Benjamina Efua Dadzie
Highlighting our donors
Highlighting our donors
Museum donors lived in interesting, and potentially contentious, times. Through them we catch fascinating glimpses into the past, and certainly glimpses into the lives of other peoples. Their journeys abroad are rich in interaction and conversation. Their experiences are often varied, and the situations they found themselves in were sometimes difficult.
Our earliest donors of African objects lived in the time of Empire and served abroad. Other donors were once collectors who made purchases through the auction houses or in the busy markets abroad. Some donors were themselves a product of Empire and were born in former colonies and they acquired items by interacting with indigenous peoples.
Opening up donor histories
The objects they donated to the museum are like puzzles, they’re clues about the wider world we live in. These objects are capable of informing us about other cultures, their histories, the complex relationships between peoples. However, objects also offer us an insight into the donor’s identity. A good many objects though do lack voices – we often don’t know who made them, who acquired them, the reasons why they were acquired, what they meant to the maker or to the collector. This greatly limits what an object can tell us about the world. These objects though by their nature of being ‘real’ cannot or should not be replaced by the replica.
By exploring donor histories we can better understand the complex nature of their world. Through their eyes and their donations, we can debate the world events of their time and those that continue to make an impact on our modern world.
With the help of scholars, the Discovering Worlds project (2014-18) has opened up the lives of some of our historic donors such as James Bandinel of the Foreign Office, Exeter-born Reverend Henry Townsend, adire collector Nancy Stanfield, Frederick Philip Pinkett, and Colonel William Hamilton Broun (aka William Hamilton Briggs). We also celebrate modern donors such as Dr. Ann O’Hear and Sheila Unwin.