Guide to the Papers of James Hornell (as filmed by the AJCP), 1883-1934

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Summary

Collection number:

M2626-M2631

Creator:

Hornell, James

Extent:

35 items

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1234)

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference.

Background

Content Summary:

The papers include drafts, correspondence, cuttings, diaries and journals relating to the Scientific Expeditionary Association expedition to the South Pacific on the St George 1923-24. Also diaries of visits to Indonesia and New Guinea 1918, and diaries kept during visits to the Pacific 1924-40.

Biographical / Historical:

James Hornell (1865-1949) was born in Manchester and educated in Scotland. It was intended he should enter the family business in Liverpool, but there he came under the influence of Sir William Herdman, Professor of Natural History at University College, Liverpool, and enrolled as a student member of his Liverpool Biological Society in 1886. From 1898 to 1902 he and his father in law, Joseph Sinel, operated the Jersey Biological Station, selling specimens and microscopical preparations. In 1902 Herdman took him to Ceylon to undertake a feasibility study for the Government of Ceylon on pearl fisheries in the Gulf of Manaar. He was Marine Biologist to the Government of Ceylon from 1902 to 1906, when the Government of Madras appointed him Marine Assistant; on the retirement of Sir Frederick Nicholson in 1918 he was appointed Director of the Fisheries Department, a post he held until retirement in 1924. This appointment led Hornell to develop an interest in boats and the ethnology of fishermen.

On retirement he was appointed to the St George Expedition to the Pacific as ethnographer. He joined the ship at Madeira and left it at Tahiti (1925) to continue his research on canoes in the Pacific islands. At Gorgona he found archaeological remains, which he reported on in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16 pp. 401-32. On his return to England the Government sent him to various colonial countries to report on their fisheries, including Mauritius, Malta, and Fiji. He was awarded the Huxley medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute just before his death.

He was the author of over 300 ethnographical articles and books, including, with AC Haddon, Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji and Micronesia, Bernice P Bishop Museum, 1936.

See also: Proc. Linnean Society, 161. 1949. pp.244-7.

David Heppell and F.M. West. Sinel, Hornell and the Jersey Biological Station. Societe Jersiaise Annual Bulletin, 1989. pp.69-102.

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:: Available for Access.
Conditions Governing Use:: Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.