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| A tray of loose artefacts - few labels visible amateur excavations at Welbeck Hill |
In 2019 via this blog, I reflected on a rather disturbing moment in the history of early Anglo-Saxon burial archaeology. You can read about the incident yourself on my blog-post from 9 February 2019: ‘Selling dead bodies and mortuary artefacts in the UK today: Welbeck Hill‘. I had subsequently learned that the collection being sold by Hansons went to auction in the following year: March 2020. I’m writing again now following email communications on this matter with the son of the amateur archaeologist, the late Gordon Taylor, who had excavated the Welbeck Hill. I refer to Geoffrey Taylor who contacted me directly via email on Monday 10 July as follows:Rather aggressive, not to mention the spelling. In fact, that photo is already in the public domain plastered all over the Internet (with the disgusting one of the skull from the wardrobe the Taylor family reportedly with huge insensitivity called "Charlie"). The dissemination of this same photo includes those part of the Hanson's press campaign to benefit the family's sale of the items, they are on the BBC report and a Daily Mail one, I wonder whether Geoffrey Taylor has sent them a similar misspelt threatening letter.William’s, I suggest that you take down the photographs of my late farther from your web site. And retract the comments you wrote that taylor was incapable of publishing welbeck hill , a.s.a.p. I will give you 14 days then I will contact my solicitor. G Taylor
Certainly, this case deserves discussion, certainly Mr Taylor senior, took on a responsibility, a public trust, in starting to dig up these graves (and then passed it on to his heirs). There is no reason to hide his name or the details of what he did there. I think the photo has a valid part in that discussion about who he was and what his motives might have been.
Mr Taylor's solicitor may earn quite a bit explaining to his client why taking Professor Williams to court over an old blog post may prove to have an unsatisfactory outcome. Rather the family should have thought about the reactions that selling the items would provoke, and in particular the way Hanson's decided to market them, using the skull photo and story. Rather, in my opinion, that is what does not put the Taylor family in such a good light. And I am entitled to have my opinion on the basis of what I read in the extensive media coverage of the sale.
5 comments:
Maybe you and William's should think before you write on your blogs after all You both contradict yourselves. Pathetic.
William's what, Honesty?
There is some thought goes into these posts, if you see a contradiction here, then it would be adding to the discussion if you would more articulately say what it is, rather than just nitpicking and trolling.
Thought !, I doubt it you write total rubbish fuelled by your obsession for bones. Surely you are aware that bones are an important contribution to archaeology!! Or maybe not. Maybe you and your fellow blogger would be better served concentrating on illegal metal detecting !!
Firstly thank you for your interesting blog. I have learned quite a lot. Regarding Welbeck Hill and the excavations by the late Gordon Taylor, I wonder if your uneasiness about this matter would have been alleviated if the amateur archaeologist had been more like the famous amateur archaeologist, Basil Brown, the excavator of Sutton Hoo who was fortunate to be backed by a receptive museum and a very affluent landowner (Edith Pretty)? The latter was certainly wealthy enough to afford to “gift” the finds to the British Museum. Like Brown, Mr Taylor was not one of the “gentlemen archaeologists” who plundered British and international sites from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, e.g. Lord Elgin. Like Brown, he was of a modest background and was self taught not just through methodical study but also through correspondence with European archaeologists with whom he shared his finds and discussed comparability with discoveries abroad. Mr. Taylor was an educated, intelligent and very moral man. His excavations at Welbeck were not the work of a treasure hungry opportunist grave robber with a shovel but the dedicated and detailed work of a man who deeply loved and lived history and wanted to discover and share it with others. My understanding is that he approached Lincoln Museum, amongst others, and was rebuffed with a casual arrogance and condescension in this country that left him disheartened and greatly disappointed. Without the support of benefactors of the stature and importance to those Brown enjoyed the patronage of, he was left with little outlet for his detailed and meticulous investigation. If Mr. Taylor had not bicycled and ridden his motorbike ladden with his equipment, from Cleethorpes to Welbeck, at weekends and holidays, for over 17 years and unlike Brown was not paid to do this, to investigate a site, he had found through extensive fieldwalking, we may never have had the chance to view and study the significant finds he made. Maybe with early twenty first century ethics he might have done his dedicated work differently. He was a man of his time. Are we also fortunate that his family chose to keep all of the collection together and to sell it to a local museum rather than be mercenary in the way you suggest and sell to the highest bidders? Mr. Taylor was a man with a moral compass, integrity and a strong sense of right and wrong. His motives were purely and simply rooted in the love and discovery of history and the sharing of this. Perhaps we should consider glasshouses before we start “casting the first stone”. Given the recent furore over the Elgin Marbles and other examples of misappropriated archaeological human remains, such as the numerous Egyptian artefacts in national institutions like the British Museum, or the many human remains discovered as a result of the scar of HS2’s excavation, which now sit catalogued, tagged and packed into boxes in many similar institutions, we might be better served putting the larger “houses in order” before we decry and malign the committed and careful little man.
I get this very strong “them” (gentlemen archaeologists) and “us” (little man [“approached the Museum and rebuffed with a casual arrogance and condescension”]) vibes from this text which obscure the two main points. It really does not matter who Gordon Taylor “was not”, and whether there was in 1962-75 “a receptive museum” at Scunthorpe.
There are two issues, first is his taking on such a large project (and continuing to expand it over more than a decade) not having the resources to deal with it properly in his lifetime. There was a Grimsby Archaeological Society, but it did not last long enough to see the project through. We should recognise that this was typical of the way that archaeology was operating in the 60s and 70s of course. But this LEADS to the discussion I am trying to have here... what to do with the backlog of information and material generated? Above all, "whose" is it?
Because the point of an excavation is NOT to “have had the chance to view and study the significant finds he made” (which we did not when they were locked in his wardrobe for over 40 years!). The point is as self-appointed excavator to observe and document archaeological contexts and PUBLISH the results. Newspaper cuttings of the time show he was aware of this - https://northeastlincolnshirearchaeology.wordpress.com/site-index/welbeck-hill/ He decided to take on this task.
Did he do that? No (in fact, is there even a single actual report/article on the work he was doing by his own pen?). Moreover, as I noted in the original post, the auctioneer’s photos show that at some stage after excavation, the labels on the finds had become muddled up (in that wardrobe?).
You write: “Maybe with early twenty first century ethics he might have done his dedicated work differently”, no these same principles of ethics already existed in the 1960s. They aree as they were then, the actotr that differentiated amateur archaeology from Treasure hunting (which Taylor denied being).
“Are we also fortunate that his family chose to keep all of the collection together and to sell it to a local museum rather than be mercenary in the way you suggest and sell to the highest bidders?” What? Do your research. Read the posts I made please, from the BEGINNING. The Hansons auction blurb.
This is of course the second main point that I, Professor Williams and others are making, about the creation of an archaeological archive that is then sold off. Let me be clear, here the criticism is not so much of the excavator, but the family (perhaps in cahoots with the landowners and their descendants) that treat the archaeological heritage Mr. Taylor accumulated as a cash cow (though his blame also exists that he did not make arrangements for the ethical and public-spirited disposal of this material before he died).
You attempted “two wrongs make a right” argumentation don’t really deflect from the need to actually discuss this particular case and the relevance it has to other examples of this sort of archaeological material in private hands in the UK (and beyond). And the issue of archaeological approaches to selling finds in general.
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