Harry G. Beasley
| Harry G. Beasley | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||
| Born | 1882 | ||||||
| Died | 1939 | ||||||
| Residence |
The Cottage, Abbey Wood, Kent Haddon Lodge, Shooter's Hill [1915] Cranmore, Walden Road, Chislehurst, Kent [1929] | ||||||
| Occupation |
anthropologist museum work | ||||||
| |||||||
Contents
Notes
Office Notes
RAI Council 1920 Member
RAI Council 1921 Member
RAI Council 1922 Member
RAI Council 1928 Member
RAI Council 1929 Member
RAI Council 1930-31 Member
RAI Council 1931-32 Member
RAI Council 1932-33 Vice President
RAI Council 1933-34 Vice President
RAI Council 1934-35 Member
RAI Council 1935-36 Member
RAI Council 1936-37 Member
House Notes
1914.01.16 proposed by A.W.T. Fuller, seconded by E. Torday
1939.03.21 death reported
death noted in Report of the Council 1938-1939
left substantial legacy to RAI
in 1913, 1915, 1917 list he is called H.C. but suppose this is a misprint
Notes From Elsewhere
anthropologist, collector and museum professional (1882 - 1939)
Harry Beasley was a collector of anthropological artefacts from many parts of the world, including Africa (particularly Benin) and Northwest America, but with a focus on Pacific objects. He was elected a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1914. He founded the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum in Chislehurst, Kent. He and his wife, Irene, compiled the Cranmore Index of Pacific Material Culture based on James Edge-Partington’s Index for the British Museum. Beasley also published a comprehensive monograph on Oceanic fish-hooks in 1928. The Cranmore Museum was heavily damaged by bombing during World War II, and Beasley's widow gifted the majority of the surviving collections to other museums, including the British Museum, Pitt-Rivers, Cambridge, and Royal Scottish Museums.
HG Beasley's family owned a brewery in Kent and this wealthy background enabled him to collect ethnographic material and found a museum at Cranmore House, Chislehurst, Kent, in 1928. Between 1895 and 1939 he formed one of the largest private collections of ethnographic material in Britiain. He was a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum produced a publication 'Ethnologia Cranmorensis'. His main interest was in artefacts from the Pacific, and his major work 'Pacific Island Records: Fish Hooks' was published in 1928. He also published articles in the Journal of the Polynesian Society and the Journal of the RAI.
Publications
External Publications
House Publications
Polynesian cuttle-fish baits 1921
Notes on red feather money from Sant Cruz Group, New Hebrides [with F.L. Jones] 1936
Related Material Details
RAI Material
name on benefactors board
Other Material
Horniman.
Irene Beasley, who shared some of his interests, donated the collection to six museums in the United Kingdom after his death: the British Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, National Museums of Scotland, Red House Museum (Christchurch), and World Museum Liverpool