In the Eighties, a shell collection containing specimens from Captain Cook’s final voyage was unintentionally thrown into a container and was lost endlessly. But to the delight of scientists, this was the case last week rediscovered, secure and sound and donated to English Heritage.
Her name may not have made headlines, but the woman who originally collected shells, Bridget Atkinson (1732–1814), made a significant contribution to natural history in the 18th century.
Atkinson was one of many ladies fascinated by shells at the time. It was an activity that attracted each aristocracy and middle-class enthusiasts. Among them were famous collectors, including: philosopher and poet Margaret Cavendish and cousins Jane and Mary Parminter, elite owners of a shell-encrusted house A la Ronde in Exmouth.
Collecting shells was a common pastime in Enlightenment Britain. This was a period wherein women were becoming elitist have gotten more and more fascinated by exact sciencesand they practiced his discipline with wild enthusiasm.
This is evidenced by the popularity of books resembling Newtonism for women by Francesco Algarotti. Published in 1737, the book became a bestseller and was reprinted again and again in the 18th century.
Botany and natural history were considered particularly suitable vehicles for women’s mental curiosity. Women involved in these practices were encouraged to accomplish that collect specimens, create exhibitions and study related literatureoften written by female authors.
As a result, various books on natural history written by women were published in the early nineteenth century, e.g The conchologist’s companion Mary Roberts (1824), a series of letters on the properties of various types of shells.
Atkinson Collection
Although Atkinson was common as a woman collecting shells, the scope of her acquisitions distinguishes her from many other collections of the period. She won as many as 1,200 bullets throughout her life, and many of them got here from distant regions of the world.
Atkinson got here from a wealthy and refined, but not aristocratic, family and is subsequently not as well referred to as other shell collectors of the time. Nevertheless, its collections include a number of necessary specimens of endangered and protected species. Many of these were created through her connections with George Dixon, the armorer Captain Cook’s third and last world voyage.
Although surviving correspondence shows that she was not a perfect author, Atikinson’s knowledge of natural history made her first female honorary member Society of Antiquarians in Newcastle on the River Tyne in 1813. Women were still considered ineligible for full membership until 1877.
English Heritage
Atkinson’s collection doesn’t simply reflect the scientific interests of a curious individual. An examination of their acquisitions reveals a broad, even global system. Many of her shells got to Atkinson through the British Empire network.
Several members of Atkinson’s family were employed in Imperial positions. Her son and brother-in-law were part of the East India Company’s merchant colonizing forces, and the latter even owned a sugar plantation in Jamaica. This signifies that the Atkinson family were direct beneficiaries of the enslavement of Black men and women in the Caribbean.
Atkinson used these contacts to her advantage, writing to her relatives living abroad asking for shells and even begging family friends to do the same. In 1796, her friend Mary Yates wrote to her son John, who was then living in Virginia, to convey Atkinson’s request for “snail shells collected from the ground… the bigger the better”.
Passed down through the routes and mechanisms of the British Empire, Atkinson’s collections are inextricably linked to the broader history of colonialism. This is a problem that future shell presentations will inevitably have to handle.
History of the Atkinson Collection
Despite their obvious importance today, Atkinson shells haven’t at all times been treated with respect. The collection was passed down through the Atkinson family before being acquired by the University of Newcastle (then referred to as King’s College) in the Nineteen Thirties. It was during this time that the shells were lost.
Dumped into a shipping container, eagle-eyed marine zoologist John Buchanan rescued them from oblivion. While going through his belongings after his death, his family discovered the collection and donated it to English Heritage.
This just isn’t an unusual story. Seen as trivial interests and trivial pursuits, the lack of interest in women’s shell collections, each decorative and scientific, has led to the loss of many examples over the centuries.
A typical example is the great sale of Margaret Cavendish’s collection in 1786. Her shells and corals from Britain, Italy and the Indian Ocean were placed on sale, alongside those collected for decorative purposes. Like the Atkinson collection, Cavendish shells contained specimens from Cook’s voyages. But even this necessary association didn’t protect them from wide dispersion.
As Atkinson’s shells show, the collection of these beautiful natural objects traversed continents, told a colourful story of imperialism, and affirmed the vital role of women in the development of natural history as a discipline. Their upcoming show at the Roman Fort and Museum in Chester will ensure they proceed to inform these stories in the future.
