The original notice for the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory in TCD
A miscellany of murderous little facts from the hidden spaces of anthropology in Ireland …
Some Background
curator.ie was set up by Ciarán Walsh in 2010 following the international success of his exhibition “John Millington, Photographer.” This was followed by the groundbreaking “Headhunter” project, which has developed into a four year investigation of ethnographic fieldwork conducted by Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory between 1891 and 1900.
This project is funded by the Irish Research Council and the Shanahan Research Centre (formerly Kimmage Development Studies Centre). The academic programme is managed by Maynooth University in association with the School of Medicine TCD. The research phase of the project is due to conclude in January 2019.
Michael Faherty, Inis Meain, 1890-2, from the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey (1891-1903).
Murderous Little Facts
Francis Galton recalled a conversation with Herbert Spencer about the relation between theory and fact.
He [Spencer] burst into a good-humoured and uproarious laugh, and told me the famous story which I have heard from each of the other two who were present on the occurrence. Huxley was one of them. Spencer, during a pause in conversation at dinner at the Athenaeum, said, “You would little think it, but I once wrote a tragedy.” Huxley answered promptly, “I know the catastrophe.” Spencer declared it was impossible for he had never spoken about it before then. Huxley insisted. Spencer asked what it was. Huxley relied, “A beautiful theory, killed by a nasty, ugly little fact.” (Francis Galton, 1908, Memories of My Life. London: Methuen. P. 258).
I came across this little tale quite late in my research but it neatly summarised what I was finding. Unpacking the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory–literally and metaphorically–has produced a lot of facts that do not fit in with well established historical narratives of anthropology in Ireland and England in the 1890s. It became clear that some of those narratives needed to be killed off and significant elements of the history of anthropology re-written. The history of the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory and its programme of ethnographic fieldwork in the West of Ireland was a case in point.
The Laboratory was established by a consortium led by Francis Galton. It was funded by the Royal Irish Academy and sponsored by the Rev Dr Samuel Haughton and John Kells Ingram, both of whom were Presidents of the Academy and Senior Fellows of TCD. It was housed in a specially created Anthropology Dept in the Natural History Museum in TCD. The equipment was provided by Galton, who also set out the standard operating procedures.
The laboratory was managed by Daniel J. Cunningham, Professor of Anatomy in TCD. Cunningham was a highly regarded zoologist and anthropologist. The programme of ethnographic fieldwork was managed by Haddon, the Professor of Zoology in the Royal College of Science for Ireland and Thomas Henry Huxley’s man in Dublin. Charles R. Browne was a student of Cunningham’s and took over the running of the Laboratory in 1893. He also replaced Haddon as the primary fieldworker on the survey, under the direction of a committee of the Royal Irish Academy.
Daniel J. Cunnngham standing in the doorway of the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory in TCD. The photograph was taken in 1891 by Charles R. Browne. By kind permission of the Board of Trinity College Dublin.
Haddon got involved in the Laboratory while he was in contact with a radical group of anarchist geographers, feminists, and social reformers based in Paris. His entire output at this time was consistent with the post-evolution, sociological oriented ideas of the group, including Havelock Ellis and Pyotr Kropotkin whom Radcliffe later claimed influenced his idea of social anthropology. Despite this, Haddon became Galton’s man in Dublin and argued for the primacy of anthropometric data in ethnographic fieldwork and the reports of the Irish Ethnographic Survey are structured accordingly.
Cunningham operated an anthropological laboratory in his dissection room in TCD. His investigation of the lumbar curve in humans and anthropoid apes (1886) was regarded by the anthropological community as a “classic on the subject” (Thompson 1909: 97). It is not surprising then that Cunningham is mostly remembered as a comparative anatomist but, again, this is not supported by the facts.
Cunningham and Haughton were allies. Haughton secured a commitment from the Royal Irish Academy to fund the Laboratory and persuaded the Senior fellows of TCD to house it in the Natural HistoryMuseum. Haughton was an evolution sceptic and vehement critic of Darwin. Ingram, a Comtean, opposed Galton in person and eugenics in theory. He replaced Haughton before the Laboratory opened but honoured the Academy’s commitment to fund its operation. It is likely that Ingram insisted on the sociological component that was included in the ethnographic survey of the Aran Islands in contradiction of the plan drawn up by Galton, Cunningham, and Haddon in 1891.
A family in the Aran Islands The photograph was taken byAndrew Francis Dixon and Alfred Cort haddon in 1890.
The Ethnography of the Aran Islands, County Galway (Haddon and Browne 1893) was the first report of the Laboratory in peripatetic mode. It opens with an historic distinction between race and ethnicity and an unprecedented commitment to sociology as a component of ethnography fieldwork. The Laboratory was the first anthropological agency to undertake fieldwork on the basis of sociology / ethnicity. It may have been naive in theory and method but it was revolutionary.
Anthropology’s Forgotten Space
The Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory is a largely forgotten space. It warrants little more than a footnote in the history of anthropology, usually in the context of the career of Alfred Cort Haddon.
The Laboratory opened in TCD in June 1891 and, when it ceased ceased operation in 1903, its collection of anatomical specimens were put into storage in the Department of Anatomy. Andrew Francis Dixon, who replaced Cunningham as Professor of Anatomy in 1903, kept some records but these were put into long term storage – in a tea-chest under the anatomy theatre–in 1948, along with the collections of the Anthropological and Comparative Anatomy Museums. In 1986 Forrest (1986: 1384) found no trace of the original records of the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory. All that was left was a considerable collection of human remains that were hidden away in the “skulls passage” behind the anatomy theatre.
The Anthropometry Laboratory in TCD in 1891. The Laboratory was located in the Natural History Museum, in the space now occupied by the Loyola Institute. The presses containing anatomical specimens were moved into the Anatomy Building in 1903. The blue tone of the photographs derives from the cyanotype or blueprint process.
The Laboratory had long since disappeared from the history of anthropology. Haddon’s legacy as a pioneer of anthropological fieldwork is complicated by the issue of craniology, what Patrick Geddes derided as the ‘skull measuring business’ in a letter written at the end of 1889. Geddes was advising Haddon on becoming an anthropologist. He warned Haddon that craniology was incompatible with a sociologically-oriented and “modern” anthropology. Despite this “measuring skulls” produced the primary data collected during the inaugural ethnographic survey conducted by the Laboratory in the the Aran Islands in 1892.
Disciplinary historiography treats this as an anomaly, maintaining that Haddon was more interested in “ethnography” and that the 1898 Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits opened the way to an ethnographic methodology that became characteristic of modern/social British anthropology. The Dublin Anthropometry Laboratory, home of the skull measuring business, was forgotten about as disciplinary historians concentrated on the 1898 expedition and its consequences. It had become, at best a footnote, in the history of anthropology.
The Irish Headhunters in action; Charles R. Browne and And Alfred Cort Haddon measuring the head of an ‘Aranite’ in 1892. The photograph was intended to illustrate field work undertaken by the Dublin Anthropometry Laboratory during an ethnographic survey of the Aran Islands. Browne is using a “Flower’s Craniometer” to measure the length of the subject’s face, while Haddon enters the data into schedules designed by Francis Galton. The results were published by the Royal Irish Academy in 1893.
To Be Continued …
Previous Posts:
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• Feb 2016: Work begins on the collection of the Anthropometry Laboratory in TCD.
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• Aug 2015: Ciarán Walsh elected fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
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• Dec 2014: IRC confirms award of €96,000 for postgrad research project by Ciarán Walsh.
More.
• Nov 2014: Postgrad project by Ciarán Walsh recommended for funding by Irish Research Council.
More
• Aug: 2014 Major research proposal endorsed by NUI Maynooth.
• Jun 2014: Ciarán Walsh rewrites the history of anthropology at a conference in the British Museum.
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• Dec 2013: www.curator.ie and MAA Cambridge agree on joint research project .
Other Projects:
Charles R. Browne; The Irish Headhunter.
The most important collection of 19th century photography to be published in Ireland. This project traces the development of social documentary photography in the west of Ireland in the 1890s during the Irish Ethnographic Survey that was carriied out by the Irish Headhunters, Alfred Cort Haddon and Charles R. Browne.
An Island Portrait: The Photography of the Great Blasket Island.
‘An Island Portrait’ is the definitive exhibition of photographs of life on the Blasket islands. The project has been developed by The Great Blasket Centre and www.curator.ie to accompany the publication by Collins Press of a book of photographs of the Blasket Island. The text was written by Micheál de Mórdha (Director) and Dáithí de Mórdha (Archivist) and the photographs were edited by Ciarán Walsh of ww.curator.ie.
The restoration of ‘The Maid of Erin’
The restoration of ‘The Maid of Erin’ in 2011 was a public art project by Sean Lynch, of Moyvane, Co Kerry, Ireland, and currently working in Germany. It was funded by the Dept. of the Environment under the Per Cent For Art Scheme, administered by Kerry County Council’s Arts Office. The project was managed by Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie.
The Photography of John Millington Synge
Synge is best known as the man who wrote ‘Riders to The Sea’ and ‘The Playboy of the Western World.’ He was also a photographer and photography was central to the way he imagined the west of Ireland. This was largely overlooked until Ciarán Walsh curated the critically acclaimed exhibition of photography by Synge on the centenary of his death in 2009.
