Seminar Conveners: Dr Alex Aylward, Professor Erica Charters, Dr Hohee Cho, Professor Mark Harrison, Professor Rob Iliffe, Dr Catherine M Jackson, Dr Sloan Mahone
Seminars in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
Becky Martin (University of Oxford)
Reconsidering HMS Challenger at 150: Race science, anatomy, and scientific seafaring
Scientists and historians are currently celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 1872-76 HMS Challenger expedition, widely considered to be the foundational voyage of modern oceanography. As well as the ocean’s depth, temperature, flora, and fauna, it is less well-known that the expedition’s scientists were also tasked with taking ‘every opportunity’ to investigate ‘native races’ during their global circumnavigation. This specifically included ‘obtaining photographs’ of people ‘to one scale’, with the image record focussing largely on Pasifika/Pacifica communities. The scientific crew included a young Henry Nottidge Moseley: a former Oxford undergraduate, who later took up the Linacre Chair of Human and Comparative Anatomy and played a key role in establishing the Pitt Rivers Museum.
Using Moseley as an example, I will explore how the investigation of race science interacted with the main oceanographic objectives of the HMS Challenger voyage, with the interests of individuals and their networks, and with subsequent academic work at institutions like the University of Oxford. I will subsequently examine how the narrative of the cruise came to exclude histories of race science, raising questions of legacy, memory, and the purpose of anniversary celebrations. I will end by discussing the role of modern image repetition in perpetuating imperialist harms and explore how we have been considering these questions – alongside the HMS Challenger photographic record – at the NMM in collaboration with Pasifika/Pacifica community members.
Dr Rebecca (Becky) Martin is an historian of colonial medical education, anatomical models, and race science. As well as co-editing the undergraduate textbook Women in the History of Science, she has also co-authored the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Colonial History Report and researched the systematisation of healthcare in late-colonial Nigeria. She recently held a Caird Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, exploring the colonial history of the HMS Challenger expedition and currently works on the AHRC-funded ‘Making the Museum’ project at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
