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- William Bragge
- Also known as
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William Bragge
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primary name: Bragge, William
- Details
- individual; collector; scientist/engineer; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1823-1884
- Biography
- Civil engineer, master cutler of Sheffield, watch manufacturer, collector, author. Following railway and civil engineering/surveying projects in Britain and then South America, employed in Sheffield in heavy engineering, became master cutler, helped found the Western Park Museum, was active in civic life, became a proficient linguist and an extensive traveller (Europe, Russia, Egypt and America). In Birmingham following an unsuccessful civil engineering project in Paris, Bragge developed a successful watch making firm while continuing to add to his numerous collections – including nearly every work written by the Spanish writer Cervantes, European gems (for the Birmingham Art Gallery) and, notably 13,000 smoking pipes. In 1874, published 'Bibliotheca Nicotiana: A catalogue of books about tobacco, together with a catalogue of objects connected with the use of tobacco in all its forms'’, documenting his own collection of books. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, the Anthropological Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and of many foreign societies. Donor to the BM in his lieftime: eg Christy 5354 to 5393 given in 1869.
In his latter years Bragge became blind, and sold his entire tobacco collection at auction in 265 lots at Sotheby's on 1 June 1882. A W Franks arranged with the dealer William Wareham (who often acted for the British Museum) to buy all the lots which fell into the area covered by Henry Christy's collection, and subsequently bought them from Wareham, using the Christy Fund, and the acquisitions were recorded as part of the Christy Collection.
The sale of objects followed the arrangement that Bragge had recorded in his catalogue. This depended in the first place on Continent (A = Europe, B = Asia, C = Africa, D = America, and E = Australasia). These were then sub-divided by area: so for Africa, Ca = North Africa, Cb = West Africa, Cc = Nile region, Cd = South Africa. The BM bought en bloc all the ethnographic series: that is all of Africa and America, part of Asia and Australasia, and none of Europe. It also acquired the catalogue slips (housed in nine boxes) that Bragge had written that corresponded with its purchases. The acquisitions were given register numbers that are the same as Bragge's own numbers, so that the 1880 Bragge catalogue still serves as the catalogue of these objects.The only change is the addition of a Continental prefix: Af, Am, As and Oc (Oceania). So Af,Cc.26 is the BM database number for a pipe from the White Nile area of Africa.
Quite separately the BM later acquired the series of British and Dutch smoking pipes that Bragge had collected. These have been assigned numbers BG.1 to 1108. The BM also holds the records of the pipe-makers' guild in Gouda (Netherlands) which were sold as lots 256 and 257 in the 1882 auction. The upshot is that today the British Museum has over 2000 objects from Bragge’s collection, of which some 80% are tobacco or smoking pipes.
- Bibliography
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography