Navigating the Customs House, Then and Now: A Synthesis of British Colonial Collecting in Australia, 1788–1823

Simpson, Daniel

Navigating the Customs House, Then and Now: A Synthesis of British Colonial Collecting in Australia, 1788–1823

Download

Name

Navigating the Customs House Then and Now A Synthesis of British Colonial Collecting in Australia 1788 1823 (1).pdf

Size

1014.01 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (MD5)

313cffafea0505c745d7436bb80a28f6

Resource type

Journal article

Creator (person)

Simpson, Daniel

ORCID

Date published

2023

Abstract

Amid growing public and academic interest in the identification and return of Aboriginal objects acquired by Britain from Australia after 1788, enquiries into the disputed origins of the British Museum’s ‘Gweagal shield’ have highlighted the need for new and better forms of provenance research. This article explores a novel methodology and source of information: British Treasury and customs records detailing the descriptions, values, and duties paid upon a vast number of colonial collections of Aboriginal objects, human remains, and natural history specimens known to have disembarked in Britain between 1788 and 1823. By positing a new provenance for the ‘Gweagal shield’ – namely, that it may have accompanied Bennelong, Yemmerrawanne and Arthur Phillip on their passage to England in 1793 – the article explores the potential of such records for highlighting what, when, how, and from whom Australian collections arrived in Britain in this early and hitherto little-understood period.