The Brutish Museums, page 30
49. Ibid.; cf. Geary 1965 [1927]: 114.
50. Houses of Parliament 1897: 1.
51. Helly and Callaway 2000: 51.
52. House of Commons, 14 February 1896, Hansard, volume 37: column 372.
53. House of Commons 1897: viii.
54. Lugard 1899: 5.
55. Shaw to Scarborough, 12 January 1897. Bodleian Libraries Special Collections MSS Afr s 101: f. 99.
56. House of Commons 1897.
57. The Niger Expedition, Standard, 31 December 1896, p. 3.
58. Cf. Curnow 1997: 46.
59. Scarborough to Hill, 12 January 1897. Bodleian Libraries Special Collections, Lumley Papers: MSS Afr s. 101 f. 101.
60. British officers killed, North American (Philadelphia), 12 January 1897, p. 2.
61. Home 1982: 35.
62. The Niger Expedition, Standard, 31 December 1896, p. 3.
63. Pall Mall Gazette, 4 January 1897.
Chapter 8. The Benin-Niger-Soudan Expedition (pp. 99–108)
1. Plankensteiner 2007b: 201.
2. Osadolor and Otoide 2008: 408.
3. Flint 1960: 247.
4. Ibid.: 245.
5. Cook 1943: 149.
6. Nigeria, The Times, 8 January 1897, p. 6.
7. Flora Louise Shaw (1852–1929) was a journalist who had been required to testify before the House of Commons Select Committee on British South Africa around the Jameson Raid. In 1902, she married Lugard, who became the first Governor-General of Nigeria in 1914.
8. Daily Mail, 14 January 1897.
9. Glasgow Herald, 5 January 1897.
10. Goldie, ‘confidential’ circular: Order of the Day. 1 January 1897. Bodleian Libraries Special Collections MSS Afr s 88: f. 44.
11. Bodleian Libraries Special Collections, Lumley Papers. Scarborough to Foreign Office MSS Afr 101 f. 127; Vandeleur 1898: 97.
12. ‘For the King’ a speedy avenging, Daily Mail, 16 January 1897.
13. Bacon 1897: 128–9.
14. For example: ‘the scene of the disaster is far removed from the headquarters at Lokoja of the Niger Company. The Company’s expedition has already started. It has nothing whatever to do with the Niger Coast Protectorate operations’, Scotsman, 13 January 1897, p. 7.
15. Standard, 16 January 1897.
16. Callwell 1896: 246.
17. Lugard 1922: 359.
18. British occupy Bida, Washington Post, 11 February 1897, p. 10.
19. Kirk-Greene 1968: 52; Vandeleur 1898: 202.
20. Orr 1911: 37.
21. Goldie, Despatch from Egnon to Council, 6 February 1897. Bodleian Libraries Special Collections MSS Afr s 88: f. 45.
22. Goldie, ‘confidential’ circular: Order of the Day. 1 January 1897. Bodleian Libraries Special Collections MSS Afr s 88: f. 44.
23. Vandeleur 1898: 205.
24. Ibid.: 206.
25. Vandeleur 1898: 209–11.
26. Ibid.: 212.
27. Ibid.: 202.
28. The Colonies, The Times, 30 March 1897, p. 13.
29. The Wars of 1897, Number 1, Glasgow Herald, 24 January 1898.
30. Vandeleur 1897: 366.
31. Goldie, ‘confidential’ circular: Order of the Day. 1 January 1897. Bodleian Libraries Special Collections MSS Afr s 88: f. 44.
32. The Times, 17 July 1897, p. 20.
33. Nigeria Expedition: further successful operations. Southern Foulah Capital Destroyed, Weekly Irish Times, 6 February 1897, p. 5.
34. The Colonies, The Times, 30 March 1897, p. 13.
35. Newbury 1971: 148; Goldie to Denton, 18 February 1897. National Archives CO 879/45.
36. The Niger Expedition, Scotsman, 29 March 1897, p. 7.
37. The Battle of Bida, Spectator, 13 February 1897, p. 78–9.
38. Goldie 1898: xviii.
39. Vandeleur 1898: 58, 89, 93, 114, 218, 233.
40. Ibid.: 223.
41. Goldie 1897.
42. Uzoigwe 1968: 472.
Chapter 9. The Sacking of Benin City (pp. 109–114)
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1797: 172).
2. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Egerton Papers.
3. HMS St George, HMS Theseus, HMS Phoebe, HMS Forte, HMS Philomel, HMS Barrosa, HMS Widgeon, HMS Magpie, HMS Alecto and Admiral Rawson’s yacht The Ivy.
4. Auchterlonie and Pinnock 1898: 6.
5. Bacon 1897: 115.
6. Boisragon 1897: 171.
7. Ibid.: 173.
8. Bacon 1897: 115.
9. Ibid.: 42.
10. Ihekwaba 2016.
11. Bacon 1897.
12. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Egerton Papers.
13. Kirk-Greene 1968: 51, fn. 12.
14. Home 1982: 98.
15. Scott 1909: 4.
16. The Usages of War, Pall Mall Gazette, 3 September 1874; The Brussels Conference, The Times, 26 October 1874, p. 10.
17. These bullets were arguably already banned by the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight.
Chapter 10. Democide (pp. 115–127)
1. Cited by Lindquist 2001: 50.
2. Houses of Parliament 1897: 42–4.
3. Boisragon 1897: 175.
4. Callwell 1906: 370–71.
5. Heneker 1907: 5.
6. Roth 1897: 508.
7. Ibid.: 26, 162.
8. Mockler-Ferryman 1898: 295–6.
9. Manchester Guardian, 25 March 1897.
10. Ibid.
11. Ravenstein 1898: 603.
12. House of Commons 20 April 1899. Hansard Volume 70: Column 35.
13. Goldie 1901: 237.
14. The Times, 7 February 1890, p. 4.
15. Scott Keltie 1895: 519–21.
16. Killed on the Niger, Milwaukee Sentinel, 12 January 1897.
17. Standard, 30 January 1897, p. 5.
18. Houses of Parliament 1899a: 6.
19. Ibid.: 9.
20. Galway 1937: 561.
21. Home 1982: 96.
22. Flint 1960: 247–8; Kirk-Greene 1968: 50.
23. Heneker 1907: 138.
24. Portsmouth Evening News, 20 March 1897.
25. Wagner 2019: 282.
26. I am grateful to Dr Kim Wagner for his expert input on this point.
27. Spiers 1897: 4.
28. In July 1899, an official submission from the War Office to the Foreign Office explained some of the history of these trials, in which Benin 1897 clearly played some part: ‘When Her Majesty’s Government … introduced the small-bore rifle, they adopted at the same time a bullet entirely covered by a hard envelope … Experience with this bullet in the Chitral Campaign of 1895 proved that it had not sufficient stopping power, that the bullet drilled through a bone and did not fracture it, that at close quarters the injury was insufficient to cause immediate shock, and that when soft tissues only were struck, the amount of damage was comparatively trivial. It was proved that the enemy expressed contempt for the weapon, as compared with that previously in use; and numerous cases were brought to light in which men struck by these bullets were not prevented from remaining in action. Under these circumstances, Her Majesty’s Government ordered experiments to be undertaken with the object of obtaining a bullet which should possess equal stopping effect as that of the rifle of larger calibre. The Committee which investigated the question recommended two bullets, one of which was proved to make more severe wounds than the other; Her Majesty’s Government however rejected the one making the more severe wounds, and decided to adopt the less destructive bullet now known as the Mark IV pattern, as giving the minimum of stopping effect necessary’ (Houses of Parliament 1899b: 118).
29. ‘To Butcher the Boers’: letters and telegrams sent to Mr Van Deth, a citizen of Transvaal now in New York, Daily Inter Ocean, 3 March 1896.
30. House of Commons, 15 March 1894. Hansard Volume 22: Column 206.
31. Glasgow Herald, 8 April 1896.
32. House of Commons, 15 March 1894. Hansard Volume 22, column 428.
33. Arendt 1958b: 192.
34. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Diary of Herbert Walker, entry for 8 March 1897.
35. Manchester Guardian, 23 March 1897.
36. Rawson 1914: 138.
37. Wagner 2018: 224; Chatterjee 1994.
38. Mbembe 2019: 171.
Chapter 11. Iconoclasm (pp. 128–134)
1. Kingsley 1899: 465.
2. Connah 1975.
3. Es’andah 1976: 12.
4. Connah 1967.
5. Goodwin 1957, 1963.
6. Connah 1975.
7. Darling 1976, 1984, 1998, 2016.
8. Darling 1984: 6.
9. McWhirter and McWhirter 1976: 273.
10. See Connah 2015: 203; cf. Roese 1981, Roese et al. 2001; Maliphant et al. 1976; Kaplan 2009.
11. See Willet 1970; Soper and Darling 1980; Agbaje-Williams 1983; Ogundiran 2003; Usman 2004.
12. Rowlands 1993.
13. Norman and Kelly 2006; Monroe 2010.
14. Ben-Amos 1980: 78.
15. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Egerton Papers.
16. Moor 1897: 28.
17. Bacon 1897: 107–108
18. Scotsman, 23 February 1897.
19. Bacon 1897: 102–105; Rawson 1914: 152.
20. Galway 1930: 242.
21. Handicaps were given for Carter, Lieutenant R.E.P. Gabbett (Royal Welsh Fusiliers), Captain W. Heneker (Connaught Rangers), and Dr Howes, Captain L.C. Koe, Captain E.P.S. Roupell and Sir Ralph Moor all of the Niger Coast Protectorate. Correspondence, Golf, 5 November 1897, p. 149.
22. Osadolor 2001: 227–32; Home 1982: 109.
23. Ryder 1969: 291.
24. Galway 1930: 243.
25. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Diary of Herbert Walker, entry for 26 February 1897.
26. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Diary of Herbert Walker, entry for 19 February 1897.
27. Bray 1882: 367.
28. Galway 1893: 130.
29. Read and Dalton 1899: 9.
Chapter 12. Looting (pp. 135–151)
1. Callwell 1896: 34–5.
2. Callwell 1906: 34.
3. Von Luschan catalogued the numbers in the main Benin collections as follows: Berlin (580), Cologne (73), Dresden (182), Frankfurt am Main (51), Hamburg (196), Leiden (98), London (280), Pitt Rivers (227), Stuttgart (80), Vienna (167), and ‘rest’ (379), to a total of 2,400 (von Luschan 1919: 12–13). As well as the British Museum and the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Farnham, in 1919, von Luschan stated that ‘Halifax, Liverpool and Oxford have some very beautiful pieces’ (von Luschan 1919: 10; cf. von Luschan 1898).
4. Dark 1982: xi.
5. Gunsch 2017.
6. Gunsch pers. comm.
7. Von Luschan 1919: 1, my translation.
8. Burton 1863a, 1863b.
9. A visit to the King of Benin by Cyril Punch, 1889. Manuscript journal held at Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, GB 0162 MSS.Afr.s.1913.
10. The horseman was later purchased by Liverpool Museum in 1978; see Karpinski 1984. A photograph of the horseman, taken in Niger Protectorate, survives in the Claude Macdonald photographic archive in the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution (EEPA.1996-019).
11. Galway 1930: 236.
12. Portsmouth Evening News, 20 March 1897.
13. See Ben-Amos 1980; Plankensteiner 2007c.
14. Plankensteiner 2010.
15. Dalton 1898: 419.
16. Plankensteiner 2007b: 22; Ben-Amos Girshick 2003.
17. Plankensteiner 2007d: 78.
18. A visit to the King of Benin by Cyril Punch, 1889. Manuscript journal held at Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, GB 0162 MSS.Afr.s.1913, f. 31.
19. A visit to the King of Benin by Cyril Punch, 1889. Manuscript journal held at Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, GB 0162 MSS.Afr.s.1913, f. 40.
20. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Diary of Herbert Walker, entry for 20 February 1897.
21. University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum manuscript archives, Diary of Herbert Walker, entry for 14 March 1897.
22. Thomas 2016: 74. The official British Museum label (as of March 2020) states that ‘Thousands of treasures were taken as booty, including around 1000 brass plaques from the palace. The Foreign Office auctioned the official booty to cover the cost of the expedition.’
23. Dark 1973: 13.
24. Fagg 1981: 21.
25. Lundén 2016: 409, fn. 49.
26. Read and Dalton 1898: v.
27. Auchterlonie and Pinnock 1898: 9–10.
28. Galway 1893b: 8.
29. Omitted from Newbury 1971: 148; see National Archives of Nigeria (Enugu), Catalogue of the Correspondence and Papers of the Niger Coast Protectorate 268 3/3/3, p. 240; National Archives of Nigeria (Ibadan): CSO 1/13, 6, Phillips to FO, Number 105, 16 November 1896.
30. Igbafe 1970: 398.
31. Moor to Foreign Office, 9 June 1898. National Archives FO 83/1610.
32. Read 1899: n.p..
33. Benin Antiquities at the British Museum,The Times,25 September 1897, p. 12.
34. British Museum 1898: 63.
35. British Museum 1899: 66.
36. Ratté 1972.
37. Dennett 1906: 188.
38. British Museum accession number Af1898,0115.2.
39. Eisenhofer 2007.
40. Gunsch 2018: 13n1, Annex 4.
41. Sweeney 1935: 12.
42. The Times, 1 July 1897, p. 10.
43. Interesting trophies from Benin, Pall Mall Gazette, 9 August 1897.
44. Goldie 1897: 373.
45. Coombes 1994: 150. The Horniman appears possibly to have acquired some objects smuggled out of Benin City before it fell, from a Mr Rider (Quick 1898). See Spoils from Benin, Illustrated London News, 10 April 1897.
46. Forbes 1898; Tythacott 2008.
47. Daily Mail, 21 June 1898. The pub contained an informal ‘free museum’, the contents of which were disposed of by auction by Messrs. Debenham, Store & Co in January 1908.
48. From Benin, Daily Mail, 10 February 1897. Given the date of this article, this object, if genuinely from Benin City, was clearly taken before the sacking.
49. Starkie Gardner 1898: 571.
50. Fagg 1953: 165.
51. Bodenstein 2018.
52. Von Luschan 1919: 9.
53. For example, Webster 1899; cf. Waterfield and King 2006.
54. Plankensteiner 2007b: 34.
55. British Museum 2010: 74; British Museum accession numbers Af1954,23.394.i, Af1954,23.396–398, Af1954,23.780.
56. The Benin Massacre, Standard, 16 March 1897, p. 3.
57. Read to Thompson, 17 March 1897. National Archives FO 800/148/11, ff. 47–8.
58. FO 800/30/1-2./Letter from Walter Langley to Curzon, 7 May 1897.
59. FO 800/30/1-2./Letter from Charles Hercules Read to Walter Langley, 7 May 1897.
60. Dalton 1898; cf. Carlsen 1897.
61. Von Luschan 1919: 8.
62. Plankensteiner 2007b: 34.
63. Chit-chat, Yorkshire Telegraph and Star, 10 August 1899, p. 3; Standard, 16 August 1899, p. 8.
64. Brinkmann 1899, my translation.
65. For example, Coombes 1994: 59–60; cf. Coombes 1988: 57; 1997.
66. Bendix 1960: 306.
67. Mbembe 2019: 11.
Chapter 13. Necrology (pp. 152–165)
1. Stafford-Clark 1971: 163–4.
2. Idiens 1986; Idiens 1991: 39.
3. Plankensteiner 2007b: 36.
4. Pitt Rivers Museum Accession Number 1980.19.1 – an object not included in the calculations on Pitt Rivers Benin 1897 collections here given the current paucity of provenance data.
5. Dark 2002: 15; see Dark 1967, 1982.
6. Gunsch 2017, 2018.
7. Galway 1930: 236.
8. Didi-Huberman 2002: 61.
9. Von Luschan 1919: 8, my translation.
10. Ibid.: 10.
11. British Museum accession number Af1944,04.12.
12. Fagg 1953: 169, fn. 25.
13. British Museum accession numbers Af1922,0313.1–6.
14. British Museum 1898: 70, 75.
15. British Museum accession number Af1963,04.
16. Metropolitan Museum accession number 1978.412.340.
17. British Museum collections, Af1900,0720.4.
18. Of arts and witchcraft, Daily Mail, 20 December 1947.
19. National Maritime Museum collections, West African flag (AAA0557), Itsekiri Flag (AAA0555).
20. Stevens 1928.
21. Royal Collection RCIN 69926.
22. British Museum collections, Af1899,0610.1.
23. Home 1982.
24. British Museum collections, Af1910,0513.1. Metropolitan Museum, 1978.412.323.
25. Linné 1958: 172.
26. Read 1910: 49.
27. Zetterstrom-Sharp and Wingfield 2019. See the photograph of the interior of Neville’s house reproduced here: http://brunoclaessens.com/2014/09/benin-treasures-on-a-pre-1930-interior-photo/#.XiXB3lP7R24.
28. Foster 1930; Grim trophies for sale, Daily Mail, 29 April 1930.
29. Rawson 1914: 22.
30. Fagg 1953: 166.
31. Roth 1922; cf. Roth 1897; McDougall and Davidson 2008.
32. Roth 1903, 1911; cf. Roth 1898, 1900.
33. British Museum accession numbers Af1897,1217.2 Af1897,1217.3 Af1897, 1217.6 Af1897,1217.5 Af1897,1217.4.
34. Plankensteiner 2007c: 487; British Museum accession number Af1898, 0630.2.
35. British Museum accession numbers Af1898,0630.1–5. A carved ivory bell-striker, recorded as also acquired by Roupell, also came to the British Museum via Lady Kathleen Epstein in 1964 – Af1964,07.1.
36. University of Birmingham, Barber Institute. Accession number No.48.1. http://barber.org.uk/unknown-west-african-artist/.
37. ‘The donkey belongs to Sepping Wright local correspondent of the Illustrated London News’, British Museum accession number (Photographs) Af, A79.17.
38. Read and Dalton 1899: 41–3; British Museum accession number Af1897,1011.1.
39. Foster 1931; Fagg 1953: 169.
