Address to the Anthropological Society, London / delivered at the Anniversary Meeting, 18th January, 1870, by John Beddoe.

  • John Beddoe
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address to the Anthropological Society, London / delivered at the Anniversary Meeting, 18th January, 1870, by John Beddoe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/14 page 5
    of anthropology, which was one of the best of his works, at once farsighted and moderate, enthusiastic and cautious. It was at this period that Dr. Hunt set on foot the Anthropologi¬ cal Review, which was meant to be a means for diffusing miscellaneous information on anthropological subjects, and also for reporting the proceedings of the Society. This publication, however, soon crystal¬ lised itself, as it were, into its two essential elements, the Review proper, which was still carried on by Dr. Hunt, and the Journal of the An¬ thropological Society, which was published and issued simultaneously with the Review. The subsequent history of Dr. Hunt, as a man of science, is as well known to such of my hearers as were early adherents of the Society as it is to myself. For he so thoroughly devoted himself to the interests of the new body, to which he was bound by so many reciprocal ties, that he may be said to have lived chiefly in and for its life and prosperity. During four years he continued to preside over it, having been three times re-elected to do so. Seeing that the Society had long been established on a firm basis, he was anxious to retire from this position; and in 1867 Captain Burton was elected to succeed him, but Dr. Hunt, as director, continued to labour for the welfare of the Society, the presidency of which he somewhat reluctantly con¬ sented to reassume in 1868. Besides many papers of less importance which appeared in the Anthropological Review, or in the transactions of the British Association, he produced during this period a series of annual presidential addresses, and a paper on the negro’s place in nature, which attracted much attention, and long furnished a text of contention for the two extreme schools of opinion respecting the negro; moreover, he translated for the Society Carl Vogt’s Lectures on Man. He also personally investigated the barrows, megaliths, and other prehistoric monuments of Shetland, Dorset and Bretagne, carried out an extensive series of kephalometrical observations in Norway, and communicated the results of his labours, in more or less detail, to the Society, And at the annual meetings of the British Associa¬ tion, he continued loyally and unweariedly to struggle to secure for his favourite science suitable and permanent recognition, obtaining various measures of satisfaction or disappointment, but remaining always confident of ultimate success. After his retirement from his fourth presidency, a portrait testi¬ monial was presented to his family by a number of fellows of the Society, in order to mark jdieir sense of his great labours and deserts. During his fifth presidency occurred the rapprochement between the Anthropological and Ethnological Societies, which at one time seemed likely to lead to an amalgamation, to which the way had been paved by the pretty general adoption of the principles on which the former had been founded. It may suffice to remind you that on the failure of the negotiations, which occurred through no fault on Dr. Hunt’s part, he loyally carried out an engagement which he had made, by resigning his office, to which Dr. Barnard Davis was elected ; but at the entreaty of that gentleman and of the society generally,
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3