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Information included in this document:

Blackwood's relationship to her collection at the PRM

Profile of the collection: archaeology and ethnography; regional by continent; regional by country; classes; accession dates

Field collectors: data and profiling

Other owners: data and profiling

Information from Biographies PRM for individuals connected to the collection where available, and for Beatrice Blackwood

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3,620 objects (272 of which were not or may not have been collected by Blackwood in the field)

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3,351 objects (only two of which were not also donated by Blackwood - two artificially deformed human skulls one from Melanesia and one from North America - given by her to the Department of Human Anatomy, Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 1931, and loaned to the PRM by them in 1940.)

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3,359 objects (all of these were either field collected or donated by Blackwood as well)

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3,622 objects (including 3,620 objects donated by Blackwood, and a further two objects collected by Blackwood and loaned to the PRM by the OUMNH, see above)

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None (But N.B. 68 objects collected and donated by Mrs. James Blackwood also known as Mrs. King were omitted from the following analysis. Beatrice Blackwood's father and brother were both called James, but the identity of Mrs. James Blackwood is uncertain and none of these records mention Beatrice Blackwood, so they have not been included in this analysis)

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Archaeology and ethnography:

What percentage of the collection is archaeological and what percentage ethnographic?

What percentage of the collection is A/E?

Of the 3,622 total objects connected to Blackwood, 3,138 (86%) are definitely ethnographic, 246 (7%) are definitely archaeological and 238 (7%) are either ethnographic or archaeological.

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What percentage of the collection as a whole is attributed to Africa, America, Asia, Australia, Europe, Oceania, Unknown respectively?

Africa 4 objects (0%)

America 538 objects (15%)

Asia 23 objects (1%)

Australia 0 objects (0%)

Europe 481 objects (13%)

Oceania 2,596 objects (71%)

Unknown 2 objects (0%) (1 record: a cow horn tube with wooden stopper from the collection of Arthur Thompson, donated by Beatrice Blackwood in 1935)

NB these figures add up to 3,644 objects in total, indicated that 22 objects are attributed to more than one Continent.

Of the total 2,596 objects from Oceania, 2,468 are from Melanesia and 60 from Polynesia

Of the total 537 objects from America, 203 are from Middle America, 333 from North America, and 1 (probably) from South America

Of the total 481 objects from Europe, 274 are from the UK, 128 from Germany, 19 from Malta, 15 from France, 12 from Turkey (other European countries are also represented, see below)

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Africa 0 objects (0%)

America 137 objects (28%) of which 2 objects are A/E

Asia 0 objects (0%)

Australia 0 objects (0%)

Europe 100 objects (21%) of which 1 object is A/E

Oceania 247 objects (51%) of which 235 objects are A/E

Unknown 0 objects (0%)

The vast majority of the archaeology objects from Oceania are classed as either archaeology or ethnography (nearly all stone tools from PNG). Looked at another way, all but three of the objects that are classed as archaeological or ethnographic are from Oceania, and make up all but 12 of the total archaeological objects from this region. Because of this, we have differentiated the definite archaeology objects from the archaeology or ethnography objects for Oceania only in the chart.

N.B. we have only included regions with a positive value in the following chart (Africa, Asia, Australia and Unknown are not included)

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Africa 4 objects (0%)

America 403 objects (12%) of which 2 are A/E

Asia 23 objects (1%)

Australia 0 objects (0%)

Europe 382 objects (11%) of which 1 is A/E

Oceania 2,584 objects (76%) of which 235 are A/E

Unknown 2 objects (0%)

N.B. we have only included regions with a positive percentage value in the following chart (Australia is not included; neither is Africa nor Unknown, since they account for less than 1% of the ethnography collection and their presence in the chart does not effect the other percentages given)

We have differentiated the definite ethnography objects from the archaeology or ethnography objects for Oceania only in this graph

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America archaeology 137 objects

America ethnography 403 objects

Europe archaeology 100 objects

Europe ethnography 382 objects

Oceania archaeology 12 objects

Oceania ethnography 2,349 objects

Oceania eth/arch 235 objects

Asian ethnography 23 objects

N.B. we have only included regions with a positive percentage value in the following chart (Australia is not included; Asian archaeology is not included; neither is Africa nor Unknown since they account for less than 1% of the ethnography collection and their presence in the chart does not effect the other percentages given)

In this chart, like the ones above, we have differentiated the Oceanic records classed as A/E, because otherwise these 235 records would have been counted twice (within the archaeology totals and ethnography totals respectively).

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Based on our analysis of the countries represented in each of the named collector's collections (see file named collectors/all collectors/countries and named collectors):

The following countries are represented in Blackwood's collection, including the two objects collected by her and donated by the OUMNH, one from the USA and the other from PNG (see above)

Total number of countries 28

Total number of objects 4,018 (the discrepancy of 329 objects compared to the 3,622 total number given above is due to objects that are provenanced to more than one country)

N.B. In the chart below, percentages have been worked out according to the total number 4018, not 3,622, and we have only included down to Malta (0.45% of 4,018 objects), and the other countries below Malta have been put together under 'Other' which represents 3% of the 4018 objects.

Classes:

Using our data below (all named collectors/named collectors top 20s/BB top 10s)

Blackwood as donor, top 20 classes and countries

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Profile the collection by decade (any particular decade can be further studied at a later date if necessary)

Possibility of profiling particular classes by decade

N.B. for the purposes of this table, where Solomon Islands and PNG have both been entered in the country field, the object is included in PNG only; when only Solomon Islands has been entered, the object is included in 'Other'.

N.B. in the lower chart we have adjusted the massive 1938 reading to 490 objects which is WRONG but we wanted to clarify the pattern between 0 and 100 objects

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N.B. only those other owners who did not collect the material in the field are included in this table, otherwise they are included in the Field Collector's table above

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As mentioned before, only two objects connected to Blackwood were not donated to the PRM by her: two artificially deformed human skulls one (1940.4.04) from New Britain, Melanesia and one (1940.4.06) from Arizona, North America, given by her to the Department of Human Anatomy, Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 1931, and loaned to the PRM by them in 1940.

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What proportion of the collection as a whole did they own?

551 objects (15.21%) have a person in the other owners field who is not BB, however the vast majority of these people owned the object/s in the field before selling them to BB, therefore she is both the field collector and the source.

Of this total number, Magnin sold Blackwood 162 objects (4.47% of total collection); 117 objects were bought from F.C. Halliday (3.23% of the total collection); 83 objects were bought from Adolf Wiedemann (2.29% of the total collection); and 24 objects were bought from the Lutheran Mission Trade Store in Finschafen (0.66% of the total collection). Objects in the latter three groups were not definitely bought by Blackwood.

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What proportion of the collection as a whole did they collect?

143 objects (3.95%) in the collection were definitely collected in the field by someone other than BB.

Of this number, L.G. Vial collected 44 objects (1.21% of total collection) and Ernest John Wauchope collected 21 objects (0.56% of total collection).

Divide all the field collectors for the collection into:

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B.A. Reuter possibly Bertha Ann Reuter

Pupils of the Hindman Settlement School, Kentucky

L.G. Vial

S. Moon

Ernest John Wauchope

Mr Murphy

K.W.T. Bridge

Unknown miners

Mr Clark

R.H. Tutty

Evan Alexander Wisdom

E.W. Leggatt [or ?E.W. Leggats]

Mike Mather

Mr Jenyns

Mrs Ernest John Wauchope

Mrs Schroeder

Mr Ayer

Maria Chino

Ann Cobb

Yawa of Andarora village

Thomas Henry Huxley

Adolf Wiedemann

R.H. Tutty

Nanepâ's mother

Nawi

Gordon Thomas

Mr F. Archer

T. Skiffington

Siejonna and Nerisi

Lutheran Mission Trade Store

W. Lodder

W.E. White

Professor Thorpe

Mike Mather

F.C. Halliday

Johny Weitchpec

Magnin

Aiyal

Rulu

Lealang

Awlaio

Pemlik

Tunegit

Owasa

Siar

Aririo

Monkey

Alip

Owas

Lipisio

Longlong

Rulo

Kelekelme

Alola

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Francis Edgar Williams

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Arthur Thomson

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Francis Edgar Williams

John Thompson

? Arthur Thomson

? T.H. Huxley

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What percentage of the collection as a whole came from each individual represented in the collection?

See above section, where we have calculated this for the most significant contributors only

How many of the individuals connected with the collection are associated with over 10% of the collection / of PRM collection as a whole up to 1945?

None:

Francis Edgar Williams collected ten objects from PNG and also donated them, 1 in 1936 and 9 from the Fly River area in 1937. He also collected a further two objects in the field that came to the PRM, one given by Blackwood in 1937 and one given by Dr Cairns in 1936.

T.H. Huxley is the possible field collector for one other object in the Museum, a club that came as part of the Pitt Rivers founding collection from HMS Rattlesnake; it could have come to Pitt Rivers either through Huxley (the ship's doctor) or Owen Stanley (the ship's commander).

In addition to the six objects given by Blackwood, John Thomson is the possible field collector for two further objects in the Museum, two Melanesian human skulls loaned by the OUMNH in 1940. (N.B. another John Thompson, Arthur's brother, not his father, is the source for six objects in the collection)

Arthur Thomson was the most significant person linked to the Blackwood collection for the PRM as a whole. He is the possible field collector for 61 objects given via his daughters in 1945, and an other owner for a further 47 of these objects (his daughters gave a total of 108 objects previously owned by their parents). He is a PRM source for 80 objects and an other owner for a further 79 objects in total (32 on top of the 47 given by his daughters). In total, Arthur Thompson is linked to 220 objects at the PRM (61 as possible field collector, 80 more as source, and 79 more as other owner). This means he is linked to just 1.22% of the whole PRM collections up to 1945 (using Objects PRM uo to 1945 1.12.03)

Relevant information from field collectors tables