The Jos Museum (1952), Prior to Its Opening

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

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

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

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 preservation 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. Though it was a struggle to encourage the government to protect antiquities in Britain, there were efforts in some of its colonies. In 1784, Sir William Jones began the Asiatic Society of Bengal and a corresponding

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 77 4/1/14 1:40:00 PM Amanda H. Hellman

9. chapman (1981: 120, museum opened in 1814. Though this was not an official arm of the 151), see also Bowden (1991: 57–58). government and was mostly developed through private means, the British government took credit for allowing such activities to take place (Brown 10. Today the collection contains around 1905: 231–32). The British were supportive in that they did not inhibit 500,000 objects. See progress, but the government was aware that antiquities preservation was Petch (2005) and important. Indeed, in 1865 Colonel Alexander Cunningham conducted Chapman (1981: 462). the archaeological survey of upper India. The survey’s success led him to facilitate subsequent surveys in Bombay and Madras, though he did not conduct them himself. In 1881 the position of Curator of Ancient Monuments was developed and in 1904 the Monument Act for India laid out several goals and sanctions: mandatory guardianship by the government of all declared monuments; the government’s power to regulate the export or removal of antiquities from the country; and regulations regarding archaeological excavations. There is no direct evidence that the policies developed in other countries under British rule influenced Murray or the Nigerian colonial office, but similar programs were being established throughout the empire.

Museums in Britain Since the nineteenth century, the museum has been a pre-eminent institution to collect, organize and understand the previously unknown. Objects of distant lands, peoples and ideas can be gathered in one educational centre and made accessible to large audiences. The Surveys of Museums of the British Empire conducted by Sir Henry Miers and Sydney Markham in 1932 underscore their purpose: museums offered a place ‘for research, education and inspiration. Museums were indeed seen as treasuries, storehouses, laboratories and colleges’ (MacKenzie 2009: 12). In 1845, Parliament passed the Museums Act, also known as ‘The Beetle Act’, permitting municipal boroughs to raise taxes to fund the establishment of museums, expansion projects and travelling exhibitions. Museums were understood to be places that could manufacture upstanding citizens, stimulating the development and public outreach of institutions such as the Ashmolean, British, and Hunterian Museums. The Ancient Monuments Act was supported at a time when there was a rise in interest in amateur archaeology. Archaeology was at one time both a scientific venture and a fantasy of discovering a bygone era.9 Pitt- Rivers was an amateur archaeologist who became a collector. He relied on his excavations to enhance his collection acquired through the traditional route of dealers (Chapman 1981: 117). The idea that objects could provide evidentiary support for a culture would instigate a change in museum practices and the collection of information. Pitt-Rivers was an obvious contributor to museum development in Britain. In 1884 he donated his collection to Oxford University around the time in which the museum approach was losing support among anthropologists.10 He also established another museum at his estate in Farnham. Pitt-Rivers looked to the Danish models as support for the idea that museums were a vital tool for archaeological research (Chapman 1981: 147). Ultimately, what seemed to be at stake was how museums could best classify and display ethnographic specimens – chronologically, geographically or typologically.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 78 4/1/14 1:40:00 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

Pitt-Rivers hoped to offer a method of organization distinct from the 11. chapman (1981: 169, 216, 538), see also British Museum’s mode of geographical arrangement, and organized his Rivière (2007: 3) and collection into two categories: antiquities and ethnography.11 He saw the Bowden (1991: 141). The insistence that development of artifacts in a linear evolution, from simple to complicated, a central museum and developed his displays as such. Rather than a geographical approach, would better fulfil the Pitt-Rivers organized his objects typologically – he grouped objects needs of the public, rather than smaller, according to their similarities and in an ascending order of complexity regional museums, (Wilson 2002: 161). was reflected later in Murray’s own mission The British Museum, though methodologically in opposition to in Nigeria. the Pitt Rivers Museum, is an important case study and demonstrates 12. Wilson (2002: Britain’s civilizing mission. Not only did it cultivate a relationship with 160). Franks, as an Nigeria that still exists today, but it also had an incredible impact on the archaeologist, was development of ethnology within the museums in Britain. Franks was a interested in how artifacts revealed proponent of Britain’s collecting scheme, and though he never journeyed culture. He did not beyond Europe, he developed the questionnaires that travellers took to collect from the far 12 reaches of the empire, record information about the objects they acquired. as did Napoleon for Franks steered the British Museum’s Department of Antiquities until the Louvre, to illustrate imperial presence. See 1896. The next transformation within the department occurred during the MacKenzie (2009: 13) time of Hermann Justus Braunholtz, who became a deputy keeper in 1938. and Wilson (2002: 102, With the onset of World War II, British institutions capitalized on the 356). consequent rise in taxes, which forced many collectors and custodians of 13. One key acquisition family collections to consider large gifts.13 Moreover, as the British Empire was the H. G. Beasley collection in 1944, was dismantled, works obtained by missionaries, explorers and colonial which included officers were unloaded in unprecedented numbers. In 1946, Ethnography numerous Benin bronzes. officially became its own governmental department and Braunholtz was promoted to keeper. This same year Braunholtz toured West Africa, which solidified the connection between the British Museum and the efforts in Nigeria. One of the important connections between the organization of the British Museum and the Nigerian museums was the department in charge of renovating galleries. It was not until 1964 that the British Museum hired their own designers and, according to former British Museum director David M. Wilson, there was no cohesive display policy. Rather, the new galleries were drawn up by architects from the Ministry of Works (Wilson 2002: 264). This suggests that, in fact, when Murray sought the approval for the display and design of the building from the public works department in Nigeria, he was simply following the protocol of the British museum system. The British Museum led museum development in Great Britain; it was also a crucial platform for the display of antiquities and non-western art. But there was another important stage for objects of the British Empire. The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 instigated provincial museum development by sending travelling exhibitions all over Britain and the world, shaping museums along the way (MacKenzie 2009: 2). Indeed, expositions were critical and before the museums were established in Nigeria, the large exhibitions in Great Britain provided a stage for Nigeria to demonstrate its aesthetic prowess. For example, the inspector of the Nigerian Education Department, Edward Harland Duckworth, requested a gallery for Nigeria at the 1938 World Exposition in Glasgow. As art historian Annie Coombes argues, these platforms developed after the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 79 4/1/14 1:40:00 PM Amanda H. Hellman

14. These institutions were central to the colonial agenda to distinguish between British and also trained Nigerians: Alhaji Adamu Liman colonized subjects (1994: 213). Ciroma studied at Birmingham University, and Ekpo Eyo, the first The Effect of British Policy on Nigerian Museums Nigerian Director of the Department of The British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum had direct contact with Antiquities, attended Murray and Fagg as they were developing the practices and policies of the the University of 14 Cambridge. Department of Antiquities. Fagg’s curatorial method at Jos in particular paralleled the system of organization at the Pitt Rivers Museum described earlier. Just as Pitt-Rivers separated his collection into antiquities and ethnography, the displays at the Jos Museum were divided into two groups. The first was ‘Ethnographic Materials’, which showed the range of cultures within Nigeria and included dress, masks, instruments, carved figures and recent antiquities such as Benin and Ife bronzes. The second grouping consisted of archaeological specimens demonstrating the technological development in the region from the Paleolithic period to the Late Stone Age. Also included were early antiquities, such as the Nok terracottas excavated by Fagg (Guide to the National Museum 1977: 10). The British Museum developed a particular method of display:

[G]roups of antiquities were pinned to the ‘tablets’ or boards, descriptive text sometimes being painted directly on to those not covered with textiles. The tablets could easily be moved about the

The Jos Museum (1952), display of Nok terracottas. Photo: Bernard E. B. Fagg (1959), Preserving the Past, Lagos: Nigerian Federal Ministry of Research and Information, p. 30.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 80 4/1/14 1:40:01 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

table-cases, and both they and the larger boards could be mounted on slopes or vertically in the wall-cases. (Wilson 2002: 207)

Likewise, the Jos Museum adopted a similar approach. Furthermore, until the mid-twentieth century, wall labels did not have extended didactic material. Rather, visitors referred to gallery guides, which offered further explanation of the material on display. These were one of the most important contributions the Department of Antiquities at the British Museum produced, which will be explored in greater detail below as it pertained to displays at the Jos and Lagos museums. The idea that museums in Britain were places where citizens could be educated parallels the debate that the colonial office was having in British West Africa. Though certain voices like Murray, Arthur Creech Jones, Herbert V. Meyerowitz and Julian Huxley saw a museum system as an educational legacy that would facilitate a successful decoloniza- tion process, the official colonial authority was not concerned with independence as many of the museums in Nigeria opened. Huxley saw the museum as a common ground upon which the British and Nigerians could communicate.

Building the Department of Antiquities in Colonial Nigeria To develop regulations and protocols for Nigerian antiquities, the colonial office looked to the precedent set by British antiquities policy and practice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As inspector of ancient monuments, Pitt-Rivers surveyed the country to locate sites of national heritage, developed a formal records system for cataloguing the monuments, and liaised between the government and property owners to conserve declared monuments. In Nigeria, these responsibilities would parallel Murray’s own job description as the surveyor of antiquities for the colonial government. The post of surveyor was the only one of its kind in West Africa, and contributed to the development of museums in Nigeria. In this role, Murray’s ultimate goal was to establish a central Nigerian museum reflecting Pitt-Rivers’s own mission. The museum’s core collection would be formed by Murray’s acquisitions, purchased while he surveyed the country for the government, seemingly following the trend set by Pitt- Rivers and Sir Hans Sloane, whose collections became the core of their own museums. Murray’s philosophy aligns with those of earlier collectors: where there is a collection of objects, a museum must surely follow. To create a place for his collection, Murray would first have to develop the Department of Antiquities in order to secure funding from the colonial office and to cultivate relationships with local Nigerian leaders who often held collections of their own. With the help of Fagg he would also contribute to the development of proper archaeological practices for systematic and responsible excavations; establish antiquities legislation to regulate the export of objects deemed to be important to a Nigerian heritage; begin a major collecting campaign to acquire objects to be conserved and protected in a museum; and, among other responsibilities,

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 81 4/1/14 1:40:01 PM Amanda H. Hellman

15. see Murray (1936). create a department that could request funding from the government He also recalled that the report generated to support these projects and expand cultural endeavours. Murray was from this survey certainly driving this mission, but the interest in cultural preservation recommended a museum program gained momentum among the British in West Africa when the Nigerian (n.d.: 3). colonial government invested in the project. In 1935 the need for a plan to preserve Nigeria’s visual culture was 16. One case in particular, that of William Bascom alarmingly apparent so Murray began actively acquiring work (Murray and the Ife heads, n.d.: 2–3). By 1936 his collecting mission took on a more professional formed the basis for the antiquities tone. Murray was sent, along with anthropologist Arthur Hunt-Cooke, ordinance, which was the Surveyor of Education, to Ibadan and Abeokuta to study Yoruba finally passed in 1953. crafts. That summer Murray mentions the need for a museum in Nigeria 17. Officials at the meeting to ensure the preservation of objects.15 Though the idea may appear to included Duckworth, be superficial, it proved to be a defining moment in the genesis of the chief secretary C. R. Butler, D. C. Fletcher museum project. from the information By the time Murray enlisted in the West African Forces in 1941 he office, principal assistant secretary had amassed over 200 woodcarvings and terracottas, which he sent to Malcolm Macdonald, South Africa for safekeeping during the war. His stated intention was that chief commissioner of the west provinces, this collection be returned to Nigeria once a museum was established to Sir Theo Chandice house the work (Murray 1940). Murray worked hard to assess the state of Hoskyns-Abrahall, and governor Alexander traditional Nigerian art and discovered that in order to build a collection Grantham (Fagg and of Nigerian antiquities his efforts had to extend beyond active collecting; Murray 1954: 3 and he would have to seek the repatriation of artifacts that had migrated over- Murray n.d.: 6). seas.16 Sponsored by the colonial information office, Murray was unex- 18. Exacerbating the pectedly discharged in June 1943 because a new post had been created for difficulty Nigeria had in developing museums, him – Surveyor of Antiquities (Murray 1943b). Upon his return to Lagos, Murray struggled a meeting was scheduled with colonial officials to discuss three topics: to secure the funds and manpower to antiquities legislation, museums in Lagos and Ife, and a West African protect the antiquities institute of arts to exhibit and sell art.17 Murray was instructed to conduct he collected, just as a formal survey of antiquities from across Nigeria and recommend sites Pitt-Rivers was often unable to safeguard and objects for preservation (Murray 1943a). His post as the Surveyor of the monuments in Antiquities paralleled the duties laid out in Britain in the late nineteenth Britain (Murray 1943c; Picton 2012). and early twentieth centuries. As Murray officially began his survey of Nigerian antiquities, he defined the parameters of his search: all objects made before 1918 (at the conclu- sion of World War I), any work made specifically for religious purposes, and all archaeological artifacts were protected and collected under antiquities preservation.18 Murray had no formal training in archaeological practice and ethics and, by the time he arrived in Ife, in August 1943, he knew that he needed to seek the advice of an expert (Murray 1943d). So when he was introduced to Fagg in Jos in 1944, Murray did everything in his power to develop a position for him. Fagg would become an active contributor in the department and, as the only trained archaeologist working with Murray, established the archaeological protocol in Nigeria and oversaw excavations throughout the country. Just as Murray publicly vocalized the dire state of antiquities, Fagg pleaded for the miners in Jos, the mining companies, the government and Nigerians to unite to protect the artifacts of the country – both through archaeological protocol and museums (Fagg 1946: 54–55). Fagg excavated throughout northern Nigeria, most famously around Nok, where he unearthed terracotta figures, giving him the means to raise funds for a

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 82 4/1/14 1:40:01 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

museum. The artifacts sat on Fagg’s mantle, on display, appealing to colo- nialists and wealthy Africans who could support a museum for Jos. Fagg put his efforts into archaeology and an antiquities museum in contrast to Murray’s emphasis in acquisition and repatriation. Fagg felt it important to develop and enforce export policies, providing a balance to Murray’s more dogmatic advocacy for repatriation, emphasizing that it was equally important to display cultural objects for the benefit of citizens in order to develop an understanding of the culture and an international audience (Fagg 1946: 54–55). This differs from the Nigerian position regarding repatriation today, which asserts that the country was looted by the colonial powers who therefore benefited from Nigeria’s heritage, while museums in Nigeria were left barren (see Layiwola 2010). Conceivably influenced by his familial association, Fagg’s opinion echoed the British Museum’s sentiment that it was equally important to display cultural objects for the benefit of citizens as it was to develop an international audience’s interest in the culture. Fagg’s network in Britain was vital to the success of the museum project in Nigeria. For example, he met Huxley in 1943, during which he surely divulged his plans for a museum in Jos. Additionally, William Fagg connected the Nigerian antiquities section to the entire network of British anthropologists. Fagg also played a major role in the archaeological work in Nigeria from 1949 until 1959. During this decade, he researched, collected for the British Museum, and took upward of 3,000 photographs, currently held at the Royal Anthropological Institute in London. Through this link Fagg provided Murray with a letter of introduction to Braunholtz in April 1945, which was a turning point for the antiquities project in Nigeria (Fagg 1945). In February 1946 Braunholtz arrived from England thanks to a research grant from the Colonial Development and Welfare Act. His tour included visits to the Gold Coast, the Gambia, Sierra Leone and, of course, Nigeria, where he remained for six weeks under the guidance of Murray. Braunholtz’s visit was exhaustive, travelling to every region that Murray had surveyed in the previous three years (Murray 1947: 1). The colonial office looked to Braunholtz to produce a report to inform their next move. A point of contention that Murray hoped to resolve from Braunholtz’s report was whether they should invest in a central museum with travelling exhibitions or recommend regional institutions – a question with which Britain still struggled (Murray 1947: 3). Forty years earlier, art historian Gerard Baldwin Brown explained his position on the matter:

[T]he question of national against local museums, which is of importance as connected with the still larger problem of centralization or decentralization in monument administration generally […] the balance of evidence seems in favour of the encouragement of local collections side by side with the central one. (1905: 42–43)

Murray felt passionately that a national museum must be opened in Lagos, complemented by smaller regional museums with specialized collections. He debated with the government and Fagg, who ultimately opened the Jos Museum with a significant collection in 1952. Similar to the model

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 83 4/1/14 1:40:01 PM Amanda H. Hellman

19. Art historian Sidney promoted by the Beetle Act, Murray hoped to create a roving museum to Kasfir, who worked for the Department of tour the collections across Nigeria. Antiquities in the 1970s, Museum development was a separate issue. The colonial government suggested this new access was ‘a sensitive did not approve the desire of the Department of Antiquities to establish issue’ because tradition museums, only to survey Nigeria and construct export legislation. At the dictated that only same time, however, there were several colonies in Africa and organiza- initiated males were allowed to see secret tions in Britain trying to develop museums, which generated support for religious objects (Kasfir Nigeria’s cause. The effort to establish museums was not smooth, in spite 2013). of the extensive history of museums in Europe and the British government’s use of the museum institution to mold upstanding citizens. Murray and Fagg opened their own museums with the backing of several groups including the Carnegie Trust, the Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa, UNESCO, and the efforts of Meyerowitz in the Gold Coast. Yet the way in which Fagg and Murray approached museum-building was entirely different, in part because the colonial museum was distinct from its counterparts in Great Britain. Collecting work from a range of people to be housed in a single place controlled by the government was not only a foreign practice, but disrespectful in the eyes of many Nigerians. Murray consistently found himself negotiating for ancestral objects because the owners did not trust the colonial government and did not necessarily see a problem with the natural deterioration of the objects. There was also the issue of audience. The colonial office saw the museum as a place for expatriates to enjoy the art of the empire. Historian John Mackenzie considers museums in the colonies and imperial territories as institutions that exhibit European perspectives of the world for Europeans (2009: 5). In one sense, Murray’s acquisition mission demonstrates an effort to capture Nigerian culture in all of its diversity for the purpose of displaying and interpreting it for a European audience. Yet Murray and Fagg envisioned museums in Nigeria as places for Nigerians, rather than the British. Indeed, recalling the high numbers of people who visited the museums, Murray and Fagg noted that they reflected the diversity of the country. The museum gave many people access to objects that they previously had been prohibited from seeing.19 At the time of his appointment in the early 1940s, Murray had little idea of what was required to begin a museum. Yet having travelled around southern Nigeria, he saw the way in which works were deteriorating. Moreover, his experience in the Education Department influenced his ideas regarding staffing. Murray knew that without trained staff, experienced curators, proper storage facilities, and galleries, there was no point in putting money toward the project. For the previous decade, he had watched his art studios appropriated for other projects and knew that if the colonial government did not make the museum a priority, they might as well have let the collection decay or be disseminated among European and American institutions.

The Colonial Endeavour: Meyerowitz, Huxley and Braunholtz The social and educational benefits of a museum garnered attention from many western organizations. There was growing interest among British colonial developmental agencies in establishing museums in West Africa.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 84 4/1/14 1:40:02 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

With the support of the Colonial Development and Welfare Act in 1940, artist and educator Meyerowitz and anthropologist Dr Meyer Fortes created the Institute of West African Arts, Industries and Social Science (IWAAISS) in 1943 at Achimota College in the Gold Coast (Basu 2012: 149). Opened in 1943 and closed shortly afterward in 1945, the goal was to promote a West Africa that was free from economic dependence on Europe:

[The mission endeavoured] to investigate local arts and crafts, to teach certain selective native crafts in the light of European experience, and thence to inaugurate local craft industries; and, on the other hand, to conduct a parallel investigation into local history, tribal life, customs, traditions, religion and economic conditions […]. (Meyerowitz 1943: 112)

The avenues that Meyerowitz took to establish a museum in the Gold Coast (to become Ghana) paralleled many of Murray’s own schemes, though Murray was quick to note the differences. Just as intended at Jos, IWAAISS insisted on a ‘technical workshop and experimental production unit’ (Meyerowitz 1943: 113). By this time, Murray was less interested in the production of traditional crafts and more interested in preserving objects that were fast becoming obsolete. Indeed, Murray insisted that bulldozing culture would inhibit economic prosperity, advocating that industrialization must happen with culture in mind (1944a; 1943e: 155). The IWAAISS was an important model for Murray because it institu- tionalized both art production and preservation. Murray was able to use the recognition the institute received as leverage for his own central museum. Like Meyerowitz, Huxley was interested in museum development in British West Africa, stressing the cultural importance of its antiquities as well as its archaeological and ethnological legacies. After submitting his scheme, Huxley, along with Creech Jones and Dr Margaret Read, a member of the Colonial Commission on Higher Education, toured Nigeria with Murray and Duckworth, and the Gold Coast with Meyerowitz under the Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa (Murray n.d.: 7a; Basu 2012: 150). Though there is little indication from Murray that he admired Huxley, apparently he regarded him as an ally in establishing museums (Murray 1944b). In Paul Basu’s investigations into museum development in Sierra Leone, he explains that Huxley understood that museums could create a unified national identity and establish a mutual cultural language with which ‘educated Africans and Europeans can meet and cooperate’ (Basu 2012: 151). Huxley envisioned a united museum system, based at IWAAISS, where larger museum policy would be developed and museum professionals trained. Each colonial country would have a large national museum as well as smaller regional museums, which they would maintain and individualize to their interests (Basu 2012: 151). Yet, Murray and Fagg worried that the colonial office would push for an all-encompassing museum (Murray 1944c; n.d.: 7a–8). Ultimately, Huxley’s proposal and tour did not directly result in a museum in Nigeria. It did, however, result in two important outcomes. The

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 85 4/1/14 1:40:02 PM Amanda H. Hellman

20. Deduced from Murray first was the support of Creech Jones, who became the secretary of state (1943f). Murray first wrote to Braunholtz for the colonies. Creech Jones wrote to the governor of Nigeria, which led in November 1943. At to an advisory conference of Nigerian officials in 1947. More importantly, this time he also began to search for material Huxley’s efforts encouraged the colonial office to send Braunholtz to West about proper protocol Africa in 1946 (Murray n.d.: 7a). for archeological Murray and Duckworth had been looking at British models to develop excavations. education programs, the antiquities survey and legislation. Yet it was not until Braunholtz came to conduct a survey and make recommendations that Murray and Duckworth solidified their connection to one of the most important cultural institutions in the British Empire.20 As the British Museum struggled to recover from World War II, Braunholtz’s arrival in Nigeria was delayed until February 1946 (Murray 1946b and 1946c). Murray oversaw Braunholtz’s six-week itinerary in Nigeria and most likely influenced his final suggestions (Murray 1946a; Basu 2012: 154). It took Braunholtz two-and-a-half years to submit his report to the colonial office. The report supported the call for museums; more specifically, he insisted that museums were necessary to prevent the loss of the antiquities (Murray 1947: 3 and 1948: 9; Basu 2012: 154). For Braunholtz, it was not so much a question of whether museums should be established in West Africa, but of how the museums should be organized: should the British colonial government establish a larger organizational body with managers in each country, or should each country establish its own department? Braunholtz underscored Nigeria’s rich artistic traditions and current system and suggested that it should be the priority for the colonial government (Basu 2012: 154–55). In light of World War II and the growing encroachment of independence, the colonial office did not see museums as essential despite the assertions made by their supporters (MacKenzie 2009: 9). It did give provisions to develop the antiquities section, in part, to maintain control over the physical objects, which other countries seemed only too eager to get a hold of for their own museums. Therefore, a convincing argument for museums was simply to restrict the constant stream of antiquities leaving the country. Such tenuous support, coupled with the initiatives of Murray and Fagg, would be enough to open two national museums in Jos and Lagos and five regional museums.

The National Museums in Jos and Lagos All of the museums in Nigeria were established under different conditions and with their own set of dilemmas and support. Each was built around a collection of objects and, with the exception of the Lagos museum, which was strategically placed in the capital, each museum was site-spe- cific. Murray and Fagg created their museums at a time when museology was developing and even places like the British Museum were thinking about display and education in a different way. Frank McEwan and Jean Gabus, participants in the 1964 UNESCO Sixth Regional Seminar on the ‘Role of Museums in Contemporary Africa’, which was held in Jos, discussed how a museum should look. The consensus was that the ideal museum should have several key characteristics: be constructed on a single level; have no windows, but be lit with fluorescent lights; and be

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 86 4/1/14 1:40:02 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

divided by mobile partitions to create new arrangements to entice visi- 21. Frank McEwen 21 (1907–94) was an tors to enjoy a new experience with each visit (Gessain 1965: 15). Many English artist and of these requirements were out of reach for Murray and Fagg as they founder of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. built their institutions, but they certainly took the point that architecture Dr Jean Gabus (1908–92) could define a museum. As such, they endeavoured to create buildings was an ethnographer that fit each region, using local materials and labour as much as possible. of Africa and the director of the Musée However, Murray and Fagg approached building the museums in very d’ethnographie de different ways. As the director of the antiquities section from 1946 until Neuchâtel. 1957, Murray fought diligently through the proper channels for funding, staff and legal authority. Alternatively, his deputy director, Bernard Fagg, raised funding for the Jos Museum primarily through private donations. He hired local craftsmen, designed the museum, landscaped the grounds, and created programming without government funding or permission. The difference in the men’s methods were reflected in the institutions they built, which I will examine in regard to the national museums in Jos and Lagos.

The Jos Museum The Jos Museum is arguably one of the most important and ground- breaking museums in tropical Africa. Not only was it imaginative and inventive in terms of development, but it also strove, almost from its establishment in 1952, to be a leader in archaeological scholarship, training and preservation of the many different histories of this complex African nation. What distinguishes the Jos Museum from other museums developed by the antiquities department is said best by Fagg himself: ‘it is the museum where it has been possible to carry out most museological experiments and where an interdisciplinary museum complex is about to become a reality’ (1963: 132). Between 1946 and 1948, Fagg selected a site in the centre of Jos with a golf course that would provide extensive grounds for expansion (Murray 1946b; Fagg 1963: 133). More than a repository for artifacts from northern Nigeria, the Jos Museum was a complex that took over 30 years to build. In addition to Fagg, there were many players who worked tirelessly for its expansion: Sylvia Leith- Ross built the Pottery Museum; Zbigniew R. Dmochowski designed the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture (MOTNA); there was a zoo, a botanical gardens and a technological museum; additionally, there was a museum training program for museum professionals throughout Africa. At the time of Fagg’s appointment proposals were submitted for office and exhibition space as well as storage and conservation (Murray 1948: 6). The museum was always intended to be a research collection for excavated material. The original design of the museum, which was conceived at a 1948 tennis match by Fagg and J. C. M. Hames, the public works department architect, was the plan that was eventually built (Rackham 2012). This is in contrast to Murray’s approach. The designs for all of his museums went through multiple iterations that were still being developed even after the structure was built. Fagg raised the majority of the funds through private donations; however, the colonial government did provide the money needed to

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 87 4/1/14 1:40:02 PM Amanda H. Hellman

The Jos Museum (1952), display of Afo maternity figures. Photo: Bernard E. B. Fagg (1959), Preserving the Past, Lagos: Nigerian Federal Ministry of Research and Information, p. 30.

22. See Rackham (2012), acquire land and begin building. He oversaw all of the labour, trained Murray (1953: 4), and Fagg (1963: 132; 1952: 5). workers when necessary, and even helped build the Jos Museum himself. ‘No contractors were employed; all labour was engaged and directed by Mr Fagg who got together a set of craftsmen to whose good workmanship and the efficiency and foresight of Mr Fagg’s supervision the building bears witness’ (Murray 1953: 4). The materials, collected locally, were in some cases obtained by Fagg himself. For example, he disassembled an old bridge and used the opepe timber piles to create the library floor (Murray 1953: 4). He built an access road through 30 acres he acquired and salvaged seasoned iroko wood for the floors in the entrance hall and galleries (Murray 1953: 4). Stone was chosen for the exterior the museum because cement was expensive and stone was a local material, so he studied and obtained a licence to use explosives and quarried the stones himself. Fagg got books on building and taught himself how to face the stone. He also constructed a stone bridge across the stream in front of the entrance, and a fish pond. Furthermore, he did it quickly, efficiently and at low cost. He only outsourced metal-framed glass exhibition cases and bronze display furniture from Edmonds in London.22

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 88 4/9/14 9:06:05 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

The initial building was 6,920 square feet of which 1,200 square feet made up ‘a single display gallery with clerestory windows commu- nicating, through openings lined with solid ebony, with a front gallery and small entrance lobby containing further exhibits’ (Fagg 1963: 132). The remaining space included a library and lecture room, a research store, offices, space for unpacking, indexing and cataloguing, a conservation laboratory, a darkroom, a joinery workshop and a garage (Fagg and Murray 1954: 4; Fagg 1963: 132). The Department of Commerce and Industries used local weavers to produce the curtains and cloth back- drops, dyed to complement the artifacts, a system Fagg criticizes because while ‘enhancing their appearance has the disadvantage of discouraging the curator from changing the exhibits so carefully set up’. To further enhance the objects, ‘the labels were written on small glass panels with white or coloured ink to permit the cloth to show through, thus making the labels less obtrusive, yet quite clear’ (Fagg 1963: 132; see also Murray 1953: 4; M.N. 1953: 61–62). Taking his cue from the British Museum, Fagg displayed objects on tilted fabric boards. Ultimately, Fagg sought to inte- grate the museum into the local community rather than creating another colonial enterprise. On 26 April 1952, the Jos Museum held its inaugural ceremony, offici- ated by the governor, Sir John Stuart Macpherson, and opened its doors to the public (Fagg and Murray 1954: 4). The response was incredible, and the antiquities service hoped that it would give them the momentum they needed to open the remaining five projects they were trying to develop. Bernard’s daughter Angela Fagg Rackham, an archaeologist for the Department of Antiquities from 1967–76, posits that part of her father’s success was in the simplicity of the design, which would allow the museum to adapt and change (Rackham 2012). When the Bauchi Light Railroad line was disassembled, Fagg acquired the train cars and built the Technological Museum. He wanted to preserve the Kano wall, so he expanded the scheme for the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture so that it would include the historical monument. The Jos Museum was truly a museological experiment. Fagg and his wife Catherine built the complex from nothing and continued to expand it in order to meet the needs of Jos and Nigeria. They pushed the bound- aries of what a museum complex looked like – a particular feat when their closest model was the British Museum. Perhaps Fagg continued to expand outward because he found little support to renovate the existing galleries. Indeed, the Department of Antiquities redirected their funds to build museum services across Nigeria – particularly in Lagos. Funding to renovate the antiquities galleries was provided in 1962 and was used to employ local craftsmen and workers (Fagg 1963: 133). The Jos Museum was a twenty-year project that resulted in a multi-part, multi-functional institution and throughout the process Fagg sought innovative ways to address the needs of the constituents in a changing country. Fagg lived in Jos until the end of his tenure as director in 1963, when he took up a curatorial post at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University, and the projects that he had initiated were realized. The Technological Museum was built in 1963; the UNESCO Training School opened in 1964; and MOTNA was completed in 1978.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 89 4/3/14 2:31:55 PM Amanda H. Hellman

The National Museum, Lagos (1957), exterior view. Photo: Bernard E. B. Fagg (1959), Preserving the Past, Lagos: Nigerian Federal Ministry of Research and Information, pp. 6–7.

The Nigerian Museum, Lagos Concurrent with Fagg’s development of the Jos Museum, Murray had been considering a large central museum in Lagos, but plans were not approved until December 1953 (Fagg and Murray 1949: 1, 5; Fagg 1961: 7). Initially, Murray envisioned (1945) that the museum in Lagos would serve multiple cultural functions like the Jos Museum: he hoped to employ a musicologist to conduct surveys of Nigerian music, include a library, and develop a research facility. Murray was adamant about certain issues, particularly lighting, display cases, storage and air conditioning – the latter an expense the colonial office found unjustifiable (Murray 1952). Finally, in March 1957 the National Museum, Lagos, at a cost of almost £100,000, nearly twenty times the expected cost in the early 1940s, was opened to the public. In her memoirs, Sylvia Leith-Ross described the inaugural weeks:

[T]he Nigerian Museum was duly opened and was at once thronged by enthusiastic crowds. That some of the enthusiasm was aroused by the ingenious lighting, the varied-coloured walls, the gleaming show-cases rather than by the exhibits themselves, was no matter. It was good to know that at least a portion of the country’s treasures was in safe-keeping and that in time their place in the stream of the world’s beauty would be recognized by the Nigerians themselves. (1983: 153)

The location was crucial to its success; as originally planned, the museum was built in the King George V Memorial Park, ‘situated between the race-course and Magazine Point in the most attractive corner of Lagos

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 90 4/1/14 1:40:04 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

The National Museum, Lagos (1957), gallery view. Photo: Bernard E. B. Fagg (1959), Preserving the Past, Lagos: Nigerian Federal Ministry of Research and Information, p. 9.

Island, and was thus close to most of the important government build- 23. Equipping the museums with air- ings, the Prime Minister’s residence and State House’ (Fagg 1963: 125). conditioning was one Murray secured nearly three acres in the heart of Lagos Island. As of 2013 of Murray’s biggest battles. Today, though the museum has not changed much from its opening in 1957, though it the galleries are was renovated in 1960. The entry is two storeys: the first storey is open air-conditioned, the storage facilities, based to the courtyard; the second storey originally contained a gallery and on my visit in 2012, offices and overlooks the courtyard (currently only offices). There is an are not. This is in part open corridor that surrounds the five-sided courtyard with a grass lawn because electricity runs for only four hours and provides entry to its three galleries. Murray finally had a space to a day, prohibiting exhibit his collections. He designed the display to follow a typograph- proper climate control. The museum library ical model like the Pitt Rivers Museum in the lower galleries and the contains volumes on geographical model of the British Museum in the top gallery. While it was African history, art and anthropology only possible to exhibit less than ten per cent of his collection, much of (primarily from what was displayed included repatriated Benin brass and ivory work that donations and Murray’s had been so arduously acquired from collections abroad (Fagg 1963: 126; own collection), and records of the surveys 1961: 8). Also exhibited were carvings in wood and other ‘works of art in conducted since 1943. perishable organic materials’, which made the collection of the National Museum, Lagos both distinctive and unique (Fagg 1963: 126). The final plan of the museum had six air-conditioned rooms for storage located in the back of the building, embedded among offices, workshops and the library, none of which is publicly accessible, but this was a later arrangement.23 Originally, these facilities opened to the courtyard, which

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 91 4/1/14 1:40:05 PM Amanda H. Hellman

The National Museum, Lagos (2012), courtyard view. Photo: the author.

24. While the custom-made curved glass prevents was well situated for the curator to oversee everything that was going glare, only one viewing on at the museum, but, as Fagg noted, ‘the psychological effect on visi- angle is privileged. The tors was found to be disturbing, since they felt that more than half of curvature can distort the objects from other the building was denied to them while they had tantalizing glimpses of angles (Fagg 1963: 126). uniformed technicians carrying out interesting tasks across the courtyard’ (1963: 126–27). Thus Fagg commissioned a new gallery lined with vitrines to be built blocking the offices, laboratories and storage and providing remote access to these services for staff. The display cases are inset with curved glass to prevent glare – one of the 1960 additions.24 Furthermore, Fagg installed lighting within the vitrines, ‘which makes the exhibits look their best in the early evening, when daylight begins to fail’. Further exhibition space allowed Fagg, always in pursuit of accommodating the public, to line the exterior walls with carved doors, drums and verandah posts, permitting the visitors ‘to satisfy the natural desire to touch specimens’ (Fagg 1963: 126–27). Upon its opening in spring 1957, Murray retired from the Department of Antiquities. He would remain an active presence in Lagos and at the museum, taking on the role of interim director from 1964–67. Fagg was promoted to director and treated the National Museum, Lagos with the same experimental spirit he did with the Jos Museum, proposing to complete the musicological studio and an aquarium (Fagg 1963: 127).

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 92 4/1/14 1:40:05 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

Fagg, who was always attentive to visitor numbers, also began to appoint curators to each of the established museums. John Picton arrived in Lagos in 1961 and took on the curatorial duties of the National Museum. Picton has remarked (2012) that the museum was always full of people in both Lagos and Jos. He found a particular constituency in women, which he attributed to their being able to view, for the first time, objects formerly kept hidden. At this point, there was no educational policy within the museum. The practice of museology was just being developed and educational programming in the British Museum would only be initiated under the direction of John Pope Hennessy in the 1970s.

The Singularity of the Nigerian Museum It is undeniable that Murray and his peers created a system of research, collecting, museum-building and display that reflected their own culture and understanding of museums. They treated the artifacts and antiquities of their colonial territories the way in which they treated their own antiquities. The biggest problem with this was that it rarely reflected the indigenous culture’s view. Even in Britain, however, museum and antiquity legislation was not always in line with the priorities of the British people before widespread interest arose in amateur archeology and the passing of the Beetle Act. The museum in Britain had been used as a tool to help create the model citizen, promote education, present to the country their imperial expanse and power, and promote cultural policy. The British Museum spent the last half of the nineteenth century generating interest in European and British antiquities. This construction of the museum’s role certainly influenced the colonial understanding of museums in Nigeria, and eventually by their administrators after independence in 1960. The idea of the museum was always valued by the Nigerian officials who saw it as an opportunity to establish recognition not only within the colonial context, but also on an international stage when, for example, delega- tions and dignitaries visited. Furthermore, there was, and remains today, a committed enthusiasm at being Nigerian. The Nigerian museum had played a significant role in this process of nationalistic pride by making the country’s diverse material culture publicly available to all.

References Basu, Paul (2012), ‘A Museum for Sierra Leone? Amateur Enthusiasms and Colonial Museum Policy in British West Africa’, in Sarah Longair and John McAleer (eds), Curating Empire: Museums and the British Imperial Experience, New York: Manchester University Press, pp. 145–67. Bennett, Tony (1995), The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, New York: Routledge. Bowden, Mark (1991), Pitt Rivers: The Life and Archaeological Work of Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, DCL, FRS, FSA, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Gerard Baldwin (1905), The Care of Ancient Monuments: An Account of the Legislative and Other Measures Adopted in European Countries for Protecting Ancient Monuments and Objects and Scenes of Natural Beauty, and

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 93 4/1/14 1:40:05 PM Amanda H. Hellman

for Preserving the Aspect of Historical Cities, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Chapman, William Ryan (1981), Ethnology in the Museum: A.H.L.F. Pitt Rivers (1827–1900) and the Institutional Foundations of British Anthropology, Ph.D. thesis, Oxford: University of Oxford. Coombes, Annie (1994), Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination, New Haven: Yale University Press. Court, Elsbeth (1999), ‘African on Display: Exhibiting Art by Africans’, in Emma Barker (ed.), Contemporary Cultures of Display, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 147–74. Fagg, Bernard E. B. (1945), letter to Kenneth C. Murray, 24 April, Kenneth C. Murray Papers, National Museum, Lagos Archives. Fagg, Bernard (1946), ‘48. Archeological Notes from Northern Nigeria’, Man, 46, pp. 49–55. Fagg, Bernard (1952), ‘144. Nigeria’s First National Museum of Antiquities’, Man, 52, pp. 107–08. Fagg, Bernard (1961), Preserving the Past: A Short Description of the Museum of Nigerian Antiquities, Traditional Art and Ethnography Together with a Note of the Principal, Lagos: Information Division, Federal Ministry of Research and information. Fagg, Bernard (1963), ‘The Museums of Nigeria’, Museum, 16: 3, pp. 124–48. Fagg, Bernard and Murray, Kenneth (1949), Annual Report on Antiquities for the Year 1948, Lagos: Government Printer. Fagg, Bernard and Murray, Kenneth (1954), Annual Report of the Antiquities Service for the Year 1952–53, Lagos: Government Printer. Gessain, Robert (1965), ‘Sixth Regional Seminar: The Role of Museums in Contemporary Africa. Final Report’, Paris: UNESCO, http://unesdoc. unesco.org/images/0012/001275/127588eb.pdf. Accessed 1 July 2012. Guide to the National Museum Complex, Jos (1977), Jos: Federal Department of Antiquities. Karp, Ivan and Lavine, Steven (eds) (1991), Exhibiting Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kasfir, Sidney (2013), personal communication, 11 May. Layiwola, Peju (2010), Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question, Lagos: Wy Art Editions. Leith-Ross, Sylvia (1983), Stepping-stones: Memoirs of Colonial Nigeria, 1907–1960, London: Peter Owen. MacKenzie, John M. (2009), Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities, New York: Manchester University Press. Meyerowitz, Herbert V. (1943), ‘The Institute of West African Arts, Industries and Social Science’, Man, 43, pp. 112–14. M.N. (1953), ‘The Showplace of West Africa’s Remote Antiquity’, West African Annual, pp. 61–62. Murray, Kenneth C. (n.d.), ‘Draft and Notes for a History of the Nigerian Museum’, Kenneth C. Murray papers at the National Museum, Lagos. Murray, Kenneth C. (1936), letter to Kate M. Murray, 22 August, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 94 4/1/14 1:40:05 PM The Grounds for Museological Experiments

Murray, Kenneth C. (1940), letter to Kate M. Murray, 25 September, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1943a), letter to Kate M. Murray, 4 July, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1943b), letter to Kate M. Murray, 1 August, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1943c), letter to Kate M. Murray, 8 August, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1943d), letter to Kate M. Murray, 28 August, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1943e), ‘Arts and Crafts of Nigeria: Their Past and Future’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 14: 4, pp. 155–64. Murray, Kenneth C. (1943f), letter to Kate M. Murray, 28 November, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1944a), letter to Kate M. Murray, 3 May, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1944b), letter to Kate M. Murray, 21 February, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1944c), letter to Kate M. Murray, 28 February–5 March, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1945), letter to Bernard E. B. Fagg, 14 May, Kenneth C. Murray Papers, National Museum, Lagos Archive. Murray, Kenneth C. (1946a) letter to Kate M. Murray, 2 February, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1946b), letter to Kate M. Murray, 3 February, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1946c), letter to Kate M. Murray, 16 February, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1947), Annual Report of the Antiquities Section for 1946, Lagos: Government Printer. Murray, Kenneth C. (1948), Annual Report on Antiquities for the Year 1947, Lagos: Government Printer. Murray Kenneth C. (1952), letter to Harold Murray, 24 August, Katherine M. Elizabeth Murray papers, Acc 9601, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Murray, Kenneth C. (1953), Annual Report of the Antiquities Service for the Year 1952–53, Lagos: Government Printer.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 95 4/1/14 1:40:05 PM Amanda H. Hellman

Petch, Alison (2005), ‘Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers’, Pitt Rivers Museum, http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/pitt_rivers.html. Accessed 1 July 2012. Picton, John (2012), personal communication, 16 May. Rackham, Angela Fagg (2012), personal communication, 25 June. Rivière, Peter (2007), ‘Introduction’, in Peter Rivière (ed.), A History of Oxford Anthropology, New York: Berghahn Books. Wilson, David M. (2002), The British Museum: A History, London: The British Museum Press.

Suggested Citation Hellman, Amanda H. (2014), ‘The Grounds for Museological Experiments: Developing the Colonial Museum Project in British Nigeria’, Journal of Curatorial Studies 3: 1, pp. 74–96, doi: 10.1386/jcs.3.1.74_1

Contributor Details Amanda H. Hellman is the curator of African art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, where she recently co-curated Romare Bearden in Atlanta (2013). She is a contributor to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism (2014), and teaches African art history at Oglethorpe University. Contact: Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, 571 South Kilgo Cir NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Amanda H. Hellman has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 96 4/1/14 1:40:05 PM intellect www.intellectbooks.com

publishers of original thinking

Design Ecologies

ISSN 2043-068X | Online ISSN 2043-0698 2 issues per volume | Volume 3, 2013

Human communication and ecological accountability are inextricably linked Editor in architectural design: the current global ecological crisis underscores this Dr. Shaun Murray fundamental connection. The communication from architect to participant or University College London environment is not at all straightforward. [email protected] Design Ecologies describes a burgeoning field that promotes ecological transitions within local and global contexts. It has the potential to become a far-reaching awareness that bonds a community that crosses over into and out of architecture, environment, interaction, urbanism, performing arts and communication. Through original design exploration ranging in scale, the journal will proffer a critical vision towards the built environment. These conceptions challenge the everyday emerging practices of architectural design by offering a transdisciplinary framework for design production. Please contact the editors for submission guidelines on: [email protected].

Intellect is an independent academic publisher of books and journals, to view our catalogue or order our titles visit www.intellectbooks.com or E-mail: [email protected]. Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, UK, BS16 3JG.

JCS_3.1_Hellman_74-96.indd 97 4/1/14 1:40:06 PM