Developing our collections

West African donors to NML's ethnographic collections

Descendant of Liverpool Museum donor Abdul Salami Savage on step of the house he built in Fourah Bay Road, Freetown in March 2010.

Dr. Zachary Kindgon, curator of African collections, travelled to Ghana in 2009 and Sierra Leone in 2010 to research the historical context in which over seventy-five West Africans donated almost 500 artefacts to the World Museum Liverpool and other museums in northwest England in the late 19th/early 20th century. It will be the first major study of the agendas of Africans who contributed to museum ethnography collections in Britain.The research was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship.

Charles Bell and Tibetan networks of collecting

Pedma Dolma, granddaughter of Rai Bahadur Achuk Tsering, personal assistant to Charles Bell.

Emma Martin, Head of the Ethnology team travelled to Northern India as part of her PhD research at SOAS, University of London to trace the history of Tibetan confidents and advisors who assisted Bell in describing, acquiring and translating his collections. This is the first study to focus on Bell, one of the most important political officer to serve in the Himalayas.

 

For further information on any of these research projects, please contact research@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk