More on Feuding Museum Curators

Sketch of William Morfitt

In a recent blog I explored the background to the animosity shown towards the Morfitt family of Atwick by Curator of Hull Museums, Thomas Sheppard. The origin of this feud seems to have been a quarrel over objects for the collections of Hull Museums and the so-called ‘East Coast Museum of Antiquities’ at Atwick in Holderness in East Yorkshire. After 1903 Sheppard does not have a good word to say about the Morfitt family and the Atwick collection, despite the fact that previously he’d praised the sons of William Morfitt, Aaron and Beaumont, for rescuing and piecing together a red dear skeleton found on the Holderness coast in East Yorkshire. I used the example of the press coverage of an Iron Age gold coin to show how Sheppard denied the Morfitt fmaily and their collection the ‘oxygen of publicity’. Comments made about the coin in the Hull Museum collection seem to reflect on a coin found by William Morfitt, although the latter was not named.

That example may be more or less convincing but there is another archaeological discovery that may shed light on the relationship between Sheppard and Morfitt. In 1913 builders working on the site of the intended Hornsea ‘Hydro’ or Turkish baths came across skeletons and associated grave goods. The Morfitt family who lived a few miles north of Hornsea at Atwick heard about the discoveries and a short article appeared in a regional newspaper. We know that the family recovered brooches and other finds because our old friend Canon William Greenwell wrote to William Morfitt on 4th April 1913:

‘The brooches are Anglian (Saxon) and there is no doubt they came from a cemetery… It is a great pity that the burials which have already been found should have been so carelessly treated [by the workmen on site]. There are no doubt many other graves on the site, but I fear it is too much to expect that any proper examination will take place. It is most regrettable that you are now unable to make an examination yourself…’

The material collected by the Morfitt family from Hornsea Hydro is now in the Yorkshire Museum, which acquired the Morfitt Collection many years after the events in question.

Anglian brooches found by the Morfitt family at Hornsea Hydro (Yorkshire Museum)

The objects include Anglian bronze brooches dating from the 5th-6th centuries. However, the Morfitt brothers and their father clearly didn’t get everything because Thomas Sheppard also heard about the Hornsea finds and made a personal visit to the site of the Hydro…

There is a very entertaining account of Sheppard’s encounter with the developer, which did not go according to plan, initially at any rate. Sheppard ran up against the same problem that the Morfitts faced, which Greenwell’s letter hints at, in the shape of the developer of the site. The developer sent the Hull Curator on his way with little ceremony, saying he was too busy with the new building work.

In the paper in the Hull Museum Publication series Sheppard writes that he withdrew to gather his wits before trying again. This time he pretended to have an interest in Turkish steam baths and engaged the developer in conversation. For some desperate minutes Sheppard admits he was on decidedly thin ice as he talked about the water supply, heating and provision of steam needed for a hydro before he succeeded in gaining the developer’s trust. Even so he daren’t mention the archaeological discoveries and he was immensely relieved when, as he was about to leave, the developer told Sheppard he could investigate ‘the other matter’ if he wanted.

Sheppard returned with one of his staff, planned and excavated the cemetery, and published an account of the Hornsea Hydro excavation in the Hull Museum Publications in 1919. This is where it gets interesting because in the text there is another of those intriguing oblique references to the Morfitt family which appear to be quite innocent, but if you are aware of the background they acquire an altogether different meaning:

‘Together with my assistant I visited Hornsea and found that a number of human bones had been excavated and that various small beads, and one or two brooches had been found, and had been divided among the workmen and others interested (my italics)…’

‘…although one or two objects had disappeared before we arrived, I fancy the remainder found a fit and proper home, as we excavated most of the skeletons’

T.Sheppard (ed.) Handbook to Hull and the East Riding – the chapter on Anglo-Saxons in East Yorkshire (Hull, 1922: p.234)

These comments would certainly rub salt in the wound. Sheppard had talked round the man who’d thrown the Morfitts off the site and then acquired the objects for Hull Museums, at the same time inferring the Morfitt collection was not a fit and proper home! What do you think?

To be continued…

Skulduggery at the museum and a bruising encounter

Thomas Sheppard

Following up on the recent blog about the Morfitt family and the plough pebbles given to Prof.William Boyd Dawkins for the Manchester Museum collection, it occurred to me that I’d only told part of the story. Thomas Sheppard (1876-1945) was the Curator of Hull Museums. Appointed in 1901 as curator of the Municipal Museum on Albion Street, he was advised to arrive at 10am, smoke a cigar, read the newspaper and take anything that was given…

It’s hard to imagine anyone working in a local authority being told to do this as part of their induction nowadays!  Sheppard, fortunately, disregarded his instructions and, when he retired 40 years later, he’d created seven new museums in Hull, some of them the first of their kind, such as Wilberforce House (1906) commemorating the campaign to abolish British slavery, the Fisheries and Whaling Museum (1912), and the Transport and Commerce Museum (1925). He was full of energy and was a passionate advocate for museums.

Sheppard achieved all this not only through hard work and determination but also by generating publicity. He was always putting snippets in the local and regional newspapers and  sometimes he’d disagree publicly about some point of detail in a report. This wasn’t simply correcting things ‘for the record’ but a way of stimulating a little controversy which made people sit up and take notice.

So it was that about 1908 when William Boyd Dawkins of Manchester Museum visited the sleepy village of Atwick in Holderness to see some archaeological sites known as pit dwellings, Sheppard was involved in a very public disagreement with Dawkins’ good friend, Revd William Gatty, and Canon William Greenwell, who claimed the pit dwellings were prehistoric and thousands of years old. The sites had been discovered by the Morfitt family. Sheppard said he’d found a piece of broken Wedgwood pottery in one of the pit dwellings, so they couldn’t be very old at all.

Sheppard seems to have had a good point but the tone of his comments contrasts very markedly with what he said a few years earlier when he was a regular visitor to Charlotte’ Cottage, home of the Morfitt family and the ‘East Coast collection of antiquities’. Sheppard congratulated the family on the recovery of a red deer skeleton on the Holderness Coast:

‘The care that has been taken in putting the numerous pieces together is characteristic of Messrs Morfitt, and the greatest credit is due to them.’

This was in 1898.

Aaron and Beaumont Morfitt with the red deer skeleton

William Morfitt’s sons, Aaron and Beaumont, had gone out at low tide and recovered the skeleton as the water rose about them. Is this extreme archaeology or what? And Sheppard often led guided tours of the Holderness coast in his capacity of secretary of various scientific societies. No visit was complete without seeing the Morfitt collection in Atwick. After 1903 that stopped. All Sheppard’s comments thereafter are critical of the family, belittling them and their collection. So what went wrong? What soured the relationship?

To answer that question we have to consider Sheppard’s reputation as a collector, summed up in the cartoon above. Sheppard is depicted as a highwayman ‘sticking up’ the local antiquities dealer’s! He didn’t create six new museums without being very acquisitive. His mania for collecting was legendary.

He also had a great sense of humour. Sheppard himself encouraged the portrayal of himself as a highwayman, the ‘snatcher man’ and a burglar. “The most scandalous stories come from his own lips” said Mary Chitty. It was how he marketed himself. He was the man who could snaffle an exhibit for the Hull Museums from under the very noses of rival collectors. A quick response by telegramme often secured the specimen for Hull before rivals had woken up to the fact that they were going begging. This, understandably, led to tension with other collectors. One was Canon William Greenwell of Durham. Perhaps it was inevitable that there would be a falling out over collecting between Sheppard and William Morfitt. There is a fascinating line in one of Canon William Greenwell’s letters (dated 30th December 1903) that refers to a violent encounter between Sheppard and old William Morfitt:

‘Mr Jeff told me in a letter received a few days ago that you had tackled Sheppard and given it him hot. I am glad to hear that you applied the stick to his back which I hope still smarts under it!’

This could just be a figure of speech but the implication is that old William Morfitt assaulted Sheppard. Perhaps he felt the Hull Curator had been disloyal or disingenuous and was trying to obtain antiquities that Morfitt felt were ‘on his patch’. Was the occasion when the wily Sheppard got caught out? If this is what happened then the reason for the sudden change in Sheppard’s attitude to the family becomes apparent.

We can see an example of this different attitude in the report of the acquisition of an Iron Age gold coin for Hull Museums which appeared in one of the Hull Museum Publications. William Morfitt had also found a gold coin at Atwick about the same time. This is a photograph. It is in the British Museum.

Iron Age gold coin

This is what Sheppard wrote about the coin he’d acquired for Hull Museums:

Coin reference

‘Another somewhat similar though not quite so fine’ I believe is an oblique reference to William Morfitt’s coin. Sheppard shows he’s aware of the discovery but he doesn’t acknowledge the finder, thereby denying him the ‘oxygen of publicity’. ‘Near Hornsea’ becomes a coded reference to the Morfitt family at Atwick. What do you think?

In a future blog I’ll show how Sheppard’s animosity towards the Morfitt family was expressed in a far more damaging way over the so-called Holderness harpoons during the early 1920s…