Daniel Simpson 
The Royal Navy in Indigenous Australia, 1795–1855 [PDF ebook] 
Maritime Encounters and British Museum Collections

This book offers the first in-depth enquiry into the origins of 135 Indigenous Australian objects acquired by the Royal Navy between 1795 and 1855 and held now by the British Museum. In response to increasing calls for the ‘decolonisation’ of museums and the restitution of ethnographic collections, the book seeks to return knowledge of the moments, methods, and motivations whereby Indigenous Australian objects were first collected and sent to Britain. By structuring its discussion in terms of three key ‘stages’ of a typical naval voyage to Australia—departure from British shores, arrival on the continent’s coasts, and eventual return to port—the book offers a nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the pathways followed by these 135 objects into the British Museum. The book offers important new understandings of Indigenous Australian peoples’ reactions to naval visitors, and contains a wealth of original research on the provenance and meaning of some of the world’s oldest extant Indigenous Australian object collections.

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Chapter One: Introduction.- Chapter Two: The Science of Naval Collecting.- Chapter Three: Commissioning Indigenous Australia.- Chapter Four: Discipline and Authority.- Chapter Five: Beaches.- Chapter Six: Sounds.- Chapter Seven: Islands and Peninsulas.- Chapter Eight: The Customs House.- Chapter Nine: The Naval Hospital.- Chapter Ten: The Museum.- Chapter 11: Conclusion.

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Daniel Simpson is Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His research explores the history of maritime encounters and naval ethnographic collecting in Australia and the South Pacific.