We enjoyed a very interesting talk today from long-term friend of the museum, and long-time Volunteer, Rosemary Pemberton.
Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers FRS FSA FRAI (14 April 1827 – 4 May 1900) could be a difficult man it seems, but was very much a man of the people when it came to education and entertainment. He also seems to have had enormous drive and energy and certainly got things done. Having a significant private income helped (equivalent, says Rosemary, to £2.5million by today’s values), but he made good use of it.
It was Charles Darwin’s work which inspired him to begin looking at the development of things – almost anything. He began collecting, even before he left the army, starting with the rifles. And it seemed he understood that development was also vital in learning. His estate workers would only, could only, enjoy and learn from the museum (long since closed) which he set up in Tollard Royal, Wiltshire, if the story started with them. He insisted that all artefacts, not just beautiful or unique ones, be collected and catalogued. So it was that the agricultural workers were able to see how tools and machinery and methods in farming led to what they knew. This focus on everyday objects as the key to understanding the past broke decisively with earlier archaeological practice, which tended to be glorified treasure hunting.
He seems to have argued a lot, and with some success, with grandees who considered museums as places for those already educated (and clean and tidy?).
His first major exhibition was in the 1870s in London and thousands of artefacts were then gifted to the University of Oxford where they still are, at the Pitt-Rivers Museum today. His later, archaeological, collections came to Salisbury Museum.
At home in Wiltshire he extended his ideas on how to engage the ‘ordinary’ people in activities which had hitherto been considered only for certain classes. He created the Larmer Tree Gardens on his Rushmore estate near Tollard Royal where local people flocked, in their best clothes, on Sundays, to picnic, watch plays and concerts, stroll around the folles, even play tennis. He was pleased to muzzle the naysayers by pointing out that there was never any rowdiness or unpleasantness.
His work was recognised by, amongst other things, his being made the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, charged with identifying and recording them.
One of the memories we in the audience will retain from Rosemary’s beautifully researched and illustrated talk is that of Pitt- Rivers’ meticulous catalogues which include stunning hand drawn and coloured pictures.
Thank you Rosemary!
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