ABSTRACT
In 1880, Joseph Barnard Davis’s collection of over 1,000 human skulls was purchased by the Royal College of Surgeons in England. The details of its assemblage by Davis offer much to the understanding of the motivations and methodologies of private collectors of human remains throughout the British Empire and beyond. Through the study of Davis’s collection cataloguing, a picture is developed of a successful international network consisting of scientists, opportunistic colonial officials and doctors. This network helped Davis build one of the largest, if not the largest, collections of ‘race’ crania in the mid-nineteenth century. He did this as a provincial medical practitioner based in Staffordshire, England, without institutional support. His collection was self-funded and stored in his private residence. Davis’s collecting has left a legacy of significant proportions for the Indigenous peoples whose ancestors’ mortal remains were removed from country for study, comparison and measurement.
