"Who is to say they will not demand our shirts next ..." : a review of the loan collection of the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Liverpool, 1904-1930

• Main Author: James, Mac Eugene
• Published: University of Liverpool 2012
• Subjects: 930.107442753
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.569525

This thesis examines the origins and development of the Loan Collection at the Institute of Archaeology (I of A) from 1904 to 1930, at the University of Liverpool. It presents primary material collected from various archives in order to establish how the Loan Collection was assembled, how it developed, and how it changed over the time period under consideration here. As part of this study, a short history of the I of A is presented in order to contextualize the Loan Collection. Points of connection with other university collections are identified and explored in order to help explain the methods used to acquire the artifacts in the Institute's collection. Equally, this work discusses how financial issues that affected the Institute of Archaeology had an impact upon the Loan Collection. Further, this historiography outlines an attempt that was made to takeover the Institute of Archaeology and its Loan Collection in 1906. The thesis shows that this incident required the Institute to define its relationship with the University, besides the collection that it housed. It is also seen that this attempt at a takeover brought into question what the Institute referred to as a 'Museum' between 1904 and 1906. Similarly, this thesis explores a later proposal in 1910 that endeavored to create an alliance between the I of A and the city of Liverpool's Public Museum. Both this latter attempt and the incident that occurred in 1906 are reviewed here as a means of aiding in defining and further contextualizing the Loan Collection. The argument put forward in this thesis is that the Loan Collection held by the Institute of Archaeology was not a museum, and that the way in which the collection was created and assembled over the years under study never provided the space for it to become one.