Appendix 4 - The case against R.P. Hinks, and his reply
Letter to R. P. Hinks from E. J. Forsdyke.
8th November, 1938
R. P. Hinks, Esq.,
Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities
Dear Hinks,
I enclose extracts from the Report of the Trustees' Board of
Enquiry into the damage done to the Parthenon sculpture, which
refer to your own part in this matter. They are in effect a charge
of neglect of duty against you.
You should let me have your answer to the charge in writing
before Saturday next, November 12th, in order that the Standing
Committee may consider it with the Board of Enquiry's report. You
should also be ready to appear before the Standing Committee at
that time, in case they wish to examine your case further.
Yours sincerely,
E. J. Forsdyke
Director and Principal Librarian
EXTRACTS FROM THE INTERIM REPORT OF THE BOARD OF ENQUIRY INTO
DAMAGE DONE TO SCULPTURE OF THE PARTHENON
Mr. R. P. Hinks
The portions of the Parthenon sculptures in question are three
in number, namely, the Selene horse's head, the Helios group and
the figure of Iris, all belonging to the East Pediment. On the 16th
of September Mr. Pryce left the Museum on short holiday leave. The
three pieces of sculpture were then in their proper places in the
Elgin Room. Before he went away Mr. Pryce gave no instructions
either to Mr. Hinks, who took charge in his absence, or to anyone
else with regard to either moving the sculptures or cleaning them
beyond a direction to Holcombe to prepare a mounting for the Iris
figure which involved its removal from the pedestal. While Mr.
Pryce was absent it came to the notice of the Director on the
evening of Thursday, 22nd September, that tools had been used in
the cleaning of the Parthenon sculptures. He instructed Mr. Hinks
on the morning of 23rd September to see that improper methods were
not being used. On Sunday, 25th September the Director happened to
have occasion to pass through the basement of the Department. He
was surprised to find there the Helios group in process of
cleaning. On the bench he observed a number of copper tools and a
piece of coarse carborundum, and from the appearance of the
sculptures he at once saw that tools had been used on the
sculptures. On Monday morning, 26th September, the Iris was found
by Mr. Hinks to be undergoing similar treatment in an annex of the
new Duveen Gallery, and the Selene horse's head in the Foreman
Mason's workshop.
Although Holcombe denied that he had used any copper tool in
cleaning the horse's head, which he dealt with himself personally,
the Board are satisfied that copper tools were used by Holcombe and
the labourers under him in cleaning all the three pieces of
sculpture in question. Holcombe admitted that apart from the
instruction to prepare a mounting for the Iris figure he had
received no specific instructions from the Keeper or the Assistant
Keeper either to remove or to clean the sculptures. He appears to
have assumed that he was at liberty to proceed at his own hand with
the process of removing and cleaning. He apparently had obtained
some strips or rods of copper from the store and had fashioned
those into tools of various shapes by flattening and sharpening the
ends. He said that he had used similar tools on other occasions for
cleaning marble and he apparently regarded himself as entitled to
use them on the Parthenon sculptures. No effort was made to conceal
them and they were lying exposed to full view on the bench when the
Director first observed them.
While the damage to the sculptures was directly occasioned by
the unauthorised actions of Holcombe, it is impossible to acquit
the Keeper and the Assistant Keeper of serous dereliction of duty.
Their main responsibility is the preservation and protection of the
valuable works of art committed to their care. Nevertheless, owing
to absence of direction and to inefficiency of supervision in the
Department, Holcombe was able to remove the Helios group and the
Selene horse's head, and to undertake the cleaning of all the three
sculptures in question at his own hand without the knowledge of
either the Keeper or the Assistant Keeper who was in charge of the
Department at the time. This can only be taken as indicating a most
unfortunate slackness and want of system in the administration of
the Department.
As regards Mr. Hinks, who entered the employment of the Museum
on 18th January, 1926 and was promoted to his present rank on 22nd
June, 1936, the Board find that in his case there was serous
dereliction of duty. He was in charge of the Department when
Holcombe removed the sculptures in question and set about cleaning
them and yet he was quite unaware either of their removal or of the
starting of the cleaning process. If he had been maintaining proper
supervision he could not have failed to be aware of what was
happening. Yet it was not till after the Director had discovered
the mischief that Mr. Hinks, for the first time during Mr. Pryce's
absence, visited the masons' workshop. He failed to carry out at
once the orders given to him by the Director and he did not
indicate any realisation of the seriousness of the matter. Being
interested in other sections of the Department he appears to have
shown little concern as to the Parthenon sculptures which were
under his charge while Mr. Pryce was on leave.
STATEMENT IN ANSWER TO THE CHARGE OF NEGLECT OF DUTY
Mr. R. P. Hinks 11 November 1938
The Director has communicated to me the sections of the Report
of the Trustees' Board of Enquiry into the damage done to the
Parthenon sculpture, which refer to my own part in the matter; and
has instructed me to make a statement regarding what is in effect a
charge of neglect of duty against me.
In accordance with these instructions I beg leave to submit to
the Standing Committee the following answer to the charge of
serious dereliction of duty, in failing to maintain proper
supervision of the workshops during the period when I was in charge
of the Department, in failing to carry out at once the orders given
to me by the Director to enquire into the conduct of the workshops,
and in failing to indicate any realization of the seriousness of
the situation discovered by the Director.
It appears to me that these charges may best be answered by a
detailed account of the sequence of events during the time when the
Department was in my care.
On 29 August last I returned to the Museum after five weeks'
leave of absence, partly on official duty, in Northern Europe. From
then until the Keeper went away on 16 September I was occupied in
arranging and labelling the Bronze room, and in revising the
Catalogue of Bronzes, as well as in dealing with my share in the
general work of the Department which had accumulated during my
absence abroad.
When I took charge of the Department on 16 September the
political crisis was rapidly developing. I conceived it to be my
first duty to make arrangements for the safeguarding of the
immediately movable and especially fragile and precious objects in
the Gold Ornament Room, the Terracotta Room, the Bronze Room, and
the Vase Rooms. I instructed Mr. Robertson to take charge of the
vases, and devoted myself to the gems and gold ornaments, the
bronzes, and the terracottas. On looking into the departmental
records, I found that the salvage-lists were insufficiently
detailed and explicit; and I accordingly drew up new lists, with
instructions where to find the appropriate keys and other
equipment. I made out detailed directions for the salvage, in case
of emergency, of the Gold Ornament Room; and I drew a plan of the
Bronze Room, in order to show the sequence in which its contents
were to be removed. I measured the cases in the Gold Ornament Room
and the Bronze Room, in order to ascertain how many boxes would be
needed for the storage of their contents. I made arrangements with
the Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals to borrow surplus
medal cabinets for the immediate disposal of the gold ornaments and
gems; and I assembled in the Fourth Vase Room Annexe such packing
cases as were forthwith available for the reception of the select
bronzes. I also attended to the Keeper's correspondence, as well as
my own, and other departmental affairs during the Keeper's
absence.
Downstairs, in accordance with the Keeper's instructions, I
superintended the work of Fisher and Brennan, who were engaged in
mounting various pieces of sculpture. I also visited the Annexe of
the new Elgin Room, to inspect the Iris from the East Pediment,
whose base was to be measured for the cutting of a template, but no
work was yet in progress. I noticed that some washing of the lower
part of the figure had recently taken place; but as I had just been
away for several weeks, and as I assumed that the cleaning of this
figure, like that of the rest of the Parthenon sculpture, was
contemplated before removal to the new room, I was not surprised to
find that the work had been started. I did not observe any signs
that unauthorized methods of cleaning had been used, nor were there
then any tools or other materials laid out on the trestle on which
the figure stood. I did not then pass through Holcombe's shop or
the other basements, because I had received no instructions from
the Keeper that any work was to be in progress there. In short, I
did not spend as much time in the basement as I should have spent
there in normal circumstances, because I judged that my first duty
during these critical days was to superintend the safeguarding of
the collections in the upper rooms, for which the Director had
already issued general instructions.
On the afternoon of 23 September (not the morning of that day,
as stated in the Report), I asked to see the Director on various
matters of departmental business. He received me about 3.30 p.m. We
discussed first the estimates for the printing of the Guide to the
Department; then the redecoration of the Third Graeco-Roman Room;
then the provision of packing cases and packing materials for the
storage of the contents of the upper rooms in case of emergency,
the Director giving me various instructions in connexion therewith.
The Director then mentioned the cleaning of the Elgin marbles, and
expressed concern at the appearance of some of the slabs of the
frieze. He repeated the conviction of the Trustees that nothing but
the method of cleaning invented by Dr. Plenderleith should be
employed on the marbles, even if this did not achieve the degree of
whiteness desired by Lord Duveen. He then expressed his own fear
that unauthorized methods might already have been employed on the
frieze, especially the use of metal scrapers and abrasives. He then
instructed me to look into this matter.
On the morning of Saturday, 24 September, in accordance with the
usual practice of the Department no washing or moving of sculpture
was due to take place. Following the Director's instructions of the
previous afternoon, I saw Holcombe in the Third Graeco-Roman Room,
and ordered him to move and cover two pieces of sculpture by the
doorway, before the builders arrived to take down the pediment
which the Director had ordered to be removed; and also to detach a
number of reliefs from the wall, in accordance with the Keeper's
instructions, confirmed by the Director. I then examined the slabs
of the frieze indicated by the Director; but although I noticed the
whiteness of which the Director complained, I could not discover
any evidence that unauthorized methods of cleaning had been used,
and could form no opinion whether or not this degree of whiteness
was obtainable by Dr. Plenderleith's method, unassisted by
abrasion. As the political situation was by then becoming
increasingly serious, I returned to the Office of the Department to
make arrangements for the provision of boxes and packing materials
of various kinds, also in accordance with the Director's
instructions of the previous afternoon.
Immediately on reaching the Museum on Monday morning, 26
September I went down to Holcombe's shop in order to investigate
the methods of cleaning in use. I found Holcombe washing the head
of Selene's horse. When I came into the room, he was using Dr.
Plenderleith's method in the approved way; but he had on the bench
various copper tools, a piece of abrasive stone, and various tins
of powdery substance. When I questioned him about the tools, he
denied having used them on the head. I told him on no account to
use them, and ordered him to remove from the bench the tins of
powder and the abrasive stone. When I asked what the powder was, he
replied evasively that he did not know, and that it was something
left over from Pinker's time. My suspicions were then aroused, and
I went at once to the Elgin Room Annexe, where I found two
labourers washing the figure of Iris and using copper tools on the
drapery, although Holcombe had told me the moment before that they
were on their honour to use nothing but Dr. Plenderleith's method.
I told them to stop work, and set out to report the matter at once
to the Director. I met him by chance in the galleries. He then told
me that he had given orders for all washing to be stopped; and when
I returned at once to Holcombe's shop and the Elgin Ante-Room, I
found that the Director's message had just arrived. I then wrote a
letter containing an interim report to the Director; and asked the
Keeper on the telephone to return at once.
On Tuesday, 27 September, the Keeper returned from leave, and I
reported to him at once what had been happening, and asked him to
see the Director immediately.
Meanwhile, the crisis had become acute; and Mr. Robertson and I
completed our precautionary measures during the ensuing days. On
Saturday, 1 October, the crisis being then over, I went away for a
week's leave, returning to the Museum on Monday, 10 October.
During the ten days while I was in charge of the Department the
risk of an immediate outbreak of war led me to decide what the most
urgent need of the moment was to make all possible arrangements for
the instant evacuation of the upper rooms on the outbreak of
hostilities. No plans had been communicated to me for the
safeguarding of the sculpture galleries, whereas the necessity for
the clearing of the upper rooms was the subject of several orders
from the Director's office. My answer, therefore, to the charge of
neglect of duty must be that I believed that in these exceptional
circumstances the first duty of the responsible officer
irrespective of his specialist qualifications, was to devote
himself to the safeguarding of the collections in the upper rooms,
in accordance with the explicit instructions of the Director. This
was my reason for devoting myself first and foremost to the most
vulnerable part of the collection, and for paying less attention
than I should have paid in normal conditions to the work in
progress downstairs.
R. P. Hinks
Letter from Hinks to the Director
Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities
British Museum
London W.C.1. 8 December 1938
My dear Director,
I have given further careful thought to the charge of serious
dereliction of duty in the Board of Enquiry's Interim Report on
Damage done to the Parthenon Sculpture; and I wish to make a
further statement in answer to that charge.
You will remember that I was absent from the Museum on sick
leave from the end of September 1936 until the middle of March
1937, except for a short interval in December. On returning to
duty, my first care was to make up as far as possible for the time
lost during my illness by devoting myself principally to the tasks
which the Keeper had entrusted to me: namely, the redecoration and
rearrangement of the Bronze Room and the revision of the Catalogue
of Bronzes.
During the Keeper's absence on subsequent occasions I attended
to his instructions about the cleaning, repairing, and mounting of
various pieces of sculpture. On no occasion did the Keeper instruct
me to supervise the washing of the Parthenon sculpture; and I
inferred from this - mistakenly, as I now see - that the routine
which you had introduced was being followed and that the safeguards
which you had devised were being maintained.
Events have unhappily shown that I should have given more
general and more constant supervision to the work in progress in
the masons' shops; and I wish to take this opportunity of
expressing my profound regret for the damage which, through this
failure of mine, was done to the Parthenon sculpture during the
time when I had charge of the Department.
In view of the strictures upon my conduct in the Board of
Enquiry's Interim Report, and the lack of confidence which they
imply, I believe that the Trustees will expect me to tender my
resignation; and I therefore beg that you will place my position
unreservedly in their hands.
Yours sincerely,
R. P. Hinks