Documenting the Past - The Tomlin archive
John Read le Brockton Tomlin was one of the most highly respected shell collectors of his time. Amgueddfa Cymru holds both his extensive shell collection and his archive of correspondence.
It is an archive not only of scientific history, capturing a bygone era of collecting, but also a personal insight into the lives of some of the most famous shell collectors of the day.
The archive is estimated to contain well over a thousand documents dating from the early 1800's through to the mid 1900's. It is a collection of all of the correspondence between Tomlin and his many shell associates around the world.
Many interesting discoveries have been made whilst cataloguing this archive. It has brought into focus aspects of the lives of collectors, recounting expeditions and voyages, personal illness and hardship, war, dinner invitations and Christmas cards.
A selection of items from the archive have been made available below.
Tomlin Archive
INTIMATE INSIGHTS: A photograph of the Japanese shell collector, Shintaro Hirase, his wife and six children.
INTIMATE INSIGHTS: A letter from Yoichiro Hirase relating how his ill health has led to the closure of his museum in Kyoto, Japan.
"I often feel a sever pain in the abdomen and an attack of fever. A complete rest is of the greatest importance to me, and I am, therefore, obliged to be still and lie quietly in bed".
INTIMATE INSIGHTS: A Christmas card from William Evens Hoyle, the first director of Amgueddfa Cymru, 1909-1926.
INTIMATE INSIGHTS:
Seasons greetings and a poem!
"Here, direct from a Ceylon friend
A Butter-firkin cone I send.
'Tis said to be the largest known,
(Well, friend, that's not for me to own)
Linnaeus, Martini, Sowerby, Reeve,
Might have a bigger up their sleeve.
If this should prove the largest size
'Twould be to me a great surprise.
Notice its bulk and elevation,
("The finest Betulinus in Creation").
INTIMATE INSIGHTS: Letter from the American shell collector, Joseph Emerson, announcing his retirement.
"...Now I am 86 and a half years old and I must say finis to a work which I love and have been engaged in so long. It is too great a tax on my nerves...".
INTIMATE INSIGHTS: A dinner invitation "Soused salmon, remnant of lamb and a salad will be ready for you here at six tomorrow".
INTIMATE INSIGHTS: An invitation from Reverend Ellerton Alderson to Tomlin, proposing a visit to his house in West Sussex. "The nearest railway station at Goring is practically useless, the train service being, as you justly remark 'putidious' ".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: Postcard from W. Junk, Berlin, 18 April 1933. "Though of Jewish origin, I have not been disturbed".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: A postcard from a German shell collector and dealer Martin Holtz, 1 February 1928.
"By the war however my whole existence is destroyed and especially as naturalist, traveller and dealer. In want of means and without support, I am unable to continue my scientifical enterprises".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: A postcard from the Japanese conchologist Yoichiro Hirase, 1 December 1918. "I wish you the merriest of Xmases and the happiest of new Years, with every kind of good fortune, especially on this occasion when the cheerful light of peace has begun to dawn to drive away the gloomy clouds of terrors and horrors, overhanging the whole world for these four and a half years, which have been caused by the Great European War, the most horrible and the most extensive disturbance that has ever been experienced on earth".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: Letter from the American conchologist Walter Eyerdam, 4 August 1935. "My wife and baby girl of 3 and a half years have been in Germany since Christmas. They will soon start for home. My wife seems to be very inspired over the new system as put in force by Adolf Hitler and the revival of progress and national Spirit amongst the Germans. My sincerest wish is that there should never be a rift again between Germany and England...".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: Letter from La Société Guernesiaise, 12 October 1946. "We ate limpets as long as there were any, they were sold in the market for 2/- a small (very small) bowl. The Germans ate them too during the latter part of their stay when their food did not come through after D. Day".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: Letter from the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, Edinburgh. 4 February 1918 "Never was any material in my laboratory more inaccessible than it is at present under war conditions. I have no staff (all serving or killed), and it is quite impossible for me to handle the Mollusca you ask me for".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: Letter from the Honorary Secretary of the Biology War Committee, 4 December 1944. "The Biology War Committee has been asked...for information on the dangers of swimming in tropical waters...I should be very grateful if you could give me any information on the distribution of clams or other mollusca which might either catch swimmers or in any way inconvenience them".
COLLECTING IN ADVERSITY / WAR: Portrait of Arthur Douglas Bacchus. (Reserve) Household Battalian, Combermere Barracks, Windsor. 17 January 1917
EXPEDITIONS AND HOLIDAYS: Letter from C. Hughes describing his holiday in America, 19 April 1892. "Our American trip was enchanting! We saw all the Chief Eastern towns — went 9000 miles in a special train — saw the Yellowstone Park and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in Arizona...Rode on horseback 40 miles a day, slept under trees in the forests at night and were out in the thunder and sand storms...The Grand Canyon was beyond words...".
EXPEDITIONS AND HOLIDAYS: An American conchologist, Junius Henderson, collecting molluscs in Colorado. "A sort of a conchologist in 'cowboy' leather 'chaps' collecting molluska on Grand Mesa, Colorado at an altitude of 10000 ft. 1923...".
EXPEDITIONS AND HOLIDAYS: Letter from the Australian conchologist, Charles Hedley recounting a long holiday in Africa. 11 April 1925
"I wondered leisurely through the Great Rift Valley, one of the geological wonders of the world, down to Nairobi. After wasting a week trying to buy a giraffe for the Sydney Zoo, I moved on to Kilimanjaro".
EXPEDITIONS AND HOLIDAYS: Continuation of letter from Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, 19 November 1927. "We left the boat at Port Said and went to Cairo and saw Pyramids and Sphinx. The things in Museum at Cairo are more splendid than the published pictures could reveal...We had about 8 hours at Naples — saw the Zoological Station and went to Pompei".
EXPEDITIONS AND HOLIDAYS: Letter written at sea by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell. 'Just passing out of Bab-el-Mandeb' [a strait located between Yemen, Djibouti and Eritrea], 19 November 1927
"I sketch at sides the topography on both sides of Bab-el-Mandeb. It is volcanic and amazingly like that of the lesser Madeira Islands. That is French Somaliland is like the Desertas and the Arabian side is like Porto Santo".
EXPEDITIONS AND HOLIDAYS: Anthony Arkell — Sudan (c. 1925)
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: "Just me in one of my dreams". Thompson van Hyning - Florida State Museum, 27 April 1925.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: Photograph of a meeting in Vienna, July 1930.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: The collectors Phillipe Dautzenberg, Charles Hedley and Henri Fischer - Paris, October 1912.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: The collectors Emery and Elsie Chace and Daniel Emery - St Petersburg, Florida.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: The French collector Eugène Caziot, 1923.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: John Wesley Carr from the Natural History Museum, Nottingham.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: Amateur conchologist, Henry Burnup who settled in South Africa in 1894.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: The British collector Arthur Edwin Boycott, 1925.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: The American collector Frank Collins Baker in his collection.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING: Collectors Robert Tucker Abbott, Bill Clench and Emery Chace - San Pedro, 1940.