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Palgrave Macmillan

The Royal Navy in Indigenous Australia, 1795–1855

Maritime Encounters and British Museum Collections

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Daniel Simpson

    1. Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK

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  • Provides the first in-depth study of the Indigenous Australian objects acquired by the Royal Navy from 1795-1855 now in the British Museum
  • Explores the pathways by which objects reached the British Museum, tracing the stages of a typical naval voyage to Australia
  • Considers understandings of Indigenous Australian peoples' reactions to British visitors

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Pacific History (PASPH)

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxiii
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  2. Introduction

    • Daniel Simpson
    Pages 1-19

  3. Departures

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21
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    2. The Science of Naval Collecting

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 23-51

    3. Commissioning Indigenous Australia

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 53-83

    4. Discipline and Authority

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 85-114

  4. Coastal Collecting

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 115-115
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    2. Beaches

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 117-139

    3. Sounds

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 141-162

    4. Islands and Peninsulas

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 163-185

  5. Disembarkation

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 187-187
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    2. The Customs House

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 189-217

    3. The Naval Hospital

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 219-250

    4. The Museum

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 251-272

    5. Conclusion

      • Daniel Simpson
      Pages 273-283

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 285-305
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Keywords

About this book

This book offers the first in-depth enquiry into the origins of 135 Indigenous Australian objects acquired by the Royal Navy between 1795 and 1855 and held now by the British Museum. In response to increasing calls for the ‘decolonisation’ of museums and the restitution of ethnographic collections, the book seeks to return knowledge of the moments, methods, and motivations whereby Indigenous Australian objects were first collected and sent to Britain. By structuring its discussion in terms of three key ‘stages’ of a typical naval voyage to Australia—departure from British shores, arrival on the continent’s coasts, and eventual return to port—the book offers a nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the pathways followed by these 135 objects into the British Museum. The book offers important new understandings of Indigenous Australian peoples’ reactions to naval visitors, and contains a wealth of original research on the provenance and meaning of some of the world’s oldest extant Indigenous Australian object collections.


Reviews

“This book bristles with new insights into cross-cultural encounters, ethnographic collecting and the making of British museum collections. With a focus on just 135 objects in the British Museum, the study demonstrates the rewards of a thoroughly material history, particularly its attention to the radically different and subtly changing cultural and political contexts through which these objects moved. Cleverly structured and well-written, the book takes the reader on an eye-opening journey that retraces some naval expeditions’ own trajectories: from preparation and departure to exploration and encounter to collection-making and remaking. And like all good journeys, we come away from it transformed."

—Maria Nugent, Australian National University, Australia

 “Daniel Simpson's imaginatively researched book draws attention to previously unexplored records and archives vital to the understanding of ethnographic collecting from Australia in the nineteenth century. This book will be of great interest to all those interested in comparative histories of collecting and material culture, and a key resource for Australian researchers now engaged in tracing Indigenous artefacts in British collections.”

—Nicholas Thomas, University of Cambridge, UK

“Daniel Simpson’s history of Indigenous objects collected by British naval expeditions around the coast of Australia is genuinely eye-opening. His focus on the scientific, governmental and spatial contexts of expeditionary collecting provides a foundation for future scholarship in the field. And his achievement in tracing the circulation of museum objects through institutional and personal networks adds substantially to our understanding of their provenance. This is a major work of direct relevance to historical and contemporary debates over museum collections.”

—Felix Driver, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK

    Daniel Simpson

About the author

Daniel Simpson is Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His research explores the history of maritime encounters and naval ethnographic collecting in Australia and the South Pacific. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Royal Navy in Indigenous Australia, 1795–1855

  • Book Subtitle: Maritime Encounters and British Museum Collections

  • Authors: Daniel Simpson

  • Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Pacific History

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60097-6

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-60096-9Published: 13 January 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-60099-0Published: 13 January 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-60097-6Published: 12 January 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2947-924X

  • Series E-ISSN: 2947-9258

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXIII, 305

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 19 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Australasian History, History of Britain and Ireland, Imperialism and Colonialism, History of Science

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