Baggage and Belonging: Military collections and the British Empire, 1750 - 1900

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Framing colonial war loot: The ‘captured’ spolia opima of Kunwar Singh
(2022-07-01)
Hartwell, Nicole M
This article investigates the provenance of four artefacts associated with the military commander Kunwar Singh (1777–1858), who fought a guerrilla campaign against the British during the Indian Uprising of 1857–8. By analysing how these objects were documented and inscribed, it can be shown that, through the invocation of what is characterized here as ‘martial discourse’, British officers framed the acquisition of the arms, armour and ceremonial possessions of an enemy commander in very specific ways. As an overlooked aspect of nineteenth-century British military culture, an examination of martial discourse helps to clarify how British officers presented acquisitions in colonial military contexts. Fundamental to the examples considered here – which include ‘taken in action’, ‘captured’ and ‘spolia opima’ – was an implicit and shared understanding within the British military establishment that artefacts deemed to signify victory and military prowess could be elevated above, and distinguished from those taken during acts of unsanctioned appropriation and looting.
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Introduction
(2020-09)
Lidchi, Henrietta
;
Allan, Stuart
At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections, Dividing the Spoils provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues for a deeper examination of these collections within a range of intercultural histories that include alliance, diplomacy, curiosity and enquiry, as well as expropriation and cultural hegemony. As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, Dividing the Spoils explores how the amassing of objects was understood and governed in British military culture, and considers how objects functioned in museum collections thereafter, suggesting new avenues for sustained investigation in a controversial, contested field.
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Re-capturing the British Imperial Past
(2016)
Allan, Stuart
;
Lidchi, Henrietta
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Mementoes of power and conquest: Sikh jewellery in the collection of National Museums Scotland
(2020-09)
Voigt, Friederike
This chapter traces the historical trajectory of pieces of jewellery and personal effects in the collection of National Museums Scotland which once belonged to the last Sikh ruler of Panjab, Maharaja Duleep Singh (1838–93). Deposed from the throne after the Second Anglo–Sikh War, exiled and deprived of his possessions, religion and identity, Duleep Singh has been considered a pawn of Empire. Rather than interpreting the jewellery as signs of royal splendour, the chapter foregrounds the historical significance of these jewels. Using archival sources, the chapter traces their different ownerships back to the dispersal of the Lahore treasury, or Toshakhana, following the defeat of the Sikh army by the British in the Second Anglo-Sikh War 1848–49 and emphasises the multitude of perspectives of the different agents involved in the British Empire in India on these objects.
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I don't do things by halves - The incredible conservation of the James Bruce drinking horn (Part 2)
(2021-01-16)
Messerschmidt, Lydia
Nearly a metre in length, 250 years old and broken into two shattered halves, the James Bruce drinking horn represented an epic challenge in my conservation career. This is the conclusion of the horn’s incredible conservation journey.
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Indigenising folk art: eighteenth-century powder horns in British military collections
(2020-09)
Lidchi, Henrietta
;
Allan, Stuart
Engraved power horns are a well-known aspect of the material culture of the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), also known in North America as the French and Indian War. In looking at collections in military museums across the UK it emerged that powder horns were a distinctive form of material culture from this campaign. Powder horns were often personalised and artistically adapted, and they feature widely in North American collecting institutions and remain of considerable interest to private collectors. Though many are decorated with detailed maps of the theatre of war, others carry more personalised imagery or inscriptions and were made ‘on the hoof’ by amateur artists as mementoes. This chapter focuses on three examples which have an additionally important feature, the carrying straps likely procured from indigenous allies, which documentary evidence suggests might have been military issue. These include straps that are cut down tumplines (burden straps), glass wampum belts, woven belts or quillwork ‘prisoner ties’. Such items are known from early antiquarian collections. This chapter reviews the possible intercultural relationships encapsulated in the survival of these objects in military museums, and discusses their symbolic value within the military culture of the eighteenth-century British Army.
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Seeing Tibet through soldiers' eyes: photograph albums in regimental museums
(2020-09)
Henrietta, Lidchi
;
Rosanna, Nicolson
In his ‘Notes on Photography’ dated 1860 Captain Henry Shaw of the Royal Engineers itemised the uses to which photography could be applied for military and scientific purposes. He notes that over time, capturing scenes, places and persons would prove of personal interest to the photographer and more generally, justifying the physical encumbrance of carrying photographic equipment on campaign. Analysis of photographs and scrap albums recording the 1903–04 ‘Younghusband Mission’ into Tibet takes us beyond straightforward photographic representation into considering the afterlife of the images created on campaign. Evidence of practices of duplication, compilation and curation of images, shows the importance of recognising the album as acomposite artefact, drawing in official and personal photographs. Many of these albums were made after the event, and can include further visual material (eg: newspaper cutting or cartoons). A close reading of the combination of photographic prints on a page, combined with their captions, demonstrates the function of these albums as individual and collective memorials.
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David Stewart of Garth, Scott’s “Highlander of the Old Stamp”
(2020-06-28)
Allan, Stuart
Stuart’s title features David Stewart of Garth as Scott’s ‘Highlander of the Old Stamp’, which I believe is a quotation from a letter of Scott’s to J. G. Lockhart of 14 July 1828. The name rings a particularly sharp bell for me personally, since later that year Stewart, on the point of taking up a Governorship in the West Indies, wrote to Scott requesting that, as several ladies among his friends were anxious to have Scott’s autograph, he (Scott) would therefore ‘favour me with a few lines, and scribble your signature as often as the paper will hold’.
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I don't do things by halves - The incredible conservation of the James Bruce drinking horn (Part 1)
(2021-01-22)
Messerschmidt, Lydia
Last year I encountered the most challenging object in my career as conservator so far – the James Bruce drinking horn. Dirty, cracked and broken into two distinct parts it was a long way from its original condition over 250 years ago. This is the story of the horn’s incredible conservation journey.
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Carved powder-horn. Accession no. M.1931.581
National Museums Scotland
Carved powder-horn bearing the names of Jonathon Webb and James Cameron and hung on an American Indian woman's burden strap, inscribed 1 September 1758, carried by a soldier of the 42nd Royal Highlanders. Accession no. M.1931.581. Image ref
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Baggage and Belonging: Military collections and the British Empire, 1750 - 1900

Baggage and Belonging: Military collections and the British Empire, 1750 - 1900

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