Description (CMS Description)
A and B entered onto the same catalogue card
'A: Necklace of birds bones and a small brown univalve shells. B: The same but with brown and white disks as well.'
Event Date 1/6/1995
Author: rachel hand

Context (CMS Context)
Catalogue card notes collected by Admiral Gordon. Later at Widdicombe House, Kingsbridge, South Devon, the property of the Holdsworth Family.
Literature: See 'Artificial Curiosities' (1978), A. Kaeppler, p.210 and figure 425, p.210. Evidence: Leverian Museum. (J.Tanner, May 1998). cf. Necklace in "James Cook: Gifts and Treasures from the South Seas" (1998), edited by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin and Gundolf Krüger, p. 315-316, fig. 195 (p.316). (J. Tanner; February 1999). See 'From Pacific Shores: Eighteenth-century Ethnographic Collections at Cambridge - The Voyages of Cook, Vancouver and the First Fleet' (J. Tanner, 1999:43).
Cook Collection: Captain James Cook undertook three world voyages around the globe from 1768 - 1779. The stated purpose of the first voyage (1768-1771) on the HMS Endeavour was to send a Royal Society team to observe the transit of the planet Venus from the vantage point of newly discovered Tahiti. However, the primary governmental motivation behind the first expedition was to establish the existence of ' Terra Australis Incognita' or the ' Great Southern Continent' , which was believed to exist in order to balance the great northern land mass. Cook set sail from Plymouth on Friday 26th August 1768 and headed to South America, round Cape Horn and westwards to carry out the experiment in Tahiti, and then went on to circumnavigate the globe in pursuit of the presumed continent.
The purpose of the second voyage (1772-1775) on the HMS Resolution and the HMS Adventure was to extend the search for the ' southern continent' . They sailed from Plymouth on 27 June 1772 and headed directly south past Cape Town and then set out on an eastward course of circumnavigation, crossing the Antartic Circle several times en route in an effort to seek the imagined continent. The third voyage (1776-1780) on the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, was concerned with the search for a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They sailed from Plymouth on 13th July 1772, heading first for the Society Islands from whence they set course to search for the Northwest Passage. However, Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779 and his command was taken up by Charles Clerke.
More than 2000 extant pieces can be traced from Cook' s voyages (Kaeppler:1978), of which UCMAA has 215 identified objects. The majority of the material at UCMAA was collected from the Pacific, but also includes objects from the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America, the Northeast Coast of Asia and Tierra del Fuego in South America. Furthermore, all the three voyages are represented by objects in UCMAA' s collection. (J. Tanner, 1999).
Event Date 1/6/1995
Author: rachel hand

Description (Physical description)
J. tanner (1998): 'B: Shorter necklace, with bones threaded singly.'
Event Date 6/1998
Author: Remke Velden

Description (CMS Description)
The bones are likely to be wing bones from a sea bird (information received from [someone in archaeology who came to have a look - ask Alana Jelinek] on 1/7/2010].
Event Date 23/8/2010
Author: rachel hand

Context (CMS Context)
Catalogue card reads [handwritten in black ink:] '22.944 AB. Tonga. A. Necklace of birds bones and small brown univalve shells.
B. The same but with brown & white disks as well. Collected by Admiral Gordon. Later property of Holdsworth family in S. Devon who liver at Widdicombe House Kingsbridge.' [stamped in blue ink:] 'CLARKE GIFT'. A small round red sticker pasted to the front of the card.
Event Date 19/2/2014
Author: rachel hand

Description (CMS Description)
Sisilia and Albert Raass, visitors from Tonga (2014): 'The bones are from birds which wade along the shoreline. They were hunting with slingshots by Sisilia's grandparents.'
Event Date 5/6/2014
Author: rachel hand

Context (CMS Context)
Kaeppler 'Holophusicon: The Leverian Museum' (2011:165-66): '22 (appendix) [Leverian lot no.] "A variety of necklaces, &c., S. Sea Isles" [Leverian description] (Figs. 5.302, 5.303 [Pages 165-66])
'(7) Two necklaces of bird bones and shell'.

Reference compiled by Amiria Salmond during research for the ESRC funded project 'Artefacts of Encounter'.
Event Date 10/1/2015
Author: rachel hand

Context (CMS Context)
Probably part of donation listed in Annual Report for the year 1922, in Museum Annual Reports 1910-1981 (no page number), Appendix I, Donations: 'Clarke, Mr. L.C.G. 'weapons ornaments, etc, Tierra del Fuego, Cyrus, Egypt, Sandwich Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand and N.W. Coast of America (22.901-953B)'.

Accession register entry (Accessions 11 page 86) reads [handwritten in black ink:] '944 A. B. 2 Necklaces of bird bones. [Tonga.] [Louis .C.G. Clarke.] [Coll: Adml. Gordon. fr. Widdicombe House].'
Event Date 10/1/2015
Author: rachel hand

Context (CMS Context)
The Holdsworths of Widdicombe House, Stokenham, Devon, were a wealthy merchant family. Collections from Widdicombe House were acquired by MAA between 1921 and 1922 probably at the instigation of curator Baron Anatole von Hügel, whose wife, Eliza, was related to the Holdsworth family through her mother. 

Eliza donated several items to the museum in 1921 that she had probably purchased when parts of the estate were being sold off. The majority of the Widdicombe House material appears to have been purchased by von Hügel’s successor, Louis Colville Gray Clarke, and accessioned by the museum (along with a Baroness von Hügel acquisition) shortly after Clarke’s appointment in June 1922. A further item was accessioned in 1925, another six objects in 1927, 16 during the 1903s, with a final one in 2013.  Scattered notes in accession registers, on catalogue cards and surviving labels record a first, second and third Widdicombe House Collection, deposited in 1922 by Baron von Hügel, which suggests that there may have been three separate groups of material that came to MAA, possibly deposited by von Hügel, but eventually paid for by Louis Clarke.

Research by Adrienne Kaeppler has revealed that the Holdsworth family acquired objects from the sale of the collections of the Holophusicon or Leverian Museum in 1806.  The Leverian is known to have contained a large number of Cook voyage pieces, in particular third voyage pieces from the Pacific and Northwest Coast of America, as well as material from the First Fleet. Using a series of drawings commissioned by Lever from the artist Sarah Stone in the 1780s, Kaeppler was able to identify a number of artefacts and match them with items in the Leverian sale catalogue. Other Leverian Museum material was bought at J.C. Stevens Auction Rooms, (Stevens), in 1905 by von Hügel and later deposited/donated and may also be the source of other von Hügel pieces.

Kaeppler identified John Rowe, (a clergyman from Bristol), as the purchaser of 77 lots, made on behalf of his brother-in-law Richard Hall Clarke, of Bridwell House, Uffculme, Devon and Clarke’s son-in-law, Arthur Howe Holdsworth of Widdicombe House. According to Kaeppler, at least sixty artefacts in MAAs collections are most likely to be Cook voyage pieces and can reasonably be associated with Rowe’s purchases for Widdicombe House.

The MAA Widdicombe House collection encompasses 168 objects and includes items from North American Woodlands, Asia and Africa, that do not match any of the Leverian lots purchased by Rowe and which must have been acquired by the Holdsworths through other means.

For many years, the Holdsworth family were unaware of the Cook connection to their collections and believed them to have been acquired by a distant relative called ‘Admiral Gordon’.  Consequently, MAA assigned Gordon as the collector for much of the Widdicombe House material and this is reflected in registers and catalogue cards. Despite extensive research, no Admiral Gordon has ever been found and is now believed to have played no part in the history of these objects. 

For further information see: Adrienne Kaeppler, 2011. ‘Holophusicon: The Leverian Museum: An Eighteenth Century English Institution of Science, Curiosity and Art.’ Amiria J.M. Salmond, (publication pending). ‘Artefacts of Encounter: the Cook-Voyage Collections in Cambridge’ (Museum Ethnographers Group). Also see Bio entry for Widdicombe House.

(Rachel Hand, 12.01.2015)
Event Date 6/7/2015
Author: rachel hand

Research Visit (Anthropology Photographs)
RES.2018.2512 | Ancient Futures Project. The Ancient Futures Research Team comprises of Tongan Artists and specialists in Tongan history, material culture and museum collections. Researching a variety of Tongan objects, including barkcloth and clubs.
Event Date 10/10/2018
Author: Remke Velden