History of the 1898 cylinders

The Alfred Cort Haddon 1898 Expedition (Torres Strait and British New Guinea) Cylinder Collection includes 141 wax cylinders recorded on the Torres Strait Islands and in British New Guinea as part of the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits. This cylinder collection constitutes the earliest collection of sound recordings in the Library’s Sound Archive and the earliest extant collection from Oceania.

The collection is made up of two parts, 102 cylinders that were recorded on the Torres Strait Islands, and 39 that were recorded in British New Guinea. This page details the general history of this collection, first under Sir James Frazer, and subsequently in the collections of the British Library.

Research by Vicky Barnecutt and Rebekah Hayes, British Library.

A note on institution names
The British Library Sound Archive and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) have previously been known under different names.

The British Institute of Recorded Sound (BIRS) was established in 1955 by Patrick Saul, who was its Director until 1978. The BIRS became part of the British Library in 1983. It was renamed as the National Sound Archive (NSA) (Day 2001) and is now referred to as the British Library Sound Archive.

AIATSIS was founded as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies [AIAS]. In 1989, AIAS became AIATSIS following the passing of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Act.¹

History of the Sir James Frazer Collection

The cylinders from the Alfred Cort Haddon 1898 Expedition (Torres Strait and British New Guinea) Cylinder Collection (C80) were originally part of a collection of approximately 2,100 cylinders known as the Sir James Frazer Collection. This collection contains cylinders recorded between 1898 and 1914 in Africa, South Asia, Australia, and the Pacific by British anthropologists. The British Library’s Australian cylinder collections were originally acquired by Sir James Frazer, either as originals or duplicates (Durán 1985:89). The Torres Strait and British New Guinea cylinders are the oldest recordings within the Frazer collection, and the oldest recordings known to have been made by British researchers. The collection is part of the United Nation’s Memory of the World Register (British Library Board 2010).

James Frazer (1854–1941) was a Glasgow-born social anthropologist, folklorist, and classical scholar, He was one of the last “armchair anthropologists”, based for much of his professional life at Trinity College, Cambridge University. He gathered anthropological data from a wide range of correspondents and informants, and is often considered a founding father of anthropology. He is best-known for his book The Golden Bough, an extensive study of ancient cults, rites, and myths.

The connection to James Frazer perhaps stems from Haddon’s 1888 visit to the Torres Strait Islands, with Frazer requesting information on totemism in 1887, prior to Haddon’s trip (Quiggin 1942:97). Sidney Ray’s recruitment to the 1898 expedition team was also due to the Frazer connection; Frazer had recommended Rev. Robert Henry Codrington who in turn recommended Ray (Quiggin 1942).

Charles Myers, one of the expedition members and a keen ethnomusicologist, “may initially have rounded up copies” of cylinders at Cambridge, but by around 1907, Sir James Frazer “added sound recordings to the other categories of anthropological data which he amassed” (Ward 1984:2).²

The collection was “housed briefly” at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (MAA) before being transferred to the University of Cambridge’s Psychological Laboratory which was formally opened in 1913 (Ward 1984:11).³ Myers was the Director of the Laboratory and Lecturer in Experimental Psychology until 1922, and there is evidence that he had possession of the full Sir James Frazer cylinder collection by 1914 (Ward 1984:11).

David Philipson, former curator of MAA, could not find documentation for the transfer from MAA to the Psychology Laboratory, which he noted “appears to have taken place before 1914.”⁴

The cylinders “re-surfaced” in the 1950s, having been found in a boiler room when the Psychological Laboratory was rebuilt (Ward 1984:11, Durán 1985). Oliver Zangwill, Professor of Experimental Psychology at Cambridge, arranged for their transfer to the British Institute of Recorded Sound.

The transfer of the 1898 Torres Strait and British New Guinea cylinders to the British Library’s Sound Archive is not clear.

Peter Gathercole – former MAA curator – suggested that the cylinders would have come into the BIRS’ collection after 1955, whereas Dunlop (1979:111) noted that the cylinders were deposited in 1955 (based on personal communication with Gathercole).⁵ The BIRS was opened in 1955 and ‘was able to offer more appropriate long-term housing’ for audio-visual materials in the UK, which may explain why the cylinders were deposited in the BIRS around this time (The British Library Board 2010). Additional documentation suggests that the cylinder collection came into the Library’s collection in 1959.⁶ Day (2001) notes that wax cylinders collected by Frazer came to the Sound Archive in the 1960s.

The cylinders were in an “extremely delicate condition, damaged by heat” from their storage in the boiler room.⁷ Many cylinders had deteriorated or been broken before they were deposited at the BIRS.⁸

History of the Collection in The British Institute of Recorded Sound

There is no evidence that anyone worked on the cylinder collection until the late 1970s. In 1968, J. Boydell, secretary of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS), asked about the “C. S. Myers collection” in a letter to Saul.⁹ In 1969, Saul noted that little work had been done on any cylinders at that point.¹⁰

Patrick Saul mentioned the “C.S. Myers Torres Strait recordings” to Alice Moyle (1908–2005, then Ethnomusicology Research Officer at AIAS) and noted that the BIRS was planning to transfer them to tape.¹¹ Moyle had previously given a talk at the BIRS on recording Aboriginal music in North Australia in November 1971 and had been in contact with Saul.¹²

In June 1975, Peter Gathercole wrote to Saul asking about the whereabouts of the 1898 Torres Strait cylinders. Gathercole noted that he had previously enquired about the cylinders two years prior.¹³ In August, Saul replied that the BIRS had not identified the cylinders but that the BIRS had recently produced an electronic device for transferring shallow groove wax cylinders to tape.¹⁴ In the same month, some of the 1898 cylinders were identified.¹⁵ Gathercole had suggested that his wife might have been able to assist with the Torres Strait cylinders and Saul hoped to have an ‘investigation completed by the end of November’.¹⁶

In 1976, Patrick Saul asked Alice Moyle about compiling a list of recordings made of Aboriginal music in Australia.¹⁷ Alice Moyle asked whether the Torres Strait cylinders had been transferred to tape and suggested that this work could be done in Australia although shipping would risk damage to the cylinders.¹⁸ Saul replied that the BIRS had only just had “a satisfactory wax cylinder transfer device constructed”, and that they hoped to start work investigating the cylinders soon.”¹⁹

In 1977, Moyle again enquired about the Torres Strait cylinders and suggested that the tape transfers could be done by Wilfried Zahn at the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv in Frankfurt. AIAS would contribute towards packing, transit and tapes, and copies of the transfers would be sent to AIAS. Moyle also mentioned Lloyd Stickells, who could advise on Zahn’s work.²⁰

In January 1978, Jane Forge (Director of the Resource Centre²¹, AIAS) also expressed interest in the Torres Strait cylinders. The ethnomusicologist Lucy Durán, who had been appointed at the BIRS by Saul in 1975,²² noted that the cylinders were still being traced and it was unclear whether they were ‘extant’.²³

Alice Moyle spent a month in England from 23 August 1978, following retirement from her position at AIAS. During this trip she spent two weeks at BIRS to discuss the plans for transferring the Torres Strait (“Myers”) cylinders to tape. She also offered assistance in sorting the Australian cylinders.²⁴ She completed a “preliminary sort” of the cylinders,²⁵ and later wrote about “scaling ladders and investigating the dusty corners” of the BIRS.²⁶²⁷

Anthony King (BIRS Director designate) noted that Moyle had located, sorted and listed the Australian cylinders on her visit, and the BIRS would send free tape copies of the Australian and Torres Strait material to AIAS.²⁸

In 1982/1983, 12 cylinders were identified by Ward as being 1898 recordings. These included the earliest recordings produced in London by Sidney Ray (see above). These recordings are also the earliest private audio recordings held by the British Library (Durán 1985).

In 1985, Moyle completed audition sheets of the Torres Strait recordings based on dubbings of tapes provided by the BIRS. Moyle matched 25 cylinders to Myers’ writings in the Reports. Myers discussed an additional six songs for which no corresponding recordings could be identified.²⁹ ³⁰

A number of cylinders appear to have been grouped together at one point as a 16-cylinder inventory. They have running numbers 1482-1485, 1488-1489, 1493-1495 and 1497. They are also numbered 1 to 16 in the metadata. The Library’s SAMI catalogue states that these cylinders previously had C62 shelfmarks. Five are now part of the C680 cylinder collection. These cylinders were listed on Alice Moyle’s 1983 audition sheets for the New Guinea cylinders.³¹ It may be assumed that these cylinders were identified as Torres Strait cylinders by Ward during the dubbing of the C62 New Guinea collection in 1982/3, although Ward mentions 12 and not 16 cylinders.³²³³ However, later research probably showed that 5 were not recorded in the Torres Strait Islands and moved into the British Library’s Unidentified Cylinders collection (C680).

Vicky Barnecutt suggested that the 12 cylinders mentioned by Ward may refer to C62/1035, 1062, 1082 to 1090 and 1094. These were originally categorised as C80 but moved to C62 once they were identified as British New Guinea recordings.³⁴ However, Ward specifically mentioned that the cylinders included the pre-expedition recordings created by Ray and were moved from C62, rather than to C62.

Categorisation and numbering

Alan Ward at BIRS assigned C-series numbers in 1980; the Torres Strait collection was assigned C80, and the British New Guinea collection was assigned C62.³⁵ The C62 collection was named Seligman New Guinea Cylinders, and it contained cylinders recorded both in 1898 and in 1904, on the 1904 Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to New Guinea that was led by Charles Gabriel Seligmann. Charles Seligmann changed his the spelling of his name to Seligman in 1914 (Myers 1941:627). A few cylinders were allocated incorrectly and reclassified at later dates.

Cylinders may also have red-ink labelling. Most of the cylinders have a number and a place name e.g. New Guinea/NG or Torres Strait/TS, written on them in red ink. These numbers do not correspond to the order in which recordings were produced and were presumed to have been allocated by Sir James Frazer and his wife Elizabeth (Lilly) Frazer. Ward noted that “the red numbers … are those applied by Frazer, possibly several years after the collection returned to the UK. Experience with other cylinders marked by Frazer shows that his numbers normally bear no relation whatever to the order in which the material was recorded, and appear to have been applied in a haphazard way.”³⁶ As it is not clear whether either Sir James or Lilly Frazer wrote these labels, we refer to them as the red-ink labels rather than “Frazer numbers”. Preliminary research suggests that the red-ink labels may be attributed to Myers, based on handwriting comparisons. Further research is needed.

Myers is mentioned within the Frazer papers and additional manuscripts held at Trinity College Cambridge.³⁷ In correspondence with John Roscoe, Frazer suggested a poor relationship between Lilly Frazer and Myers:

She warns you strongly (this is strictly private) against taking lessons from C.S. Myers, who in her opinion, understands neither the scientific nor the musical aspect of the phonograph, and is otherwise not well fitted to give instructions.³⁸
Also she thinks it would be useless to apply to Haddon or [Myers] for the loan of a phonograph, who, she tells me, for years cut her out of her legitimate profits by lending explorers cheap and unreliable German instruments.³⁹

In the same letter, Frazer mentioned that the results obtained (presumably from the individuals that Haddon and Myers supported) were in “Dr. Myers’ Museum, at least they were in there, and the difference between their results and those of explorers who took the trouble of training and of purchasing well-tested instruments is patent to any listener”. There is evidence that there was still a professional relationship between Frazer and Myers in 1914.⁴⁰⁴¹

Moyle showed concern about the red-ink labelling of the Torres Strait ‘C’ series.⁴² She noted that the numbering starts at C32, skips the 40s, continues from 52 to 78, skips the 80s and 90s, and then proceeds from 103 – 117. C1 then appeared again and the numbers continued, more or less consecutively, up to 32. ‘Missing’ numbers therefore included 40 – 51 and 79 – 102.

A preliminary review of known red-ink numbers was conducted in June 2020. This compared the numbering on the C80 Torres Strait cylinders with the red-ink labels on the 1898 British New Guinea cylinders and the 1904 British New Guinea cylinders (C62). This research indicates that the red-ink labels for these collections are part of one single numbering sequence. The numbering starts with the 1904 British New Guinea cylinders. The ‘missing’ 40-51 numbers correspond to the 1898 British New Guinea recordings. 79-102 (for the most part) are present in the 1898 Torres Strait collection. This suggests that whoever wrote the red-ink labels on these cylinders either did not know about their recording chronology or did not think it was important to reflect the chronology in the numbering system. It looks like there are 14 cylinders unaccounted for (if we assume the numbering doesn’t go past 125) and some duplicate numbers. There are also a lot of Torres Strait cylinders with no number. A more thorough review will be conducted once access is regained to the British Library building.

Some of the T.S. red-ink labels also appear on the bases of cylinder boxes for the 1898 British New Guinea cylinders.⁴³ All but one of the T.S. numbers (51 T.S.) are noted on the 1898 Torres Strait cylinders. In his 2001 document, Will Prentice [now Training and Dissemination Manager, British Library Sound Archive] noted that some of the cylinder lids had been mixed up but he had tried to ensure that the cylinder lids were correct.⁴⁴ Manual checking of the cylinders at the Library will determine whether bases and lids can be re-matched.

Renaming

In April 2020, Don Niles suggested to the True Echoes team at the Library that the cylinders collected in 1898 did not belong in the Seligman New Guinea collection (C62), which at that time contained the cylinders collected in British New Guinea in both 1898 and 1904. He suggested that the two parts of the C62 collection should be split up. Following discussions with Janet Topp Fargion, Head of Sound & Vision, it was decided that the cylinders collected in British New Guinea in 1898 as part of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits should be reunited with the cylinders collected from the Torres Strait on the same expedition, known as the Torres Strait Cylinders. The cylinders collected in 1904 stayed in the C62 collection, which was renamed the Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to British New Guinea 1904 Cylinder Collection (C62).

The C80 collection has been renamed the Alfred Cort Haddon 1898 Expedition (Torres Strait and British New Guinea) Cylinder Collection to take into account both the Torres Strait and British New Guinea provenances.

Related Collections

Following the end of the official expedition in November 1898, Haddon, Myers, Ray, Seligmann and McDougall travelled to Sarawak.⁴⁵ Recordings made in Borneo are part of the British Library’s Borneo cylinders collection (C666).

A small number of Myers’ wax cylinders are in the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. This includes two cylinders recorded in the Torres Strait Islands but apparently none from British New Guinea. According to Ziegler (2006:230-231), the cylinders are originals with documentation included in a letter from Myers to Hornbostel dated 29 June 1907. Hornbostel (1913) includes some description of Torres Strait music, citing Myers’ work in the Cambridge Reports.⁴⁶ Stumpf (1911) also includes transcriptions of these recordings.

Two members of the expedition, Seligmann and Rivers, went on to use the phonograph to produce their own anthropological recordings in subsequent research. These recordings can be found in the British Library collections Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to New Guinea 1904 Cylinder Collection (C62) and Western District, British Solomon Islands Protectorate 1908 Cylinder Collection (C108).

The expedition members had signed an agreement that objects from the Torres Strait and British New Guinea would be presented to the University of Cambridge in recognition of its financial support (Herle 1998:79). Nearly 1300 artefacts from the expedition are now in the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), with a particular focus on the Eastern Islands (Herle 1998:79).

Haddon and his team collected musical instruments and ritual and other objects related to the sound recordings from both the Torres Strait Islands and British New Guinea. They collected musical instruments, masks, charms and spinning tops from Mer, dance and other ornaments and figures from Mabuiag, a figure and the model of a shrine from Waier, and a mask from Saibai.⁴⁷ They collected musical instruments, dance sticks, and ritual figures from the areas they visited in Western and Central Provinces of New Guinea.

Most of the photographs from the Expedition are also in the MAA. Most were taken by Wilkin but Haddon directed the photographic work (Edwards 1998:110). There are nearly 300 photographs from the Torres Strait, around 300 from present-day Central Province, and a few from Kiwai and the Fly River Delta. There is also a collection of 40 half-plate photographs taken by Wilkin are held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (90.4a.1-40, Edwards 1998:111, fn 27).

Field notes and related archival material, including the Haddon Papers (MS.Haddon) and the Charles Myers Papers (MSS.Add.8073-8074), are in Cambridge University Library. The Haddon Papers also include papers of WHR Rivers and Wilkin’s 1898 field notebook.⁴⁸

Seligmann’s fieldnotes and journal from the expedition are held at the LSE Library Archives and Special Collections (Ref. SELIGMANN). Ray’s papers are held at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. This includes linguistic and ethnographic papers (PP MS 3) and copies of journals and correspondence relating to the Cambridge Expedition (MS 380314). The originals are held in the Michael Somare Library at the University of Papua New Guinea.⁴⁹

Film footage produced on the expedition from 5-6 September 1898 is held at the British Film Institute (ID 20149). Further copies are held by the AIATSIS and the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia (Long & Laughren 1993).

Two members of the Expedition, Seligmann and Rivers, went on to use the phonograph to produce their own anthropological recordings in subsequent research. These recordings can be found in the British Library collections Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to New Guinea 1904 Cylinder Collection (C62) and Western District, British Solomon Islands Protectorate 1908 Cylinder Collection (C108).

Margaret Lawrie also documented the history, languages and cultures of the Torres Strait Island in the 1950s to 1970s, with this work complementing the work of the Cambridge Expedition. The Margaret Lawrie Collection is now held by the State Library of Queensland. Lawrie’s audio and moving image collections are held by AIATSIS.

Jeremy Beckett made a number of recordings in the Torres Strait in 1960 and 1961, including on Mer / Murray Island and Saibai Island. The collection ‘Sound recordings collected by Jeremy Beckett, 1960-1961’ [BECKETT_J04] is held by AIATSIS. A selection of recordings – including Malu-Bomai songs – was published by AIATSIS as an LP entitled ‘Traditional music of Torres Strait’ in 1972 and later published on cassette in 1981. Both items are held by AIATSIS (call number PR_00049) along with a corresponding booklet (KIT B396.72/T1). Beckett noted the similarity between his recordings and the songs recorded by the 1898 Cambridge Expedition as part of the Mabo Case, 1986 (Koch 2019).

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