Storytelling at Cambridge University: The turbulent tale of Burton, an armchair, and the Hakluyt Society

After spending some time perusing the Picture Library at the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) I found myself to be increasingly drawn to a series of photographs capturing the interior of the first site of the RGS-IBG, in Savile Row. In these, armchairs are a regular part of the furniture in the rooms and it set in motion my developing thoughts on their presence, symbolism, and material politics.

Council Room

Men’s Smoking Room

RGS House, Savile Row, RGS Picture Library (1871-1912)

I also uncovered this fantastic image of Burton and armchair which is full of juxtapositions and symbolisms!

Captain Richard F Burton (1821-1890)

RGS Picture Library (c.1850-1880)

These visual objects mark an important beginning to the Seminar Paper I gave when I was recently invited to talk at the University of Cambridge by Dr. Phil Howell and Dr. David Beckingham. where I told: ‘The turbulent tale of Richard Burton, an armchair and the Hakluyt Society: A story of nineteenth-century geography and the materialities of exploration’, on 6 November 2014, as part of the Cultural and Historical Geography Seminar Series at the University of Cambridge.

This tale of Burton, an armchair, and the Hakluyt recanted the use and potential of literary spaces in making geographical knowledge in the nineteenth century. In preparing to tell this story, I was able to engage with and open up the wider areas of my research which reflect on sites of active travel and the entangled relations between scholarship, science, and method in nineteenth-century geography. In telling this turbulent tale, the talk itself followed the textual trails of Burton, just as Burton himself followed and remapped the textual geographies of historical travel narratives.

As anxious as I was for presenting this forty-minute paper and the audience’s reaction to some of my newest (and more creative) ideas, it was a wholly worthwhile, enriching, and enjoyable experience. The ensuing discussion was full of enthusiasm and interest for this ‘most curious, yet fabulous’ (as I was told) project. The conversations continued well after the scheduled time and I felt, for possibly the first time, that I had a convincing and workable thesis. The cast of peculiar characters, their relationships to one another, and to the development of geography as a science received the most sustained attention in the comments. I relished the opportunity here to think more broadly about how Burton’s textual travels fitted within my PhD research and reflect on what his entwined practical identities reveal about nineteenth-century geographical practice and its material forms.

This was my first visit back inside the Cambridge University Geography Department building since I graduated from my Undergraduate degree there in 2011. It was rather surreal to be back to show how I have developed my recent research, and to lead a Seminar to postgraduates, researchers, and faculty members. Whilst the old feelings of anxiety over looming deadlines, running late for a lecture, and joyous enlightenment after a brilliant supervision all came flooding back, my position had shifted. I was not there to “learn” others’ specialties, but I was there to impart my developing specialty knowledge. And, I thoroughly enjoyed it! I was treated to a wonderful lunch, drinks, dinner, and was provided with a lovely room in Emmanuel College right in the heart of the city. My favourite moment was being presented with a book, specially picked for me by Dr Phil Howell, which was Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist. It is now proudly displayed on my bookcase!

Department of Geography, University of Cambridge

Emmanuel College

St. Catharine’s College

The following day, I was invited to lunch at high table at my old college, St Catharine’s by my former Director of Studies Dr. Ian Willis which was a special treat. This was followed by a personal tour by Ian and my other DoS, Prof. Ron Martin of the College’s new McGrath Centre – features new state of the art conference centre, swish library, and a swanky underground bar. I am very jealous of the current students!

And, whilst the tale of Burton, an armchair, and the Hakluyt Society was somewhat turbulent, I am proud to say that my own tale was triumphant!

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Beyond the Burton Library: Making Burton’s books travel

Over the summer, I have been reflecting on my IPS research project, its significance and why I believe it to be of exceptional value, as I work to situate it within my wider PhD on ‘armchair geography’. A lot of this time has been spent feeling rather overwhelmed, not just with my 4000+ photos of marginalia I had to trawl through (!), but also with what has the potential to be a huge and enriching project. My Huntington research into the personal library of Richard Burton has revealed potential new pathways where I would be able to further examine the formation, communication, and reception of travel narratives and their use for textual travel. The end of my formal IPS Fellowship was definitely not my final destination for travelling through text with Burton, as within the stacks of Burton’s Library many of these rich textual trails are lying there still waiting to be recovered.

The decision from which vista to view the Burton Library within my PhD has been the most difficult, and it is still something I am working on. I think this is something every researcher feels when they mentally arrive at these critical crossroads; as you ask yourself which direction to take, with each one appearing plausible and significant in its own way… My planning journey has involved mobilising my ideas and taking them into new creative and critical places, and enabling encounters with different audiences. So, I have taken Burton’s books travelling with me over the past few months to two very exciting, and different academic conferences.

Destination One: Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Annual International Conference, 26-29 August 2014

At the RGS-IBG Conference I took the audience “Travelling through text with Burton: Retracing the cabinet journeys of Sir Richard Burton through his personal library” in the Literary Cartographies Session (sponsored by the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group).

In this talk I showcased the potential Burton saw in his books, and particularly the Hakluyt Society publications, for producing geographical knowledges beyond simply their promotion of interesting travel stories. I introduced Burton’s cabinet in Trieste, Italy where Burton last assembled his Library before his death in 1890. It is the place where the majority of the marginalia I engaged with was made.

Sir Richard Burton in his Study

Albert Letchford, oil painting, c.1890s

Collection: Richmond Upon Thames Borough Art Collection, Orleans House Gallery

The audience interest in this talk was mainly focussed on the materiality and form of the marginal notes themselves: their location on the page, and in the book as a whole; whether they were in pen or pencil; if Burton used shorthand, symbols, or drew pictures in his books. It was great to make use of my large bank of images, and see such enthusiasm for them from these new eyes.

Destination Two: Travel in the Marketplace: The materiality of travel in the long nineteenth century, Bangor University, 17-18 September 2014

I took a different approach to this paper and examined a book that had actually travelled into the field and back home again with Burton to see how and in what ways these different mobile geographies were mapped onto this book’s materiality. I unpacked, “The mass of material which I am about to drag over the mountains”: Sir Richard Burton, his books and geographies of exploration.

In his 1860 Lake Regions of Central Africa, Burton detailed ‘The Outfit’ of materials that travelled from the East Coast of Africa to Lake Tanganyika with him. He was equipped with 17 books, namely science and reference manuals, one of which was Francis Galton’s The Art of Travel (1856). I first met this book here and the Rare Books Curator Alan Jutzi remarked on its peculiarity and the intensity of the notes scribbled all over it. Burton filled this practical adventure handbook, with extensive notes and used its pages to itemise a distinctly different set of literary works and language texts to be carried on his expeditions. Burton was working to construct what he believed to be the materials necessary for exploration The contrast between the official outfit of books and the pencil scribbled suggestions provides a unique insight into the workings of the then nascent discipline of geography and the tensions felt in defining its role as an active ‘science’ of travel in the nineteenth century.

The audience for this paper was international and mainly drawn from English departments. It was great to gain an interdisciplinary perspective on the thoughts I was experimenting with in the paper. Unlike at the RGS conference, the attention here was particularly set on the (re)making of the book as an object/instrument of exploration by Burton. This was an idea I was hoping to get across and it is definitely an idea I managed to talk through further with the other Conference delegates who were largely talking about guide-books and their readers.

Garth Pier, Bangor

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Assembling my cabinet (of) geographers: My research exhibition at the RGS-IBG, August-October 2014

Pablo Picasso once declared: “Give me a museum and I’ll fill it”. Whilst I wasn’t given a museum, I was provided with a cabinet. This cabinet was the place where I was to assemble a display of my research in the halls of the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, London. And, in the spirit of Picasso, I filled it with my research’s cast of cabinet geographers.

The cabinet

Me with my cabinet of ‘armchair geography’

The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) is my PhD’s collaborating partner. The purpose behind the case exhibitions was to provide a space within the RGS-IBG to present the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award Studentship research that is being undertaken in the institution. Myself and two other CDA PhD students were invited to exhibit our research and given permission to shine a light on the interesting and unique objects we had been working with in the Foyle Reading Room at the RGS-IBG. The CDA exhibition was launched at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference at the end of September and will be exhibited until the end of October/beginning of November

I was guided through the process of putting my cabinet together by the RGS-IBG Deputy Librarian, Jan Turner. She talked me through their particular style of presentation and modes of display. The purpose of the displays was to showcase their Collections as well as my research. This affected how I came to assemble my research on nineteenth-century cabinet geographers in the given space of the display case. I wanted to present the most interesting visual terrain as the viewer looked down into the case, through mixed media objects. I mostly work with textual sources and maps, but I sometimes venture into handling letters, instruments, maps, handwritten notes, and photographs, which I wanted to vividly show. The assembly process also presented to me the new challenge of engaging with, and writing for a public audience. As the case is situated for the general visitor to view, I chose to use it as a space to introduce my project with my cabinet (of) geographers. I decided to display minimal introductory text and allow the objects to visually communicate the message of my research. The objects from the RGS-IBG Collections themselves were organised visually into three labelled themes:

Defining a discipline of geography

Rennell, J.

Sketch of the Northern Part of Africa:

Exhibiting the Geographical Information collected by the African Association

1790

rgs544625 / mr Africa Div.274

Instruments for making geographical knowledge in the nineteenth century

Armchair geographers

Lopes, D; Pigafetta, F.

Relatione del reame di Congo et delle circonvicine contrade. Tratta dalli scritti et ragionamente di Odoardo Lopez, Portoghese, per Filippo Pigafetta, con dissegni vari di Geografia, di piante, d’habiti, d’animali, e altro

1591

rgs323068 / MG265F5

Lopes and Pigafetta’s book was used as a source by Cooley to construct this map:

Cooley, WD.

Map of Africa, from the equator to the southern tropic, shewing the routes to Lake Nyassi, Moenemoezi, the Muropue, the Cazembe and across the continent, with the Discoveries of the Missionaries in Eastern Africa

1853

rgs544381 / mr Africa Div.213

Field explorers

David Livingstone’s Sextant

rgs700706 / Artefact E 3

Diagram of a sextant from “Hints to Travellers”

Page 16 in Coles, J. (ed.) Hints to Travellers, Scientific and General, Eighth Edition, Vol. 1 (London: Royal Geographical Society, 1901)

[Photograph, b&w]

S0012874

Scientific Tensions: Credibilities

Cooley, WD.

“On the Travels of the Portuguese and Others in Inner Africa”, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. 8 (6), (1863-1864), pp.255-263

Scientific Tensions: Criticisms

Livingstone, D.

Letter to Editor of the “Athenaeum” discussing ‘easy chair versus field geography’

25 November 1856

rgs213421 / DL/2/12

Scientific Tensions: Collaborations

Burton, RF; MacQueen, J.

The Nile Basin

1864

rgs321196 / mg N07/13F

Compiling my cabinet of curiosity!

My cabinet!

I was trusted with compiling the objects and text myself and was able to personally oversee their placement into the case to ensure it was laid out how I had designed it. I had asked for armchairs to be brought down from one of the upstairs meeting to flank either end of the case, but this request sadly could not be met. It was great to see them unveiled at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference on 26 August and it stimulated a lot of interest in my project, and specifically the objects!

Further reflections on my ‘Armchair Geography’ Exhibit, the exhibiting process, and working with objects in research will be forthcoming in the ‘Making and Mobilising Objects’ Blog: makingobjects.com Twitter: @makingobjects

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