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 photo- graphs 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 explo- sives 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 .