Anne Walbank Buckland

Anne Walbank Buckland, M.A.I. (1832–1899)^[1][2] was a British anthropologist, ethnologist, and travel writer. She presented new ideas on mythology, symbolism and custom.^[3]

Early life

Buckland's father, William Buckland, was a civil engineer and surveyor. The family lived in the rural hamlet of Bremilham, near Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England.^[4][5] By the age of 19, Buckland was working as a governess in Netherbury, Dorset.^[6]

Anthropology

After it voted to admit women on 9 March 1875, Buckland was one of the first women to join The Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (since 1907, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland). She donated a photograph to the Institute, which was used by the Rev. Henry Neville Hutchinson (1856–1927) to encourage and instruct members in collecting quality photographs for ethnological research.^[7] In his 1899 address to members, Frederick William Rudler (1840–1915), the president of the institute, remarked about Buckland, that after more than twenty years of scientific contributions, "No other lady in this country, has to my knowledge, done so much to popularize anthropology as was accomplished by our valued friend".^[8]

Buckland also joined the British Association for the Advancement of Science,^[9] and was elected an Honorary Member of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI) on 23 Mar 1876 for her work in arranging the Lockey Museum (the anthropological section of the museum).^[10][11] Although the Royal Colonial Institute did not permit women to become Fellows during her lifetime, Buckland did attend its meetings.^[12]

Some of her ideas on mythology, symbolism and custom were contrary to other anthropologists at that time, including that agriculturists were the first to worship the moon, that this worship preceded that of the sun deity in Egypt, China and the East, and that it was metallurgists who originated worship of the sun and serpents.^[3] She suggested, that based on the prominence given to the rabbit in artifacts of American sculptures and hieroglyphics, that either the Eastern hemisphere influenced ideas and customs of prehistoric society in America or vice versa.^[3] Fritze^[13] considered Buckland to be a "proto-hyper-diffusionist" who advanced the idea that aspects of ancient culture were dispersed or "diffused" to other cultures and continents by way of trade interactions and migration, rather than arising by coincidence. Later proponents of "hyperdiffusionism", who built upon her work, became more Egyptocentric than she, such as Sir Grafton Elliot Smith (1871–1937).^[13]

Buckland published anthropological papers in The Westminster Review and the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, many of which were the basis of oral presentations at scientific meetings. A collection of her scholarly essays, Anthropological Studies, was recognized internationally and added to the library of the US Bureau of Ethnology (now Bureau of American Ethnology) in 1883.^[14]

Legacy

Great Britain added Buckland to its Civil List Pension, an annual monetary award in recognition of her scientific work.^[15] She provided BRLSI with numerous artifacts for its collection, including several stone implements and weapons collected from Cape Flats, South Africa by Dr. Langham Dale. A contemporary of Buckland, Dale was among the first scholars to recognize and publish findings of prehistoric stone artifacts in southern Africa.^[16] Artifacts associated with Buckland are also in the collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum,^[17] including a Later Stone Age bored stone from the Cape of Good Hope.^[16] Her 1893 book of heirloom international recipes set in historical context is considered a classic culinary text,^[18] continues to be reproduced, and is widely available.^[19]

References

1. "England and Wales Census, 1881". FamilySearch. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
2. Rudler, F. W. (1899). "Address delivered at the anniversary meeting of The Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, January 24th, 1899". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. 28: 325–326. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
3. "Notices of Books". Yn Lior Manninagh – 'The Manx Book'. Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society. 1 (10): 352–357. 1891. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
4. . 1841 North Wiltshire Online Census Project. Archived from the original on 23 October 2016. Retrieved 9 November 2016.
5. "'Engineering and railway works', in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 4, ed. Elizabeth Crittall (London, 1959), pp. 183–219". British History Online. Retrieved 9 November 2016.
6. "Dataset 1851 Census". UKCensusOnline.com. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
7. "Ordinary Meeting. December 6th, 1898". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Trübner & Co. 28: 249. 1899. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
8. Rudler, F. W. (1899). "Address delivered at the anniversary meeting of The Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, January 24th, 1899". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. 28: 325–326. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
9. "People Database, The Invention of Museum Anthropology, 1850–1920". Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
10. Buckland, AW (1872). "Ober Ammergau and its People in connection with the Passion Play and miracle plays in general: a paper read before the Bath Literary and Philosophical Association June 12th 1872". 1893 Foreign Titles from the World Expo. London: Simpkin Marshall & Co. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
11. Buckland, AW (1877). "Our anthropological museum". Chronicle. Bath, England: Bath Literary and Philosophical Association. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
12. "Eighth Ordinary General Meeting". Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. 9: 326. 1878. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
13. Fritze, Ronald H. (2016). Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London: Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781780236858.
14. "Notes and News". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 1 (13): 376. 4 May 1883. JSTOR 1759817.
15. "Scientific Notes and News". Science. New York: American Association for the Advancement of Science. 8 (183): 20–21. 1 July 1898. JSTOR 1627267.
16. Mitchell, Peter (2013). Chapter 2. Stone Age Sub-Saharan Africa In: Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (eds) World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 22–23. ISBN 9781905739585.
17. "Contributors to the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Pitt-Rivers' second collection". The Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
18. "UC Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, Household Books Published in Britain". Regents of the University of California, 2009–13. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
19. Buckland, Anne Walbank (1893). Our viands; whence they come and how they are cooked, with a bundle of old recipes from cookery books of the last century. London: Ward and Downey.