IOO 



THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY & NATURALIST. 



native of the Isle of Wight and widely 

 connected with its families a general desire 

 was felt lor a public museum. Mr. 

 Wilkins, a local surgeon who took a very active part 

 in its establishment, obtained the consent of the Isle 

 of Wight Philosophical Society and the members of 

 the Isle of Wight Institution to the removal of their 

 collection to a room at the Guildhall, lent by the Cor- 

 poration of Newport. 



In 1855 the British Archaeological Association held 

 its annual meeting at Newport, and the interest 

 excited led to the offering of gifts to the museum until 

 the room was crowded. The museum was managed 

 by a committee, who, in an evil day, removed it to 

 more spacious apartments for which rent had to be 

 paid, and eventually to a house, which they rented 

 tor the purposes of the museum in Lugley-street. 

 Interest soon after began to flag, the subscriptions 

 fell off, and Mr. Wilkins, the curator, had to pay out 

 of his own pocket the balance of the rent. Thinking 

 he had a lien upon the collection, he removed part of 

 it to his own house, and stored the remainder in a 

 house in Holyrood-street. After Mr.Wilkins's death 

 in 1881, Mr. Roach Pittis, the President of the Young 

 Men's Literary Society, and Mr John Wood, its great 

 benefactor, heard that his executors were negotiating 

 a sale of the portion of the I. W. Museum at his house, 

 and his private geological collection, out of the 

 Island. They brought the matter before the com- 

 mittee, who agreed to give them house room, and 

 some of them subscribed for and purchased the col- 

 lections. Mr. W. B. Mew, who had a lien upon the 

 other portion of the collection for rent due in Holy- 

 rood-street, generously handed it over to the com- 

 mittee. 



It is to be feared the museum maybe again sent upon 

 its wanderings, as several members of the Literary 

 Society, who have no appreciation of such things, look 

 upon it askance, and grudge the room it occupies. It 

 was thought desirable that the geological portion of the 

 collection should be arranged as perfectly as possible, 

 and Mr. Keeping, the curator of the Woodwardian 

 Museum at Cambridge, who is more familiar than 

 most vrith Isle of Wight geology, was engaged to do 

 it. The remainder of the museum was arranged by 

 Mr. John Wood, whose last days were devoted to 

 this, to him, labour of love. Unfortunately, Mr. 

 Wood was not a scientific man, but it would seem a 

 sacrilege to interfere thus early with his work, which 

 remains as he left it. 



You will be able to understand that, removed from 

 place to place as the museum has been, a large 

 number of specimens have disappeared and the labels 

 from other specimens have been displaced ; and now, 

 in my opinion, the archaeological portion of it is very 

 poor. Of course, the Island is visited by many anti- 

 quaries who have been only too glad to secure speci- 

 mens which have been taken away. Lord Londes- 

 borough purchased a magnificent collection of objects 



collected from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery on Chessell 

 Down, and a great many other things which should 

 never have been allowed to leave the Island have 

 gone from it. I think the State should 

 support local museums in every district in 

 which the minutest object of interest, in which 

 what are really ancient monuments illustrative 

 of the history of the district, should be stored. We 

 have here collections of coins of various kinds, also of 

 old deeds and documents and of minerals and shells. 

 As all who have had to do with local museums know, 

 a great deal of lumber is shot into them, which has 

 nothing at all to do with the district or its produc- 

 tions. It is so here. The geological portion ot the 

 collection fairly well illustrates the rocks which are 

 at the surface in the Isle of Wight. The most 

 interesting specimen, perhaps, is one of the phal- 

 anges of the claw of the iguanodon. With reference 

 to the archaeological collection, I may say we have in 

 the valleys between the downs, in the centre of the 

 Island, most interesting remains of the pits which, 

 when roofed over with straw, ferns, and dry grass 

 formed the dwellings of our Celtic ancestors. Mr. 

 Kell investigated and described them ; and \ve have 

 bones of animals used for food from them, and among 

 them human bones in a state which leaves little doubt 

 that these pit dwellers were cannibals. All over the 

 Island are scattered the burial places of its ancient 

 inhabitants, and more particularly upon the downs. 

 These are the graves of the pre-Roman inhabitants, 

 in which no traces of metal have been found, and 

 in which the remains have not been burnt ; the 

 graves in which Romano-British interments have 

 taken place, and in which the remains have been 

 incinerated in some cases, and in others not, and in 

 which there are often found ornaments and weapons 

 of bronze, and in some cases of iron ; and the 

 post Roman or Anglo-Saxon graves in 

 which gold and silver ornaments have been 

 found and other bricks in great quantity, evidencing 

 the great material prosperity of the inhabitan ts of 

 those days. Dr. Groves then called attention to a 

 very interesting specimen presented by Capt. Thorp, 

 from a barrow he opened on Nunwell Down in 1881. 

 It consists of a skull and femur, and an urn, or food 

 vessel. On one side of the skull is a cut through the 

 bone corresponding with a flint flake found im- 

 mediately beneath it and corresponding with it, the 

 suggestion being that it was the instrument which 

 caused death. There were also two water-washed 

 pebbles, about the size of a large hen's egg, found, 

 one on each side the skeleton. As an example of a 

 Romano-British interment he pointed loan enameled 

 fibula in the form of a hare, found just below the 

 right knee of a skeleton without the skull, which 

 evidently had not been interred with it, and a pierced 

 and ornamental bag of bronze found halfway down 

 the right thigh bone. These came from the Romano- 

 British cemetery on Bowcombe Down, the grave 

 having been opened by Mr. Hillier in 1854. The 



