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- Melanesian Mission
- Also known as
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Melanesian Mission
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primary name: Melanesian Mission
- Details
- unknown
- Other dates
- 1849- (founded in)
- Biography
- An Anglican mission active particularly in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, based in UK and New Zealand with a school on Norfolk Island, the organisation acquired substantial collections of artefacts from its local congregations. Many of these were given or sold to collectors by individual missionaries or by the Mission itself, and came directly or indirectly to the British Museum.
These include:
Collection purchased from the Mission by Harry Beasley:
in 1926 catalogued as Beasley 1795 to 1861 and 4052 to 4065
in 1931 catalogued as Beasley 2927 to 2940
in 1936 catalogued as Beasley 2029 to 2031 and 4198 to 4202.
Collection kept by the Secretary of the UK branch of the Mission, dispersed in 1991 facilitated by Ben Burt (q.v.) of the British Museum to which some items were given.
Apart from the British Museum the Mission gave much of the collection to the National Museum of Solomon Islands, some to other museums, and the remainder was sold. The gift included a large collection of photographs, including about 600 by J. W. Beattie from 1906 and 284 prints from 1940s negatives which were given to SOAS, University of London.
Affiliates of the Mission whose collections are represented in the British Museum include: Rev. R. B. Comins, Rev. R. H. Codrington (qv), Rev. H. Nind, Rev. A. Hopkins, Rev. W. Ivens (qv), Rev. L. P. Robin, Captain Sinker and David Lloyd Francis.
Around 66% of the 170 or so British Museum objects donated directly by the Mission or via the Beasley collection in 1944 are from Solomon Islands, with the remainder from Vanuatu, and include a variety of body ornaments, baskets, fish-hooks.
In 1990 the UK branch Mission secretary, donated over 900 photographs to the British Museum, principally of Solomon Islands (568), Vanuatu (260) and Norfolk Island (85).
- Bibliography
- Nick Stanley. 1994. 'Recording Island Melanesia: the significance of the Melanesian Mission in Museum records. Journal of the Pacific Arts Association 9&10 (July): 25-41