New project called Discovering Worlds

In 2014, RAMM successfully received £89,900 from the Designation Development Fund for a project called Discovering Worlds.

It is a wonderful opportunity for the museum to show off its fine collection of objects from the Pacific Islands. This museum-based activity is a partnership that involves the British Museum, Sainsbury Research Unit (University of East Anglia), Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology and University College London among others.

This project is in three parts. The first part involves anthropologists who specialise in material culture visiting RAMM and sharing their knowledge, believe it or not some of these items remain a mystery. The resulting information will be included into a brand new display of these objects in the World Cultures gallery with up to date information. There will also be some research into our lesser known donors. This will help us to better understand the items they kindly donated to RAMM.

The second part features essential behind the scenes documentation, photography and conservation work. The final part of the project will result in the transformation of the Pacific displays. This material will not just feature traditional object captions but will also present to the public digitally via QR-codes and also translated into European languages.

So what makes Exeter’s ethnography collection so special? One intriguing item is a length of barkcloth from the Cook Islands that is attributed to a donor named Vaughan.  This has caused much confusion as it was initially attributed to the 1868 donation made by Henry Vaughan, which included items from the voyages of Captain Cook. This grant has enabled us to make the discovery that Henry Vaughan was none other than a reclusive art collector who lived at Cumberland Terrace in London, a fine neoclassical building on the eastern side of Regent’s Park. Vaughan inherited his family’s fortune, which had been built on a successful hat-making business in Southwark.

Recent investigation has shown no known family or business connection to the county of Devon. Vaughan’s father had given him a group of curiosities, he had purchased them from the auction of the Sir Ashton Lever collection in 1806. After Henry Vaughan had donated this material to RAMM he bequeathed his amazing collection of artworks to the nation. He was clearly a generous lover of art.

However, this Cook Island barkcloth does not belong to this donation but another made by a Mrs. Vaughan of “5 Belgrave Terrace, Torquay.” Polynesian scholar, Adrienne Kaeppler, suggested the possibility that this object might be linked to one of two men named Vaughan who were donors to the Bullock Museum in 1816. Mrs. Vaughan possibly being the wife of Robert Vaughan, a nonconformist minister who moved to Torquay in 1867 and who died the following year (Kaeppler 2011: 93).[i] 

Clearly more work is needed to uncover the circumstances regarding this cloth’s acquisition. Whilst voyage provenance has been rightly disputed its age has not. RAMM’s specimen was likely produced in the late 18th century, a time when many Europeans were exploring the Pacific Ocean. Because the museum has received a grant it intends to conserve and analyse this piece so that the cloth can be widely available for public enjoyment again.

As part of this project, Samoan artist Rosanna Raymond visited RAMM to offer a Polynesian insight into aspects of the collection, particularly items made from organic fibres. Raymond is no stranger to the museum, RAMM commissioned her in 2007 to respond to a question concerning the relevance of barkcloth to Polynesian identity in the modern world. Genealogy was the concluding work that now stands juxtaposed with historic Samoan and Maori artefacts. Using a pair of Levi’s, a company Raymond used to work for, she constructed not only what she felt represented a sense of identity and female creativity but also she “was using the past to make a relevant future” for herself. [ii]

Polynesian artist Rosanna Raymond examining a mystery object from the Cook Islands.
Ceremonial club (u’u), Marquesas Islands

Francis William Locke Ross is another early donor of natural history and ethnography. It was recently uncovered that Ross had served as midshipman on the HMS Tagus in 1813 and travelled the Pacific. He made it as far as the Marquesas Islands before he was taken seriously ill. Amazingly, his voyage journal now resides in the New York Public Library.

Ross never completed his naval career. He later resided in Topsham, a port village a few miles south of Exeter. Topsham is where he built his own museum, which included many ethnographic curiosities. Whilst his life in Topsham and his interests in birds are well documented his naval career isn’t. Research is currently being carried out by George Hogg RN who also happens to be married to one of Ross’s descendants.

Ross died on Christmas Day 1860 and his wife donated over 160 ethnographic items from his collection. These included a wood staff of authority called an u’a, a paddle and a pair of carved tupava’e or stilt steps. He likely acquired these items later on in his life when he founded his museum at Broadway House. Topsham was a haven for naval officers and Ross would have been well connected. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing who brought these items into the country. However these items certainly pre-date James Edward Little’s forgeries; they may have even been responsible for influencing him!

Discovering Worlds is due for completion at the end of March 2016.

i. Kaeppler, A. 2011. Holophusicon: The Leverian Museum. An Eighteenth-Century English Institution of Science, Curiosity and Art. Altenstaldt: ZFK Publishers

ii. Eccles, T. Rosanna Raymond’s Genealogy (2007): Notes on a New Addition to the World Cultures Collection at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no.20 (March 2008), pp.120-7