Selection - FHYA curation of selected materials pertinent to Alfred Cort Haddon’s trip with the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) to South Africa in 1905, from the Department of Manuscripts and Archives at the Cambridge University Library

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2017, using Nessa Leibhammer’s notes; Cambridge University Library’s materials: The FHYA selection of the items in the Cambridge University Library focused specifically on material related to Alfred Cort Haddon and the 1905 Natal leg of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) tour of southern Africa. Sir David Gill, the Astronomer at the Cape until 1906, suggested the BAAS trip to South Africa, in order to inaugurate a South African Science Association modelled on the British one. Three hundred delegates from the BAAS came to South Africa, with Alfred Cort Haddon acting as the chairman of the anthropological section of the BAAS.

Haddon was a British anthropologist and ethnologist who worked extensively with the University of Cambridge as a lecturer and a Fellow of Christ’s College. In the course of the Natal leg of the 1905 visit, Haddon collected items, currently held in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, at the University of Cambridge. These items were selected by the FHYA for inclusion. Nessa Leibhammer then identified correspondences related to this visit for inclusion in the FHYA project. These correspondences and associated material can be found in the Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives collection in CUL, specifically within the Papers of the Cape Observatory. The RGO selection comprises of 4 volumes, sitting in the RGO 15 section of the archives, which houses all material from the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. The material selected by the FHYA is specifically housed in the sections labelled RGO 15 189, RGO 15 190, RGO 15 191, and RGO 15 192. These contain bound volumes of correspondence related to the tour. Leibhammer further identified eight brown manila envelopes from the Haddon Papers in the CUL’s Department of Manuscripts and Archives, relevant to the items collected in 1905. These envelopes are: Haddon Papers 5015; Haddon Papers 5016; Haddon Papers 5065; Haddon Papers 5066; Haddon Papers 5412; Haddon Papers 5413; Haddon Papers 5414; Haddon Papers 5017; and Haddon Papers 5018.]