World Museum (Liverpool)

Bio

Founded on 18 October 1861, World Museum in Liverpool, England has an extensive collection covering archaeology, ethnology and the natural and physical sciences. The African ethnographic collection of the museum has over 10 000 artefacts and has a strong collection of West and Central African holdings. The museum has a large collection of music instruments from various African regions, some of them are in very poor conditions. Despite the main strengths of the museum’s African collections are in its West African collections, almost all regions of Africa are represented. Jack Leggett, an engineer, collected numerous other items housed at the museum dating from the 1950s and 60s. Items were collected from central and northern regions of Nigeria. Such includes stools, music instruments and a large collection of hoes.

An influx of African objects to the museum arrived in 1867 as part of the large collection of 'art treasures' donated by Joseph Mayer, a Liverpool goldsmith. Among them were two royal ivory bracelets from the Yoruba Kingdom of Owo, a 16th Century Sapi-Portuguese ivory horn from Sierra Leone, a masquerade costume from Southeast Nigeria and a gold pendant disk from Asante.

Between 1895 and 1916 Arnold Ridyard, an engineer, transported over 2 000 artefacts from West and Central Africa to the museum. He was assisted by contacts and intermediaries who donated objects through.

GBLondon, United Kingdom

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World Museum
Profile added by Ano Shumba on 11 Sep 2015
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