The British Museum

Gillray cartoon of Sarah Sophia Banks.

She had a loud, even strident voice, was tall and imposing, and cut an unmistakable figure striding along the streets or through the parks, always accompanied by a servant carrying a long cane... [she] drove a four-in-hand with the skill and confidence of a man, and was skilled in archery and fishing.

The British Museum

Trade card.

Her collection of over 20,000 items included visiting cards (ordered into such categories as 'Dukes down to Barons, by order of precedence' (673)), and a vast miscellany including newspaper paragraphs, views, admission tickets, tradesmen's cards, ladies' fashions, bill heads, bills, prospectuses, plans, election cards, bankers' cards, lottery tickets, passports, coats of arms, tea certificates, receipts for the delivery of coal, political caricatures, invitations, maps, portraits, depictions of funerals and public ceremonies, turnpike tickets, vignettes and title-pages, puzzle portrait cards and exhibition tickets.

This she bequeathed to her sister-in-law who presented it to the British Museum. The Department of Prints and Drawings now has about 19,000 items from Sarah Sophia's collection. In addition there are nine volumes of broadsides, newspaper cuttings and other prints in the British Library.

The British Museum

Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-97).

Although virtually unknown today, Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-97), is arguably the most important collector in the history of the British Museum, and one of the greatest collectors of his age. His name, as donor, can be seen on a myriad of labels and registers throughout the Museum: Iznik pottery, Iron Age metalwork, Continental porcelain, medals, bookplates, and much more. From the Department he controlled for 30 years from 1866 are descended five of today's 10 curatorial departments. Franks was a collector on such a scale that it is difficult to comprehend how he managed the mechanics of the operation, particularly as he was in full-time employment. His vast bequest of 1897 included 3,300 finger rings, 153 drinking vessels, a collection of 512 pieces of continental porcelain, 1500 netsuke, 850 inro, over 30,000 bookplates and miscellaneous items of jewellery and plate. He had previously given some 7,000 objects in addition to the large numbers of items he bought with official funds. Sadly, because of the unexplained disappearance of his private papers, it is difficult to piece together his unofficial collecting activities.

He wrote towards the end of his career:

I think I may fairly say that I have created the department of which I am now Keeper, and at a very moderate cost to the country. When I was appointed to the Museum in 1851 the scanty collections out of which the department has grown occupied a length of 154 feet of wall cases, and 3 or 4 table cases. The collections now occupy 2250 feet in length of wall cases, 90 table cases and 31 upright cases, to say nothing of the numerous objects placed over the cases or on walls.

After citing family collections of manuscripts, books, birds, fruit, minerals, plants and oil paintings, Franks remarks:

The collecting disease may have come into my mother's family through my great grandmother Sarah Knight, first cousin to the eminent Payne Knight.

Another common element, which seems to be lacking in this instance, however, is a childhood passion for collecting, Franks merely remarking on a precocious interest in copying Egyptian hieroglyphs. The seeds of his collecting activity seem to have been sown when, like many young men of his day, he developed an interest in medieval church architecture at Cambridge University, first collecting drawings of stained glass and then branching out into medieval tiles.

He joined the British Museum in 1851, charged with developing the previously neglected British collections, his family having debated long as to whether the position of museum curator was compatible with his elevated social status.

The British Museum

The Franks Casket.

He was in the enviable position for a curator (today virtually unheard of, at least in the UK) of possessing a large private fortune. The unique ninth-century ivory 'Franks Casket' from Northumbria, with its runic inscriptions was dismissed as 'some Ancient carvings in ivory', and turned down by the Museum's Trustees in 1858 when offered to them for 100 guineas. Typically it re-emerged in 1867 when Franks offered it as a gift. His collecting activities would today probably not be regarded as ethical for a curator, nor would he find it easy to develop new, unplanned, areas of interest.

He was a voracious collector, travelling widely in Britain and the continent of Europe frequenting dealers, museums, salerooms and the homes of private collectors, in his pursuit of objects. Franks was not interested in art objects alone but had a particular affinity for documentary pieces. Although single, he was not a recluse, being one of a circle of collectors, often collecting vicariously, advising his friends in the knowledge that it was most likely that their collections, with careful nudging, would come to the British Museum.

His great bequest of 1897 was valued at £50,000, perhaps as much as £2 million in today's money, and his previous gifts were estimated to have been worth a similar sum. Even this figure fails to do justice to Franks's generosity since single items or groups of items from his collection would fetch far more today were they to appear on the market. An example of such priceless objects is the mysterious Oxus treasure, thought to be a temple deposit, probably found in what is now Tajikistan in the late nineteenth century.

Franks, a polymath--an increasingly rare entity today-- was the epitome of the scholar-collector, writing learned and original articles and maintaining a large correspondence with academics and collectors throughout the world on a vast range of subjects--Japanese flint instruments, Cypriot Bronze Age Metalwork, Anglo-Saxon ivories, Irish trumpets, medieval drinking bowls, Indian sculpture, Mexican turquoise mosaics--to name but a few. His drive to collect never ceased. A few weeks before his death, the Museum's Director wrote of him to a mutual acquaintance:

I have written a sharp letter to Franks and ordered him to go south. There he is in Paris, pottering about after cups and saucers and of course going about it in his usual careless fashion--and catching cold and generally disgusting his anxious friends.

Belk writes 'The sort of shopping that collectors do is as far as it can possibly be from being an odious task. It is instead a treasure hunt, an adventure, a quest, and a delight'. There is such an account by Montague Guest, son of Lady Charlotte Schreiber (1812-95) of one of his mother's collecting forays, when she was, as she termed it, 'en chasse':

The well-known art dealer, Duveen [father of the better known Lord Duveen] was on his way to an isolated village in an inaccessible part of the Netherlands. It could be reached only through a difficult journey by carriage. Nevertheless, in view of some [wonderful pieces of china] owned by one of the local inhabitants, he undertook the expedition. Shortly before reaching his destination he saw another carriage coming in the opposite direction. While passing he caught a glimpse of Lady Charlotte Schreiber, 'only to find that she had snatched the prize, which she was carrying off with her'.

The British Museum

Fan commemorating the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876.

Lady Charlotte is another rather rare female collector, notable as being the only woman amongst A. W. Franks's circle of friends. On Franks's advice she gave her collection of around 1600 pieces of English porcelain--still one of the finest anywhere--to the Victoria & Albert Museum and to the British Museum a collection of fans, fan leaves and playing cards. Among the fans are examples commemorating Vesuvius and the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876.

The daughter of the ninth Earl of Lindsey, she married in 1833 Sir Josiah Guest, owner of an iron works in Wales. She bore him 10 children and, after his death in 1852, for some time successfully managed the works. She learned Welsh and became a distinguished Welsh scholar. She somewhat scandalised her family in 1855 by marrying her children's tutor, Charles Schreiber.

Her son, Montague Guest, remarked in her edited journals that Lady Charlotte had picked up the 'collecting mania' from her children. He wrote:

She had always had within her the spirit of the collector and connoisseur.... She hunted high and low, through England and abroad; France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Turkey, all were ransacked; she left no stone unturned, no difficulty, discomfort, fatigue, or hardship of travel daunted her.