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Description: | The ethnographic collection comprises weapons, clothing, eating and drinking utensils and religious items mostly from Africa, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia, particularly India, Malaysia and Indonesia. Among the highlights are Indian sculpture from the 2nd century AD; and a group of Tibetan items brought back from the Younghusband expedition to Tibet in 1904.
The collection is particularly strong in West African objects collected in the early 20th century and covering the period from the turn of the century to the 1940s.
The African material is particularly strong on weapons and beadwork.
The collection is of particular interest in that it was assembled by civil service and military families, many of whom retired to Cheltenham after working and living abroad in Britain's Empire.
Robert Powley Wild (1882-1946) was HM Inspector of mines in the Gold Coast. During the 1920s and 1930s, he became an expert on the geology of the area and developed a keen interest in its local culture. Wild donated West African artefacts to Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum during this period and it forms a significant element in the ethnography collection.
Lt Col R Longfield Beasley (1878-1954) was a distinguished soldier who was posted to the West African Frontier Force from 1901-1906, when he collected many examples of West African weapons, as well as some domestic items. In 1933, he donated his ethnographic collection to Cheltenham Museum. | Subjects: | Weapons Ethnography World Cultures | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | Address: | Clarence Street
Cheltenham,
GL50 3JT | FAX: | 01242 262 334 | Telephone: | 01242 237 431 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:3694 | Go to resource |
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