Tag Archives: Thomas Huxley

Thomas Huxley and the Return of the Rattlesnake Bones

The Guardian this week reported on the UK Natural History Museum’s efforts to repatriate a collection of  human bones, acquired by explorers in bygone years, to their original home with islanders in the Torres Straits.

Outrigger sailing canoe alongside "The Rattlesnake" (Fronticepiece to T.H. Huxley's Diary of the Voyagfe of H.M.S.Rattlesnake)
Outrigger sailing canoe alongside "The Rattlesnake" in the Louisiade Archipelago (Fronticepiece to T.H. Huxley's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S.Rattlesnake)

It’s not a piece I’d linger over save for the mention of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, a 19th century survey ship involved in, among other duties, the collection of anthropological specimens.   Moreover, the Assistant-Surgeon on the 1846-50 voyage was the young Thomas Henry Huxley, very much cutting his teeth in hands-on nature study and ethnography.

Self-Portrait, Thomas Huxley on H.M.S. Rattlesnake (Huxley's Rattlesnake diary)
Self-Portrait, Thomas Huxley on H.M.S. Rattlesnake (Huxley's Rattlesnake diary)

Regular readers will know I’m quite a fan of the man later known as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, so any association with what we now recognise as unsavoury cultural violations demands a look-see.

Huxley worked alongside ship’s Surgeon Dr Thompson and Naturalist John MacGillivray, under the overall command of Captain Owen Stanley.

His Rattlesnake Diary, only published in 1935 by grandson Julian, captures thoughts and details of the voyage with a candour absent from more official reports.

The two diary entries that mention human artifacts, in this case a jaw bone bracelet, give some feel for the circumstances in which such pieces were obtained and the way Huxley spoke  about the indigenous peoples.

And as we have Julian Huxley’s thoughts on his grandfather’s behaviour (via his editorial commentary), there’s an opportunity to compare the ethics and cultural norms in anthropology not only between the mid-nineteenth century (when the bones were collected) and the present day (manifest in the Natural History Museum’s repatriation efforts), but also with the norms prevailing in 1935.

Human Jaw Bracelet (MacGillivray, Narrative of the Voyage of the Rattlesnake)
Human Jaw Bracelet (MacGillivray, Narrative of the Voyage of the Rattlesnake)

On to the diary entries.  In June 1849, with the Rattlesnake anchored among the islands of the Louisade Archipelago, Huxley describes an apparent overnight change in the local people’s willingness to barter a jaw bone ornament:

24th. Sunday [June 1849]

Huxley: “We had four or five canoes off to barter with us this morning – such squealing and shouting and laughing and yelling was never heard!  One of the niggers had a human jaw by way of a bracelet.  There was one tooth in the jaw and the circlet was completed by a smal bone apparently of some animal lashed to the coronoid process.

The old fellow would not part from it for love or money.  Hatchets, looking-glasses, handkerchiefs, all were spurned and he seemed to think our attempts to get it rather absurd, turning to his fellows and jabbering, whereupon they all set up a great clamour, and laughed.  Another jaw was seen soon in one of the canoes, so that it is possibly the custom there to ornament themselves with the memorials of friends or trophies of vanquished foes.” [Entry continues.]

Things have changed by the next day.  Huxley doesn’t mention any additional enticements that might have been used to achieve this, although it’s clear from other parts of the diary that iron and tools were particularly valued:

25th. [Monday, June 1849]

Huxley: “Several canoes came off this morning; one of them brought the figure-head which was so much wanted yesterday, and bartered it immediately.  In one of the canoes was a man with a jaw bracelet.  The jaw was in fine preservation and evidently belonged to a young person, every tooth being entire.  They seemed to have no scruple in selling it.  A jade hatchet was procured from them also.” [Entry continues.]

H.M.S. Rattlesnake

The jaw is also mentioned in a more formal report by MacGillivray in his Narrative of The Voyage of H.M.S.Rattlesnake (2) (And from which the drawing of the jaw bone above is taken.)

MacGillivray: “…But the most curious bracelet, and by no means an uncommon one, is that made of a lower human jaw with one or more collar bones closing the upper side crossing from one angle to another.  Whether these are the jaws of former friends or enemies we had no means of ascertaining; no great value appeared to be attached to them; and it was observed, as a curious circumstance, that none of these jaws had the teeth discoloured by the practice of betel chewing.”

First off, Huxley’s vernacular is alarming to modern ears – and this from a bastion of 19th century intellectual enlightenment.  Likewise, we wouldn’t by present standards in these circumstances take a willingness to hand over cultural artifacts as ethical licence to receive them.

Moving to Julian Huxley’s editorial.  Introducing a chapter titled “Huxley and the Savages”,  J.H. appears to be at pains to rationalise, if not apologise for, certain of T.H.’s behaviours, in doing so revealing his own predudices:

“He had none of the trained anthropologist’s insight into the black man’s mind, little conception of the alien ways of thought and feeling in which a primitive savage is enmeshed.  His reactions were those of a generous-minded young man with plenty of common sense but a strong feeling for justice.  He felt that there was some absolute standard of moral behaviour by which both the explorers and the natives could and should be judged.  On the whole, he censured his white companions more hardly than  the Papuans and Australian blacks.”

Although his views changed radically in later life, there’s a consistency here with Julian Huxley’s advocacy for Eugenic principles, a belief in the genetic basis for differences between human groups, and the concept of genetic inferiority.  I read the passage as an oblique approval of T.H.’s egalitarian sense of justice, but with the suggestion he’s applied it through ignorance and an incorrect assumption that blacks and whites are fundamentally the same.  One wonders what T.H. would say, had he the benefit of a time machine, in 1935?  Would he ask his grandson, politely, to stay off his team?

Thomas Huxley
Julian Huxley

From this example, it does start to look in some important respects like cultural attitudes in 1935 hadn’t progressed as much as one might think from those of Victorian times.  And were museums still accepting human artifacts in 1935? (I suspect they were, but please speak up if you know).  I doubt there was much repatriation of bones going on.

Well, that turned into something of a Huxley-bashing session afterall.   In fairness, isolated diary extracts don’t  give the most rounded impression of a person and, as I actually think the Rattlesnake diary does a particulary good job of that for Huxley, I’ll close by encouraging you to make a full reading (it’s not too long, very readable, and not at all boring).

Update 13.3.11Natural History Museum news release on the Torres Strait repatriation (10.3.11)

Update 6.5.11 Torres Strait Island Community ancestral remains return begins and video

Update 23.11.11 Museum Returns 19 Ancestral Remains to Torres Straits Islanders (Natural History Museum)

 

Sources

(1) T.H.Huxley’s Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake. Ed. Julian Huxley, Chatto and Windus, London 1935

(2) Narrative of the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, commanded by the late Captain Owen Stanley during the years 1846-50

John MacGillivray, George Busk, Robert Gordon Latham, Edward Forbes, Adam White – 1852

(3) The Huxley File, Guide 2, Voyage of the Rattlesnake. Charles Blinderman, Clark University.

(4)  Natural History Museum returns bones of 138 Torres Strait Islanders. Guardian newspaper, 10th March, 2011

 

Also of interest: Julian Huxley and the Invention of the Public Scientist (BBC Radio 4)

 

Photographs are taken from the author’s copy of T.H.Huxley’s Rattlesnake Diary and public domain sources.

Happy Birthday Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)

I can’t let the day go by without some sort of homage to Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895); for today – 4th May –  is indeed his birthday.

The younger Thomas Henry Huxley
The younger Thomas Henry Huxley
Huxley in 1893 (photo Tim Jones from 'Life & Letters' Appleby 1901)
Huxley in 1893 (photo Tim Jones from a print in ‘Life & Letters’ Appleby 1901)

Everyone with a special interest in science, or those working in the sciences, has  heard of  T.H. Huxley.    But for many others the name Huxley is more often associated with T.H.’s grandson Aldous – of ‘Brave New World’ fame or, closer to 20th century science and politics, Aldous’s biologist brother and founder of UNESCO Julian Huxley.

And in Darwin’s 200th anniversary year we’ve seen ‘T.H.’ come to the fore as Darwin’s Bulldog – portrayed as a kind of willing intellectual ‘heavy’, clearing the way of dissenters for Charles’s evolutionary thesis to hold forth – sending bishops flying as he went.  I referenced the most recent re-enactment of Huxley’s encounter with Bishop Wilberforce during this year’s Secularist of the Year Awards here.

Thomas Huxley - 'Darwin's Bulldog' (image Vanity Fair)
Thomas Huxley – ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ (image Vanity Fair)

But Thomas Henry was very much his own man (no sexism intended).   Originally trained in medicine, he served as a ship’s surgeon aboard the Rattlesnake in early life but, lacking the financial independence enjoyed by Darwin and other ‘gentlemen scientists’ of the day, had to establish his scientific credibility by hard clawing through the establishment.

In fact, T.H. should be the patron saint of impoverished scientists, for while his later life was comfortable, financial recompense during most of his career was totally out of kilter with his societal contribution and achievement.   Fortunately, on an occasion when Huxley’s body failed to keep pace with his spirit, friends who were also members of the scientific ‘X-Club’ chipped in with Darwin to pay for a recuperative continental break.

Huxley’s interest was science in all its manifestations, and his legacy is today’s  acceptance of science as a profession, and a system for science education that has its roots in the biology classes he held at South Kensington.

Huxley worked on the top floor of this building in South Kensington, London (now part of the V&A museum) (photo Tim Jones)
Huxley worked on the top floor of this building in South Kensington, London (now part of the V&A museum) (photo Tim Jones)

But T.H. was not happy doing just science.  In fact there was a conscious moment when he was overtaken by the conviction that helping others understand science was even more important than the science itself; I guess that makes him the patron saint of science communicators as well then!

There was nothing snobbish or ‘look down your nose’ about Huxley’s lectures for working men.  His monologue on ‘A Piece of Chalk’ is an icon of communication – of any sort – and can be compared with Michael Faraday’s famed public dissection of ‘The Chemical History of A Candle’ at the Royal Institution.

T.H.Huxley's grave in East Finchley (photo Thanks Sven Klinge)
T.H.Huxley’s grave in East Finchley (photo Thanks Sven Klinge)

Being so close to nature, evolutionary concepts, and Charles Darwin, Huxley was bound to take a stance on religion.  He coined the term ‘agnostic’ and declared himself as such.  I think to understand exactly what HE meant by that you need to read his letters and essays.  A pragmatist, Huxley did not subscribe to religious dogma through scripture, but at the same time was concerned that society could not function without something to fill the gap that would be left by, say, the removal of bibles from schools.   I’ll resist several more paragraphs comparing Huxley to Richard Dawkins in this regard; suffice to say I believe there are fundamental similarities between the two – but also differences.

Although you’d never guess from the title or intro to this blog, it was Huxley, and specifically Adrian Desmond’s biographies – ‘The Devil’s Desciple’ and ‘From Devil’s Desciple to Evolution’s High Priest’ (which respectively deal with Huxley’s earlier and later years) that have most inspired me – in quite fundamental ways.

Anyone who ‘Twitters’ knows there are an awful lot of motivational gurus out there and, while I’m not against that, believe you’ll find in Huxley’s life a 90% exemplar of the right-thinking, right-stuff behaviour for a happy life.   In fact, exploring the Zoonomian Archives I find I referenced the great man in August last year, here comparing his philosophy with that of a former headmaster at my school; perhaps the Huxley influence runs deeper than I  know?    There endeth that lesson.

If you want to know more about T.H., read the Desmond biographies alongside some of Huxley’s collected essays.  And for a deeper understanding, the ‘Life and Letters of T.H.Huxley’ – published by his son Leonard in 1901 are engaging.  The Huxley File is a comprehensive web reference.

Now something for the Huxley aficionados and the just plain interested:

On 15th July 1893, Huxley was sitting at his desk in his home Hodeslea, in Eastborne in the south of England, writing a letter to Sir J Skelton; you can find it on p.383 of the U.S. Appleton edition of ‘Letters’.

Huxley's study at Hodeslea. Painted 1893. (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton and Sons, 1901
Huxley’s study at Hodeslea. Painted 1893. (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton and Sons, 1901
Hodeslea in Huxley's Day (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton & Sons, 1901)
Hodeslea in Huxley’s Day (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton & Sons, 1901)
Hodeslea Today (photo P.D.Smith)
Hodeslea Today (photo permission P.D.Smith)

Huxley tells Skelton how he never fully recovered  from a bout of influenza in the spring and is setting off the next day to Maloja (Switzerland) for one of his recuperative breaks.  As Huxley says: “It mended up the shaky old heart-pump five years ago, and I hope will again.”     The next recorded letter I can find is from October 1st 1893.  But Huxley did write at least one more letter on the 15th July – I know because I have it :-).

Huxley's letter to Williams & Norgate (photo Tim Jones, Huxley ALS private ownership)
Huxley’s letter to Williams & Norgate (photo Tim Jones, Huxley ALS private ownership)

The note is to the publishers Williams and Norgate, sending a cheque as payment on his account, and asking them to obtain a missing volume.

Huxley's letter to Williams & Norgate (photo Tim Jones, Huxley ALS private ownership)
Huxley’s letter to Williams & Norgate (photo Tim Jones, Huxley ALS private ownership)

So, it’s not exactly a keystone in the scientific chronology.  But, taken in the context of the Skelton letter, Huxley’s last line does conjour up images of packed suitcases and trunks: ‘I am going abroad directly for nine weeks‘.   Proving……I’m just a big romantic at heart.

Of related interest….

Liz Maloney explores Huxley’s time in Eastbourne, and puts a few wrong perceptions right in the process. Thomas Henry Huxley: A Good Eastbourne Neighbour, in the Eastbourne Local Historian.

Secularist Of The Year

The National Secular Society’s annual award for Secularist of the Year has been awarded jointly to Dr Evan Harris MP and Lord Avebury, for their success in getting blasphemy laws abolished.  I joined the event this afternoon, which was also a celebration of Charles Darwin’s 200th anniversary, at the Imperial Hotel in central London.

Dr Evan Harris MP and  Lord Avebury, with Executive Director NSS Keith Porteous Wood
Dr Evan Harris MP and Lord Avebury, with Executive Director NSS Keith Porteous Wood and Richard Dawkins. (Photo Tim Jones)

The awards were made by Professor Richard Dawkins, and comprised a golden ammonite trophy and a cheque for £5000.  Both winners declined to keep the money and donated it instead for next year’s prize.

Richard Dawkins inspects a 'golden ammonite' trophy before presenting it
Richard Dawkins inspects a 'golden ammonite' trophy as Keith Porteous-Wood looks on. (Photo Tim Jones)

A range of politicians, scientists, celebrities, and commentators of various types were in the audience: including from the scientific community Prof.Peter Atkins.  Prof.Steve Jones, a previous year’s winner of the prize, sent best wishes.  Science journalists included Simon Singh (Fermat’s Last Theorem), and Ben Goldacre (Bad Science).   I also spotted former news presenter Anna Ford, and comedian Robin Ince.

Face in the crowd - Professor Peter Atkins
Face in the crowd - Professor Peter Atkins. (Photo Tim Jones)

The abolition of the blasphemy law in 2008 was something of a coup for the NSS.   Secularists have been fighting for years what has seemed like an unwinnable battle, and I sense the movement still can’t quite believe its success.  While not used since the 1970s, Christian evangelicals had been pushing for a revival in the application of the law.

Lord Averbury with trophy
Lord Averbury with trophy (Photo Tim Jones)

A statement on the NSS website after the event said: ‘The ancient law was called the common law offence of blasphemous libel, and was widely thought to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Despite this, the Government had not been keen to abolish it, we believe because of fear of discomforting the Established Church. They see abolition as an attack on their privileged position and a possible first step towards disestablishment.’

Dr Evan Harris MP
Dr Evan Harris MP (Photo Tim Jones)

It was a lively afternoon, where the company, food, and entertainment were all excellent.   The formal entertainment took the form of a re-enactment of a debate held in Oxford in 1860 between Thomas Huxley (Darwin’s Bulldog) and the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce (Soapy Sam).   In ultimate irony, Wilberforce was (a little too convincingly) played by Terry Sanderson, the President of the NSS.  Given the audience, the winner of the debate was never at issue.

Terry Sanderson - convincing portrayal of Bishop Wilberforce
NSS President, Terry Sanderson - convincing portrayal of Bishop Wilberforce (Photo Tim Jones)
Thomas Huxley - 'Darwin's Bulldog'
Thomas Huxley - 'Darwin's Bulldog'
wilberforcevanityfair1
Bishop 'Soapy' Samuel Wilberforce

Joint winner Lord Avebury’s story is equally ironic.  His grandfather, one of Darwin’s great supporters and a member of the ‘X Club‘ with Huxley, was not actually an atheist: he was too ‘conventional’, Avebury said.   Indeed, incongruous with his grandson’s award today, his grandfather had been instrumental in having Darwin buried in Westminster Abbey.

Evan Harris, who one critic has described as humourless, was everything but, quipping in surprise as he received his golden ammonite trophy: “I was always taught at Hebrew School that the Ammonites were slain by the Israelites”.

Where Will You Celebrate Darwin’s Birthday ?

I suspect the run up to February 12th 2009 is going to be a bit like Christmas. A lunch here, a dinner there, an afternoon tea at Downe House, an evening at the Natural History Museum. Because February 12th 2009, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species, is a very important date. Well at least for some people.

So where are you going to party?

UK readers might consider joining the event being organised by the National Secular Society in London on Saturday 7th February. The NSS is moving its annual Secularist of the Year Award presentation to coincide with the Darwin 200th birthday celebrations – making one big party.

Cerebral?
Soapy?

 

Three-course lunches are promised, plus entertainment that will include a reconstruction of the well known confrontation between Thomas Huxley and the Bishop of Oxford, ‘Soapy Sam’ Wilberforce, at the British Association in 1860. (Scholars amongst you must surely join this just to dissect the production’s ‘angle of spin’?) And as the NSS blurb states – you will be expected to take sides!

You don’t need to be a rabid secularist to join and, if you are a student, tickets are only £15 (£45 for normal people).

Tickets are on sale at the NSS online shop.