• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The Jos Museum (1952), prior to its opening. Photo: Collection of the B. E. B. Fagg Archive, © Mrs M. C. Fagg. JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 74 4/1/14 1:40:00 PM Jcs 3 (1) pp. 74–96 Intellect Limited 2014 Journal of curatorial studies Volume 3 Number 1 © 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jcs.3.1.74_1 AMANDA H. HELLMAN Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University The Grounds for Museological Experiments: Developing the Colonial Museum Project in British Nigeria Abstract Keywords In 1943 Kenneth C. Murray conducted a survey of antiquities in British Nigeria, Kenneth C. Murray leading to the founding of the Department of Antiquities, which wrote antiquities Bernard E. B. Fagg legislation, regulated archaeological excavations, and established all of the museums museums in Nigeria in the country. Looking to British institutions, such as the British and the Pitt Rivers colonial cultural Museums, Nigeria’s institutions and display practices reveal the way in which the policies colonial government intended to use the museum to unite a diverse population and collecting and create the modern colonial African subject. This article examines the processes by preserving African which European museum standards were translated to colonial-era African muse- art ums and how early Nigerian museums were both an extension of and departure The Jos Museum from the way British museums were used for social and political purposes. The Nigerian Museum, Lagos The nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British museum is well documented as a venue for public education, the construction of national identity, mapping culture and evolution, and, more specifically, for the 1. See, for example, 1 Bennett (1995), exhibition of curiosities, aesthetic objects and art. How did these models MacKenzie (2009), translate to colonial-era African museums? As I will argue, the British coombes (1994), court (1999), and Karp and colonial African museum, exemplified in Nigeria, maintained ties to the Lavine (1991). institutions in Europe, yet constituted something different because of its setting within a colonial territory and a mandate to cater to colonial European as well as African audiences. The museum in turn shaped the classification of art objects, which still affects the perceptions of Nigerian 75 JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 75 4/1/14 1:40:00 PM Amanda H. Hellman 2. UNESCO co-sponsored visual culture today. This article examines the processes by which institu- the museum training school with the tional and preservation models from Britain were translated to colonial-era Nigerian federal African museums. government and insisted that it be The West African country of Nigeria is distinct on the continent due to bilingual (with all its large, diverse population and the corresponding richness and historical written material depth of its art traditions. Museums in Nigeria were established under the translated into Hausa as well) to pretence of antiquities preservation, but were also a key demonstration accommodate of Britain’s imperial presence in Africa. Nigeria plays an important role students from all over francophone and in museum development on the continent because the Department of anglophone sub- Antiquities opened the first bilingual institution to train museum profes- Saharan Africa. UNESCO 2 emphasized that sionals in English and French, influencing museum practice across Africa. collaboration among The formation and products of the Department of Antiquities reveal how African museums the British intended to use the museum to unite a diverse population and would be a key to their success (Gessain employed artifacts to educate and inculcate the modern colonial African. 1965: 12). The Nigerian Department of Antiquities looked to British institutions as a 3. At the recommendation model for antiquities legislation and museum practice. of Nigerian artist Aina The initial advocate for museums in Nigeria was Kenneth Crosthwaite Onabolu, the colonial government created Murray who was stationed in the British colony as an art teacher beginning a position to develop in 1927.3 As he travelled the country he saw the loss and damage of mate- an art curriculum, for which they hired artist rial culture along with the practices and craft production that went with it. K. C. Murray. Murray thus began to collect; he collected to preserve, to understand, and, perhaps to console during a period of great change. In 1946 his efforts 4. These museums include the House of as a surveyor and collector resulted in the opening of the Department of Images at Esie (1945), Antiquities, which wrote antiquities legislation, regulated archaeological the Jos Museum (1952), the Ife Museum (1954), excavations, and established all of the museums in the country – seven the Nigerian Museum before independence in 1960.4 in Lagos (1957), the Oron Museum (1958), In Murray’s mind, the culmination of the antiquities assignment would the Benin Museum lead to a museum. But his letters and reports suggest that his idea of the (1960) and the Historic museum differed in many ways from what his superiors and peers in the House Museum in Kano (1960). colonial government, and their Nigerian counterparts, envisioned. At the end of his career Murray reflected that the National Museum, Lagos 5. ‘Article’ is a term commonly used to refer was the product of dedicated individuals: to works, artifacts or objects of artistic merit in the annual reports of [The museum] was not the outcome of a deliberate, carefully con- the antiquities service. sidered plan, but a result of its history and of local circumstances. The idea of a museum was not a planned act of the government or part of its programme but the result of pressure on a reluctant and uninterested succession of officials by a few individuals in the Education Department and the Administrative Service supported by a few influential people in England. (n.d.: 9) For Murray the primary mission of a museum was to preserve ‘articles’ (1953: 5).5 This vision reflected Britain’s attitude towards antiquity and anthropological museums; but in postwar Britain new approaches to museums were emerging, which would leave Nigeria and other British colonies behind in development. The efforts in Nigeria were influenced by early museum policy in Britain, chiefly that set forth by the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum. Murray and Bernard Fagg, who was appointed government archaeologist in 1948, were closely connected 76 JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 76 4/3/14 6:15:57 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments to pre-eminent museums in Britain, particularly through Fagg’s brother 6. The EsL merged with the Anthropological William, a keeper in the Department of Ethnography at the British society of London Museum from 1946–74. Many policies concerning antiquities looked again in 1871 as the Anthropological directly to the Antiquities Act of 1882, proposed by Sir John Lubbock and Institute of Great implemented by General Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers. As I will Britain and Ireland. show, these close ties with British institutions contributed to the devel- The combined society received its Royal opment of museum policy and antiquities legislation in Nigeria. Murray patronage in 1907. and Fagg did not look to other African museums. Rather, they looked Its journal Man (now Journal of the Royal to institutions in England: Brighton, Liverpool, the Horniman in London, Anthropological Birmingham, the Pitt Rivers at Oxford, and, perhaps their closest connec- Institute) was one of the most important tion, the British Museum (Picton 2012). forums for art and archaeological advancements in Antiquities Commission colonial Nigeria. Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks was essential in establishing the British 7. This project is indebted to chapman’s (1981) Museum as the hub of antiquities excavation, preservation and display. comprehensive Appointed to the Department of Antiquities in 1851, Franks brought research on General about a resurgence of the Ethnological Society of London (ESL).6 Interest Pitt-Rivers. in visual material, antiquities, archaeology, and the collection of objects 8. See also Wilson (2002: increased in the 1860s with the membership of ESL expanding to include 367). Edward Burnett Tylor, Pitt-Rivers, Lubbock and Franks (Chapman 1981: 206–07).7 It was at this time that Pitt-Rivers and Lubbock, a Member of Parliament, began to forge an important relationship, which grew into a partnership that legislated for the Antiquities bill. They worked on the bill from 1872 until it eventually passed into legislation in autumn 1882. The terms of the Act provided for an inspector, the first of whom was Pitt- Rivers. In this capacity he surveyed and recommended monuments in Britain for protection, negotiated consent with landowners, and organized a list of protected monuments and arranged for their care from the Office of Works. When a monument on private property was added to the list, the owner could no longer act in any way that could potentially damage the site (Bowden 1991: 95). Pitt-Rivers struggled to secure the funds and the manpower to actu- ally protect and preserve the antiquities he listed and collected (Bowden 1991: 97). In 1890 Pitt-Rivers relinquished his salary to pay for the pres- ervation efforts, but was still unable to raise enough money and there was little support from landowners, whom he believed were best suited to care for the monuments. Few applications were filed and when one did come across his desk, he privately funded the preservation to avoid fighting for government funds (Bowden 1991: 99–101). When he died in 1900 only 43 monuments had been placed under government protection. It was not until the Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings Act of 1913 that the government took responsibility for historical sites (Wilson 2002: 191).8 The royal commissions catalogued historic sites, eliminating the need for an inspector (Bowden 1991: 102). Pitt-Rivers and the Ancient Monuments Act most certainly provided a precedent and a framework for the Nigerian antiquities survey and commission.

Load more

  24

Copy Link