Retirement and recollection Dr Ray Marginson am and the Donald Thomson Collection Alison Inglis The Donald Thomson Collection research and reference material ochres and watercolour. There is has been described as ‘one of was placed on a long-term loan also a quantity of language notes, the world’s most important to Museum Victoria in 1973. genealogies, diaries and natural ethnographic collections relating The ethnographic artefacts and science notebooks; plus newspaper to Australian Aboriginal people’.1 specimens remain the property clippings, correspondence, reports Bringing together material acquired of the University of Melbourne, and unpublished manuscripts relating from Arnhem Land, Cape York, while Donald Thomson’s literary to Thomson’s academic career as the Great Sandy Desert and the estate, which had been left to his an anthropologist and biologist, as Gibson Desert in Western Australia, widow, Mrs Dorita Thomson, was well as to his social justice work.5 it also includes a small amount located at the museum alongside the Not surprisingly, the collection is originating in the Solomon Islands collection. This particular ‘literary’ particularly valued for ‘its careful and West Papua (formerly Irian component of the collection—made interweaving of various sources of Jaya). This remarkable assemblage up of notes, diaries, drawings, information and documentation and of cultural material was amassed as photographs, film, sound recordings images’.6 a personal research and reference and manuscripts—would be listed This year, 2013, marks the collection by the anthropologist and on the UNESCO Australian 40th anniversary of the formation biologist, Donald Thomson, over Memory of the World Register in of the Donald Thomson Collection a career that spanned more than 2008. It is probably best known and of the decision to entrust it to four decades. For much of this time, to the wider public through the custody of Museum Victoria. It Thomson worked at the University the acclaimed film,Ten canoes also sees the retirement of Dr Ray of Melbourne: initially as a research (2006), which was based upon its Marginson AM from his role as fellow (Bartlett Research Scholar) photographic holdings.4 inaugural chairman of the Donald attached to the Department of The collection’s richness Thomson Collection Administration Anatomy (1932–37 and 1945–53) and comprehensiveness can be Committee, in which capacity he has and later as a senior research fellow conveyed by a simple description overseen the collection’s foundation (1953–64) and finally professor of its contents. It includes 7,200 and management for the past four (1964–68) in the Department artefacts, accompanied by 5,300 decades. This committee, made up of Anthropology.2 In later life pages of field notes and 11,000 of representatives of the museum Thomson was concerned ‘not to let pages of transcriptions; 10,580 and the university, is responsible for the care of any part of his collection photographic prints, negatives, glass the maintenance of the collection pass out of his hands [which] plates and transparencies; 7,600 (ranging from care and conservation resulted in few people ever seeing it metres of colour film and various to research and interpretation). until after his death’,3 in 1970. sound recordings; approximately The following account of the The Donald Thomson 2,000 natural science specimens; collection’s establishment draws Collection was officially established 400 maps; and over 300 scientific upon an unpublished typescript by three years later, when all of his illustrations in pen and ink, Dr Marginson. Alison Inglis, ‘Retirement and recollection’ 35 Dr Ray Marginson AM. Collection Dr Ray Marginson. Recollections It was decided to propose National Museum of Victoria in When Ray Marginson joined the an agreement between Donald’s 1973.11 University of Melbourne in 1966 widow, Mrs Dorita Thomson, as its first vice-principal,7 Donald the University and the Museum Once transferred to the Museum, Thomson had been elected to a [of Victoria] in which the objects the herculean task of cataloguing, personal chair in anthropology only would be donated to the University housing and researching the collection two years before. Sadly, Thomson’s and transferred to the custody of was taken up. In discussing this period time as professor would be short, as the Museum on long-term loan in the life of the collection (after he retired in 1968 and died in 1970 for preservation and curatorial 1973), Dr Marginson places particular at the age of 69. Dr Marginson responsibility, with the University emphasis on the contribution of one recalls of that time: retaining ownership of those individual—that of Judith Wiseman.12 items regarded as belonging to As he recounts: I first sighted the Donald it. The Vice Chancellor was of Thomson collection when it the view that all objects collected Everyone connected with the was housed in one of the original from the point when Donald collection has paid tribute to medical buildings on the east was funded by the University, Judith’s immense contribution and side of the Parkville campus, fell into that category. This was a skill in her work on the collection. and also in part of a Storey sensitive and difficult issue but it This included transcribing 4,000 Street house [in Parkville],8 was eventually settled amicably. pages of Donald [Thomson’s] bought by the University during The family retained ownership of handwritten field notes into 7,000 those frantic days of tremendous the copyright and ownership of typed foolscap pages, the start of growth in student numbers all the manuscripts and articles, the work in sorting, printing and in the post-war period, partly field notes, drawings, photographs, labelling the 1,100 photographs due to the Commonwealth audiotapes and maps. The bulk of from negatives and glass plates; Reconstruction Training the holdings of objects was then and sorting, identifying and listing Scheme. On Donald’s death, donated formally to the University 5,000 artefacts. She also undertook I inspected the collection more in terms of a tripartite agreement further cross-referencing of thoroughly, with the help of and transferred to the Museum objects in the collection with the Donald’s last secretary, Ms for its ‘expert attention for their field notes and photographs and Judith Wiseman. I realized it present and future preservation . systematically compiled some of was beyond the capacity of the and display’.10 The agreement was the language information. All this University to sort, curate, and signed between the three parties was done with a vigorous refusal preserve this major collection. on the 28 March 1973 and the to accept any payment (although This was also firmly the view Donald Thomson Collection was we eventually persuaded her to of the then Vice Chancellor, Sir transferred to the then Natural accept petrol money from her David Derham (1920–1985).9 History Museum, part of the fairly distant Bayside home to the 36 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 13, December 2013 Part of the exhibition Ancestral power and the aesthetic: Arnhem Land paintings and objects from the Donald Thomson Collection, held at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 2009. Photo: Viki Petherbridge. Museum). She was greatly aided dedication and the unique quality of Arnhem Land but never by the close co-operation with the of her work by conferring on published, was co-published collections manager, Ms Rosemary her the degree of Master of by the Museum and University Wrench and museum staff led Philosophy Honoris Causa. as a photographic essay titled by the Collection curator, Lindy When she finally retired from ‘Thomson Time, Arnhem Land Allen, and, very importantly, the work on the collection, the in the 1930s’.13 goodwill and advice of Mrs Dorita Donald Thomson Administration Thomson. Judith Wiseman was Collection Committee presented This photographic essay,14 one also greatly aided by her friends her with a copy of Michael of several books on the Donald in the Melbourne Women’s Meszaros’ Thomson medallion. Thomson Collection produced Walking Club. In 1996, an essay Judith during Dr Marginson’s chairmanship, To mark her official retirement had written originally in documents Thomson’s published and in 1979, the University recognized 1984 intended as part of the unpublished work relating to Arnhem formally her scholarship, bicentennial Aboriginal History Land. It also records Thomson’s Alison Inglis, ‘Retirement and recollection’ 37 academic and special awards, as 1 Museum Victoria, ‘Donald Thomson issue 9, December 2011. well as listing past and present (to Collection’, Collections & Research website, 8 One of the illustrators who assisted Donald http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections- Thomson, Ann E. Lissenden-Gumley, also 1996) members of the Collection’s research/our-collections/indigenous-cultures/ recalls working on the collection in the Storey Administration Committee. donald-thomson/, accessed 25 July 2013. Street house in the late 1960s. See M.F. Playne, A more recent project that 2 Howard Morphy, ‘Thomson, Donald Finlay ‘The line drawings, paintings and painted also emerges from this ‘long and Fergusson (1901–1970)’, Australian dictionary photographs of five women artists’, in Rigsby of biography, vol. 16, Melbourne University and Peterson, Donald Thomson, p. 237. fruitful collaboration between Press, 2002, amended and published online at 9 The distinguished jurist and university the University of Melbourne and http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/thomson- administrator Sir David Derham was appointed Museum Victoria’, is Ancestral power donald-finlay-fergusson-11851/text21213, vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne accessed 27 July 2013; Bruce Rigsby and in 1968. Confronted by a large budget deficit and the aesthetic: Arnhem Land Nicolas Peterson (eds), Donald Thomson: The and managerial deficiencies, he sought to paintings and objects from the Donald man and scholar, Canberra: The Academy of remedy these problems by ‘decentralis[ing] Thomson Collection, an exhibition Social Sciences in Australia, 2005, pp.