Te collection was thus an opportunity to educate the public and potential investors about the mining potential of the state as well as to inform the development of knowledge about the loca- tion of specifc types of minerals by adding to the available knowledge of what to look for when searching for minerals amongst various geological formations. Over time, the exhibition came to also represent the history of mining itself, as well as its potential future, for, as the Daily News put it, as well as being

of great intrinsic worth, it should be worth considerably more to Western Australia because included in the collection are samples from practically every mine in Western Australia, many of which have since closed down and from which samples are now unobtainable. Te exhibition in itself provides a history of the mining industry in this state, and, as such is unique. (Daily News 1927: 4)

Tat the collection embodied both faith in the economic potential of Western Australia and an attempt to market this faith is also clear in the inclusion of an article on the collection in the 1923 Christmas issue of Elders Magazine. Te issue was devoted to describing the development of primary and secondary industry in the state, prominent amongst which were the mining and agricultural industries in which Nobel Explosives played a central role. Te collection itself was displayed in a series of cabinets and organized by conventional categories: gold, asbestos and gypsum, copper, tin, clays, miscellanea, and the like. Smyth’s contribution to knowledge was recognized in professional circles, as he was made a member of the Royal Society of Western Australia (Daily Telegraph 1919: 3), being listed as a member between 1920 and 1923.9 102 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson

Te Aboriginal artifacts are mainly displayed on the walls, and on frst inspection tend to be displayed by “type”—for example spears, boomerangs, or nose septums. Tese typological forms of display were typical of ethnographic collections of this era. An alternative would be a regional approach, whereby material from Western Australia – the Kimberley, the Pilbara, the South West for example – were organized together. Or indeed a functional approach could have been deployed, as was common to the great ethnographic museum collections of the era, such as the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, where functional themes such as making fre, or body decoration, may guide display. Looking again at the Smyth collection a strong sense of symmetry is apparent—spears are arranged according to length, while each spearthrower is displayed between two throwing sticks and boomerangs form a running wave of weaponry along the picture rail as if constantly in fight. A strong, structured aesthetic emerges that carries through to other elements of the room, such as the cabinet of Nobel Explosives products also in careful arrangement, which looked more like the dancing broomsticks in Fantasia (Disney, 1940) (see Figures 5a and 5b). Tis aesthetic language for the display suggests that rather than being interested in material culture studies and placing his material within a socioevolutionary context, which was the dominant intellectual ethnographic paradigm of this era, Smyth was instead displaying the collection as a trophy, much like his wealthier contemporaries in England such as Sir Richard Carnac Temple, who displayed in his ancestral home a collection of South Asian artifacts that he gathered during his time as a colonial administrator in the region. As Claire Wintle (2008) argues, this collection was displayed in an aesthetic style that resembled that of the trophy displays of the prey gathered by hunters. As with Smyth, Temple’s collection was also dominated by Indigenous weapons. Tis aesthetic style, as Wintle (2008: 282) argues, erases the cultural context of the objects themselves, revealing more about the collector than those from whom the objects were collected. Equally, as observed by Rodney Harrison’s (2006) analysis of Kimberley points from northern Western Australia, Aboriginal objects take on utterly new meanings and new forms of display once collected by Europeans. We have attempted to categorize the objects in the 1920 and 1933 phases, ofering a breakdown of the collection of Aboriginal artifacts in broad terms (see Table 1). For the analysis presented here, we focus on the artifacts pictured in the 1920 phase of the museum. Not surprising ly, given Wintle’s (2008) arguments, weapons dominate, which suggests that Smyth’s military interest and support for the Empire spilt over into his interest in “native weaponry,” though this interest is also typical for this period, as suggested by Peterson and colleagues (2008). Te second interest is clearly material, concerning ceremonial rites and body adornment, an interest that embodies a fascination with an “other” that was being brought under the control of the state and whom most believed would eventually die out. What is interesting, therefore, is that the amassing of this collection of Aboriginal artifacts occurred at the same time as the extraction of the mineral deposits from each mine as Smyth traveled the country selling his explosives. He was literally facilitating the extraction of mineral wealth that, in its turn, dispossessed Aboriginal people from their land. It is almost impossible from our contemporary perspective not to bring the two activities within the same frame, seeing both as extractive practices and, in the case of Aboriginal Australians, displaying little regard for their cultural rights. Tis much becomes quite clear in newspaper reports that describe this aspect of the collection as a set of “curios” belonging to a quaint group of people whose cultural rights were not recognized. Tus, for example, the Geraldton Guardian reported in its Yalgoo Notes for 21 July 1920 that “some of the Yalgoo people saw his collection, and words fail to describe all the curios, including even sacred native weapons that must not be shown to women. (Tis only made the ladies curious, of course)” (1920: 2). In another newspaper article, the exotic nature of this material is emphasized with care taken to explain the patience with which Captain Smyth secured the objects in the collection: Collections without End Ⅲ 103

Number: Room Right + Lef Weapons Spears 50 + 0 Boomerangs 28 + 28 Shields 4 + 4 Spearthrowers 10 + 8 Trowing sticks 6 + 8 Hafed axe 1 Total: 147 Personal decoration Nose septums 6 + 8 Pearlshell decorations 2 + 4 Hair rope 1 + 0 Ceremony/communication Message sticks 13 + 6 “Sacra” 1 + 5 Feather whisk 1 + 0 Vessels String bag 0 + 1 Dishes 0 + 3 Decorated gourd 1 + 0 Tools Grinding stones 2 + 0 Other Decorated boabs 1 + 2 Unattributed wooden object 7 + 25 Shells 1 + 1 Total: 91 Photographs of Aboriginal people 5 + 5 Total: 10

Table 1. Typological Breakdown of Aboriginal Artifacts in the 1920s Display. (Image by the authors).

One of the rarest things in the collection is an aboriginal doctor’s surgical kit, comprising some half dozen round, finty, sharpened stones, enclosed in a skin, and provided with a feather-woven cover. Captain Smyth secured this treasure some distance from Norseman. Tere was a gathering of hundreds of natives and three young bucks were to be initiated into manhood. Capt. Smyth went to the locality and it took him some days to fnd out the medicine man and then some days to persuade him to sell the kit for money, tucker and tobacco. Eventually the Captain got it and his museum contains no more interesting exhibit. (Western Argus 1921: 4)

Te “surgical kit” was an essential tool in the initiation of young men, and as such it is a very valuable cultural object. While Smyth and indeed the newspaper recognized the social value of these items, this did not prevent Smyth from presenting to his audience this and other culturally sensitive objects. Te newspaper account refects the ways in which Aboriginal people were presented even as they were being displaced by the development of the state through such industries as the mining and agricultural industries. Such “curios,” then, ofered a contrast to the mineral collection that embodied not only the future of the state, but also the might of the technology ofered by Nobel Explosives. Implicit in the way these objects were displayed and discussed is the idea that “curios” were not part of the future. 104 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson

Figure 6. Map of Western Australia Showing Locations of Smyth’s Collecting Based on Contemporary Newspaper Reports and the ICI Collection at Museums Victoria Containing a Portion of Smyth’s Geological Collection. (Image by the authors). Collections without End Ⅲ 105

It is clear from the few newspaper articles that we have that Smyth was systematic with his mineral collection—with samples from many mines that he visited. We are also clear on his rationale, which was clearly educational as well as a marketing campaign for Nobel Explosives. He was interested in the geology of Western Australian minerals, realizing that their occurrence did not always follow conventional knowledge and thus that the knowledge his specimens embodied might be signifcant in furthering the possibility of other discoveries. We are not as clear as to the rationale and methods for his collecting of Aboriginal material culture, though the over whelming focus on weapons and ritual material gives us some clues as do newspaper reports. A further clue is in reports that news of his coming was communicated to local Aboriginal communities via smoke signals and that “he would fnd members of the Aboriginal community waiting at particular points along the roadside with their spears, boomerangs, etc.” It also appears that “he had permission from the government to enter Aboriginal Reserves.”10 It seems that much of his collecting of Indigenous material was opportune and in response to local knowledge, though we cannot be sure of that. Like any serious hunter, he was prepared to wait as well as to bargain, and he had his networks, built over years of traveling the countryside, though we do not know who was in them. Nor do we know whether he made special trips beyond those he made to mining sites to hunt for Aboriginal material. At this stage, we simply cannot say any more; however, we hope that this research will lead to a frmer understanding of the ways in which objects entered into collections such as these. We are, however, able to map (see Figure 6) the geological sites of collecting using the newspaper reports, which spend more time on this aspect of the collection. While the provenance of the Aboriginal material is less clear, we can nevertheless use newspaper reports and a comparative analysis with material at the Western Australian Museum to provide an indicative map of where the material in these photographs has come from.

A Collection without an End

While newspaper reports continued to encourage the public to visit Captain Smyth’s collection until 1939, when he retired, we also know from records at the National Library of Australia11 that he tried to sell his collection a number of times to the federal government, citing the impossibil- ity of keeping it at the Elder House forever. Unfortunately, the federal government had neither the means nor a reason for purchasing the collection, given that discussions for a National Museum were only embryonic. Nor did an attempt to sell the mineral collection to the Western Australian Department of Mines in 1928 work.12 An attempt in 1936 to ofer it on long-term loan to the Western Australian Museum also came to naught.13 He was however, successful in selling the mineral collection to Nobel (Australasia) Pty Ltd. for one thousand pounds in the late 1930s. Te company was then bought by ICI Australia Ltd., which had its headquarters in Melbourne, where the collection ended up. In 1981, ICI donated the collection to the National Museum of Victoria (now Museums Victoria) under the National Tax Incentive for the Arts Scheme, where it is known as the ICI Collection.14 We have been unable, however, to locate the whereabouts of the Aboriginal items. So far, that side of the collection has simply disappeared from public view. Inquiries have also resulted in negative responses from other potential institutions that might have been interested in such a collection such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, Cambridge, the British Museum, and the National Museum of Australia. With the exception of these photographs, the collection of Aboriginal material culture has all but disappeared from public view, at least for now. While it seems as if that aspect of the collection has disappeared, without leaving any clues as to how and why, its traces, via these photographs, newspaper reports, and faint echoes in a 106 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson number of archives prompt us to another series of questions. How should images such as these be interpreted and managed given the sensitivities around the context of the collection itself as well as the fact that those sensitivities are also embedded in the photographs themselves, which contain secret/sacred material? Te lack of detailed information about the contents, their provenance, and the method of collecting beyond what we have managed to establish so far makes it very difcult to work with descendants of those from whom this material was collected. And yet, not acknowledging the history that is embodied in these photographs would also result in adding to what has been called the great Australian silence (Stanner 1968), a theme identifed in an increasing body of work looking into the nature of colonial collecting and display (Byrne et al. 2011; Harrison 2011; Nugent and Sculthorpe 2018; Rose 1991; Sculthorpe et. al. 2015).

Unpacking the Silence, Listening to Ghosts and Moving toward Justice

It is evident, then, that any attempt to interpret and manage these photographs needs to engage with the nature of colonial collecting as well as to distance itself from these practices in ways that respect both Indigenous sensibilities and the fragile nature of reconciliation eforts. Clearly, our analysis of Smyth and his collecting indicates that collecting practices and modes of exhibition are inseparable from the wider traits of the colonial world. Smyth can be understood as part of a long continuum in which the extraction of natural resources is inseparable from the dispossession of Indigenous peoples (Baird and Lydon 2015). Furthermore, this demonstrates a time in which Aboriginal people were a form of “other” in which Aboriginal objects could be displayed equally with elements of the natural world, a process that excluded and masked any form of culture and Indigenous agency. Such processes were not divorced from the growing focus on science and racially structured understandings of human societies (Byrne et al. 2011; Gosden and Knowles 2001). In the case of the Smyth collection, the surviving photographs stand in for the collection, the collector, and the display. Importantly, photographs were also displayed within Smyth’s museum, including photographs taken by E. L. Mitchell of West Australian Aboriginal people. As Jane Lydon argues, advances in technology were commonly instrumental in collecting processes, particularly photography, which played a powerful role as a tool not only for forms of observation but for the application of forms of scientifc observation to forms of the non-Western “other” (Lydon 2005). Tis has led to the recognition that photographs and collections held by museums and archives play a signifcant role in revealing or, conversely, obscuring colonial realities (Edwards and Mead 2013; Lydon 2013). Signifcantly, Smyth can be understood as part of a common set of display practices elsewhere in the British Empire. For instance, we can compare the structural function of the display that Smyth put together to that of Henry Wellcome’s display at the Wellcome Museum in London. Like Smyth, Wellcome was a commercial man. And like Smyth’s blending of his commercial interests with the display of his collection, Wellcome combined his own commercial interests in his pharmaceutical company, Burroughs Wellcome and Company—which sold medical and pharmaceutical goods throughout the British Empire—with his collection of “primitive medicine” at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. If we follow Frances Larson’s (2011) analysis of the Wellcome Collection, we can see that the same structural relationship between the Col- lection, the company’s advertising material, and an abiding admiration for the British Empire is present in both displays. According to Larson, the advertising produced by the Burroughs Wellcome and Company frm was embedded in a narrative of Empire, framing the company’s pharmaceutical and medical products within modern science against backward superstition. Collections without End Ⅲ 107

Wellcome’s own collection, displayed at the Museum, was aimed at contrasting the exotic and superstitious nature of Indigenous people’s material culture with the scientifc advances of British medicine, including of course, that of his own company. Like Smyth, Wellcome had a strong faith in the power of display to educate both general and niche audiences. He attempted, for example, to infuence the Royal Geographical Society into developing exhibitions to educate statesmen as well as investors on geography and other peoples and thus “be the means of arousing the British public to greater interest in geographical work, and to greater zeal in the development of the Empire” (Wellcome in Larson 2011: 184). Empire and trade went together. In the case of Smyth, it is clear that the mineral collection served the same function as Wellcome’s display of modern science in his museum. Moreover, just as Wellcome’s pharmaceuticals could be framed as superior to the “primitive medicine” found in the colonies and on display in his museum, so Smyth’s collection of Aboriginal weapons could serve as a useful counterpoint to the might of Nobel’s explosives, which, as the images and artistic installations on display communicated, could be used for mineral extraction, agricultural activities such as the clearing of land, as well as recreational activities such as hunting. In the context of colonial Australia, however, there is an added layer of meaning, which gives rise to the “sticky” nature of the photographs in the Library’s collection. In a piece on the nature of afect, Sara Ahmed (2009: 30) suggests that “afect is what sticks, or what sustains or preserves the connection between ideas, values and objects.” Photographs taken in the context of a colonial enterprise are particularly sticky objects, for, as Elizabeth Edwards and Matt Mead (2013: 21) have argued:

Photographs are ofen the links between other histories and the colonial project. Tey inter- sect, for instance, with the mining of raw materials for industry, the lives of locally-born missionaries, and the colonial experience hidden in the pages of family albums. Tese photographs are important because they carry the inscriptions not only of the “events” of colonial domination—from Delhi Durbars to punitive expeditions—but also of the banal traces of difcult histories, of asymmetries, of injustices and also of aspirations and afections, the ludic and the ridiculous. Tey are ofen understood, however, merely as documenting and giving context to other classes of object, rather than providing points of fracture and vertical incisions into the surfaces of other histories to reveal complex sets of relations. In the latter context, they can, following Stoler’s analysis, bring to the surface “what lies dormant,” make “weak traces” tenacious and even make visible “the uneven durabilities of colonial constrictions.”

If we stop ourselves from understanding the Smyth photographs as merely documenting his display and understand them instead as traces of colonialism, what is it about these photographs that disturbs the present, that brings to the “surface ‘what lies dormant’” and makes it sticky, forcing some kind of reckoning with the history of collecting? And how might that reckoning be expressed? One way in which we can unpack this stickiness has to do with the way in which “hunting” becomes a metaphor that provides a bridge between collecting practices and the process of colonization and its attendant dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Like John MacKenzie (1988), Tom Grifths (1996) has persuasively argued that hunting was a metaphor for a wide range of activities on the colonial frontier, including those of collecting. Captain Smyth’s display presents us with an assemblage in which hunting for resources is placed side by side with the traditional hunting practices of the British upper classes, which in turn also animate Smyth’s interest in Aboriginal hunting items and weapons. As Grifths (1996: 20) suggests, it is no accident that the most popular items for collecting on the frontier were the hunting and fghting artifacts of Aboriginal people, as demonstrated in Table 1. In attending to the ways in which hunting for a 108 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson wide variety of objects became a feature of the colonial frontier, then, it is possible to begin to turn the mirror onto the White colonial subject as well as those who were hunted. In doing so, however, we are also lef with uncomfortable questions as to what to do with the traces of those colonial encounters—such as these photographs. A second way in which we can disturb the present is by paying attention to the ghostly nature of these photographs. It is not only that the photographer happened to catch the movement of Captain Smyth as he froze him in time, thus creating a doppelganger efect out of the double exposure, it is also that the images of the display also project a heavy past, a past that leaves a sticky residue on the present. For, as we have already pointed out, embodied in Smyth’s collecting and display practices is the history of colonization in Western Australia and its reliance on two extractive practices—blowing up the land to extract its mineral resources at the same time as dispossessing Indigenous peoples of both their land and their material culture. Tus, while the collection has ceased to exist, the ongoing presence of these photographs creates a future to which we must attend. We can understand this requirement if we think of ghosts as a presence that are seeking some form of reparative justice. While the past cannot be undone, we can seek to understand the wrong that was done and seek to embody this understanding in our present-day actions. It is for this reason that the images that accompany this article have either been cropped, or show whitened-out areas. Tis is to avoid showing objects that our research has taught us are secret/sacred while not contributing further to the great Australian silence—our tendency to resist acknowledging the many ways in which ordinary Australians were embedded within the practices of colonialism.

Ⅲ ANDREA WITCOMB is Deputy Director (Research) Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, where she is a Professor of cultural heritage and museum studies. Recent projects include an ARC-funded project on the history of the Australian collecting sector’s engagement with cultural diversity as well as a project on the history of collecting in Western Australia in collaboration with the Western Australian Museum, State Library, Art Gallery, and the British Museum. Email: [email protected]

Ⅲ ALISTAIR PATERSON is an ARC Future Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Western Australia. His research examines the historical archeology of colonial coastal contact and settlement in Australia’s Northwest and the Indian Ocean. His key interests are Western Australia and Indian Ocean history, Aboriginal Australia, the Dutch East India Company, colonialism and exploration, rock art, and the history of collecting in Western Australia. Email: [email protected] Collections without End Ⅲ 109

Ⅲ NOTES 1. Our interest in this collection was driven by our Australian Research Council (ARC) research project Collecting the West: How Collections Created Western Australia, which has begun investigating collectors, collecting, and collecting behaviors as they relate to Western Australia (ARC Linkage Project LP160100078). See https://www.collectingthewest.org/. 2. We wish to thank other members of our research team who, like us, were intrigued by our fnd. Between us all, we amassed what little could be found on Captain Smyth and his collection. Tey were Kate Gregory, Teresa Archer, and Susanna Iuliano from the State Library of Western Australia; Professor Jenny Gregory from the University of Western Australia; Dr. Baige Zylstra, a Research Fellow on the ARC project and one of our reviewers; and William Taylor from the University of Western Aus- tralia, who, like us, was intrigued by the ways in which not all the biographical details we had actually added up. Ross Chadwick from the Western Australian Museum helped with comparing items in the photographs with material in the Western Australian Museum to locate their origins as well as with providing help with identifying which items in the images were secret/sacred so as to avoid publishing them. Gaye Sculthorpe of the British Museum advised us on the process of obscuring certain restricted objects. Dermot Henry from Museums Victoria helped us to identify the process by which Smyth’s mineral collection came to rest at that institution. Finally, Lucia Clayton Martinez, a graduate student in archeology from the University of Western Australia, helped us with our provenance map. 3. Te entry for Captain Smyth in James S. Battye’s Te Cyclopedia of Western Australia (1912: 354) states that his father was from Paisley in Scotland. However, Captain Smyth’s marriage notice on 16 February 1895 states that his father was from Kilkenny in Ireland. Te 1901 Census for Ireland has a Matthew Smyth residing on High Street in Kilkenny, but he is described as being born in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, which does not accord with the Paisley story. Entries from Battye (1912) are from the second volume. 4. Battye’s Cyclopedia entry for Captain Smyth is unclear on where Captain Smyth himself was born. Te implication is that he was born in Paisley, but this is not explicitly stated. Te entry does give the date of 1 December 1867, but this is followed by an explanation that he grew up in Dublin. It is unclear where he migrated from in frst coming to Australia, but the second time was from Glasgow, home to the headquarters of Nobel Explosives. We have been unable to fnd a birth certifcate for him in Scotland, which is unusual, given that at this time all births in Scotland were required to be registered by law. It is possible therefore that he was born in Dublin. However, his war records held at the National Archives of Australia (NAA) have him as having been born in Paisley. 5. NAA, First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914–1920, Series number B2455, Smyth, Matthew McVicker. 6. Inscription on an Overseas Club certifcate, 1910, held by the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum, found in Trove at http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/197724555?q=Overseas+Club&c=picture& versionId=216494621 (accessed 15 September 2017). 7. Ibid. 8. “Background to the ICI Australia Mineral Collection, August 1976.” Information supplied by Mr. H. R. Hart in Mineralogy Department Files: Donations 1980–1987. Museums Victoria. 9. Captain Smyth’s nomination for associate membership in the Royal Society of Western Australia (RSWA) was accepted by the Council General of the Society at its meeting on 12 August 1919. He was elected on 9 September 1919. He accepted on 13 October 1991 (Royal Society of Western Australia Minutes of the Council General, January 1917 – December 1923: 97 and 108, respectively). 2722A/3. State Library of Western Australia. Te RSWA minuted his acceptance on 13 October 1919, noting that he had ofered to “exhibit his collection of minerals and aboriginal weapons to members at any time” (RSWA Minutes of the Council General, January 1917–December 1923: 110). His letter of resignation was accepted by the RSWA on 7 September 1923 “with regret” (RSWA Minutes of the Council General, January 1917–December 1923: 265). Te letter itself explained that “owing to the exigencies of business I have little or no chance of attending meetings, outings, etc.” (Letter from Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth to RSWA, 31 August 1923, in RSWA, Files, Members 2942A/77). 110 Ⅲ Andrea Witcomb and Alistair Paterson

10. “Background to the ICI Australia Mineral Collection, August 1976.” Information supplied by Mr. H. R. Hart in Mineralogy Department Files: Donations 1980–1987. Museums Victoria. 11. NAA: A1, 1928/4589 Series number: A1 Control symbol: 1928/4589; Barcode: 1611685; Number of pages: 144; Title: M. McVicker Smyth Collection – Australian Mines. 12. File No.342/28 “Western Australian Centenary, 1929” in State Records Ofce, Western Australia, Identifer AU WA S20-cons964 1928/0342. 13. Letter from Matthew McVicker Smyth to Te Curator, Museum and Art Gallery, Perth. 30 March 1936. File: Natural Science – Loans, June 1932 – October 1958, Archives Room, Box 10, Record No: A737-71-2. 14. Letter to Mr. R. D. Malcolmson, Executive Director, ICI Australia Ltd. from Barry R. Wilson, Director, National Museum of Victoria, 6 July 1981 accepting gif “of Western Australian gold specimens and other Australian minerals” and indicating that the collection would be registered as the “ICI” collection, thus obliterating Smyth’s name from the collection. In Mineralogy Department Files: Donations 1980–1987. Museums Victoria.

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