A 'Natural' exhibitioner: Sir Ashton Lever and his Holosph Usi Kon

British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 1-13

  Haynes, Clare ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33751173998     PISSN: 0141867X     EISSN: 17540208     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1754-0208.2001.tb00427.x     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Quoted, tor example, in R. D. Altick, The Shows of London (London 1978), p.30
2. Rules and Orders of the Toxophilte Society Instituted at Leicester House Anno Domini MDCCLXXXI (London 1784)
3. T. Roberts, The English Bowman or Tracts on Archery (London 1801), p.79
4. For a contrasting account of collecting which emphasises 'desire', see Nicholas Thomas. 'Licensed Curiosity: Cook's Pacific Voyages', in The Cultures of Collecting. ed. J. Eisner and R. Cardinal (London 1994). p.116-36
5. See Porter's 'Gentlemen and Geology: The Emergence of a Scientific Career. 1660-1920', The Historical Journal 21, 4 (T978). p.809-36, esp. P.8Γ5
6. For Banks, see J. Gascoigne. Joseph Banks und the English Enlightenment (Cambridge 1994). For Lord Bute
7. see D. P. Millar. '"My favourite studdys": Lord Bute as Naturalist', in Lord Bute: Essays in Re-interpretation. ed. K. W. Schweizer (Leicester 1988)
8. See R. Holt-White, The Life and Letters of Gilbert White of 'Selbourne. 2 vols (London 1901). passim. and J. B. Nichols. Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (London T817-1858). vii.469, for suggestive discussions of Lever in this regard. Excerpts from Lever's advertisements are printed in W. ]. Smith, 'The Life and Activities of Sir Ashton Lever of Alkxington, 1729-1788', Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 72 (1962), p.61-92. Lever was an active supporter of other collections and was particularly generous to Richard Greene, who had a similar but smaller museum in Lichfield. Greene dedicated a catalogue of his collection jointly to Sir Ashton and Thomas Pennant (R. Greene. Catalogue of the Lichfield Museum. Lichfield 1786)
9. A. Ophir and S. Shapin, 'The Place of Knowledge: A Methodological Survey', Science in Context 4 (1991), p.3-21
10. See Holt-White, The Life and Letters of Gilbert White
11. See Altick, The Shows of London, and The Diary of Thomas Turner, 1754-1765, ed. D. Vaisey (Oxford 1984), passim, for metropolitan and rural natural exhibitions
12. For Hunter's interest in Byrne, see J. Kohler, The Reluctant Surgeon (New York 1960)
13. Quoted in Gascoigne, Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment, p. 92
14. See Shapin's "Ά Scholar and a Gentleman": The Problematic Identity of the Scientific Practitioner in Early Modern England', History of Science 29 (1991), p.279-327
15. This information is taken from a biographical account of Lever which was published as a 'puff to encourage sales of lottery tickets for the sale of the collection in The European Magazine, August 1784, p.83-85
16. A description of the collection during this period was published in the Gentleman's Magazine 43 (1773), p.219-21. For the prominence of Lever's collection in the area
17. see J. Ogden, A Poem, on the Museum at Alkrington Belonging to Sir Ashton Lever (Manchester 1774)
18. Smith, 'The Life and Activities of Sir Ashton Lever', p.75
19. For Thomas Barritt (1743-1820), see DNB
20. Holt-White, The Life and Letters of Gilbert White, i.260, 262
21. Patricia Kell's comment that 'the single most impressive act of social advancement through the medium of the collection was that of Sir Ashton Lever's knighthood' is, I think, an overstatement (British Collecting 1656-1800: Scientific Inquiry and Social Practice, Oxford University unpublished D.Phil. 1996. p.247). Lever's father had been knighted by George Π in 1736 after his term of office as High Sheriff of Lancashire and, therefore, in the context of his family and other interests, Lever's elevation appears less extraordinary
22. A Catalogue of the Valuable Library of Sir Ashton Lever consisting of Books [...] together with the beautiful drawings in Natural History by Miss Stone which will be sold by Auction by Leigh and Sotheby (British Library, PR1B44). The catalogue sheds new light on how Sarah Stone's watercolours left Lever's possession. Lever may have commissioned the drawings from the artist for a catalogue of the collection I believe he was planning but which was never completed. However, the watercolour illustrated here does not appear to have been among those sold in the auction. For the work of Sarah Stone
23. see C. E. Jackson, Sarah Stone. Natural Curiosities from the New Worlds (London 1998)
24. Sophie in London, the Diary of Sophie v. La Roche, ed, C. Williams (London 1936), p.112
25. For cabinets of curiosity, see The Origins of Museums, ed. O. R. Impey and A. G. MacGregor (Oxford 1985), and K. Whitaker. 'The Culture of Curiosity', in Cultures of Natural History, ed. N. Jardine, J. A. Secord and E. C. Spary (Cambridge 1996). There was a similar arrangement at the British Museum
26. See R. and J. Dodsley, The General Contents of the British Museum (London 1761), and E. Miller, That Noble Cabinet: A History of the British Museum (London T973)
27. Geo. III 24. Cap. XXII, p.318. The inventory was attached as a schedule to the Act of Parliament which allowed Lever to proceed to dispose of the Collection by lottery (1784, Geo. III 24. Cap. XXII). This is the only list of the collection during the time of Lever's ownership. Unfortunately, it is very sketchy. For an account of the disposal of the collection
28. see Smith, 'The Life and Activities of Sir Ashton Lever', and J. C. H. King, 'New Evidence for the Contents of the Leverían Museum', Journal of the History of Collections 8.2 (T996), p.167- 86
29. In one of his many advertisements Lever mentions this room in the following terms: 'As Mr Lever has in his collection some very curious monkies and monsters, which might disgust the Ladies. a separate room is appropriated for their exhibition. and the examination of those only who chuse it' (quoted in Jackson, Sarah Stone, p.37). By 1784, when the schedule was made, the 'Monkies' had been removed from the room and placed in the main suite of rooms on the first floor
30. The Diary of Sylas Neville, 1767-17SS, ed. B. Cozens-Hardy (London 1950), p.295
31. January 1782, p.16
32. Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith, ed. A. Friedman, vol.5 (Oxford 1966), p.229-30
33. The contrast of the hummingbird to the ostrich was a comparison recognised as demonstrating the variety encompassed both within the class of birds and more widely in nature. As Richard Brookes put it in his The Natural History of Birds. 'Of all the birds. the ostrich is the greatest, and the American humming-bird the least. In these the gradations of nature are strongly marked' (quoted by Goldsmith in The Critical Review, reproduced in Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith. ed. Friedman, i.240
34. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, epistle I. line 6
35. For secondary treatments of this issue, see E. R. Wassermann, 'Nature Moralized: The Divine Analogy in the Eighteenth Century', English Literary History 20 (1953). p.39-76, and J. Brooke. Science and Religion (Cambridge 1991)
36. A Poetical Epistle to Sir Ashton Lever (1784). For Stockdale (1736-1811), see DNB
37. Quoted in Altick, The Shows of London, p.29
38. The European Magazine, January 1782, p.20
39. For discussions of the issues involved, see R. Wokler, 'Tyson and Buffon on the Orang- utan', SVEC 151-155 (1976), p.2301-19, and Inventing Human Science. Eighteenth-Century Domains, ed. C. Fox, R. Porter and R. Wokler (London 1995)
40. Quoted in Inventing Human Science, ed. Fox, Porter and Wokler. p.16. See Robert Wokler's article in this book for the development of 'conjectural' anthropology
41. The European Magazine. January 1782. p.2τ
42. Williams, Sophie in London. p. 115
43. For discussion of taxonomy and its position in eighteenth-century natural history, see J. Roger. 'The Living World', in The Ferment of Knowledge. ed. G. Rousseau and R. Porter (Cambridge T980), and A. M. Leroi, 'The Name of the Beast', London Review of Books. 11 December 1997. p.3-5
44. I use 'curiosity' in the positive sense that the term could carry during the period. For a consideration of the multivalent nature of the term 'curiosity', see B. M. Benedict, 'The Curious Attitude in Eighteenth-Century Britain'. Eighteenth-Centuni Life 14 (3) (1990). p.59- 98
45. Reproduced in Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith, ed Friedman, v.349-50
46. The journals of Captain James Cook. ed. J. Beaglehole (Cambridge 1967-1974), vol.3. part II, p.1558
47. See also P. Kell, British Collecting 1656-1800, passim, for further evidence of informed appreciation of Lever's collection