The ‘Pre-Disciplinary’ Early African Collections of the National Museums Scotland

Abstract

• The African collection of the National Museums Scotland (NMS) is one of the oldest in Britain, because it contains assemblages from two other Edinburgh institutions that were founded well before NMS’ own launch in 1854 as The Industrial Museum of Scotland. The earliest of these contributing institutions was the University of Edinburgh Natural History Museum, which was launched in 1692. The second institution to transfer many of its holdings to NMS was the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, whose collections dated back to its constitution in 1780. NMS also acquired other early collections by purchase, including the Liverpool collection of Harriet Astley, which includes West African items acquired by the eighteenth-century slave trader Captain Corran as well as others acquired by early nineteenth-century travellers. Many of the individuals who are listed as the sources of NMS’s early collections include notable doctor missionaries, and doctor soldiers who were alumni of the University of Edinburgh. While these early collections are eclectic and not representative of African cultural achievements, they are potential significant as relational sources for advancing understanding of disciplinary trajectories and British colonial trajectories and histories. NMS first employed a specialist curator for the African collections as late as 2006, and the early African collections remain scantily researched. In this short update I will outline current plans to advance research on NMS’s early African collections, with particular emphasis on collectors or sources with Edinburgh connections.