ENGLAND: THE OTHER WITHIN

Francis Knowles and technology at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Alison Petch,
Researcher 'The Other Within' project

Museums have also welcomed volunteers, and many people through the ages seem to have been prepared to work for museums for no pay, the work itself being enough recompense. Francis Knowles is a sterling example of this breed. His private wealth ensured, once his health proved too bad for the robust career he favoured, that he could devote his life to doing more or less what he liked at the Museum. Although it is clear from the Annual Reports of the Museum that he did a great deal of the donkey work of the museum, helping Henry Balfour and later Tom Penniman in a myriad of low key but essential museum tasks, he also devoted himself to investigating stone tool technology, which this website principally explores.

His life and work

Francis Howe Seymour Knowles, fifth baronet, was born in 1886. His family was based in Berkshire. His father, Charles George Frederick Knowles (1832-1918), the fourth baronet, was a Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy. He read law at Oriel College, Oxford, in the Museum Annual Report for 1904 Henry Balfour writes:

Mr F.W. Knowles, of Oriel College, has been engaged upon a practical study of the flight of the boomerang, with interesting results, and has received assistance in the Museum, which possesses a fairly extensive collection of Australian and other varieties of boomerangs. [1]

That same year he donated his first artefacts to the Museum, 6 North American stone arrow-heads. A life-time's obsession had begun. The following year Balfour records:

'Mr F. W. Knowles, of Oriel College has continued his practical study of the flight of the boomerang.

He continued this study in 1906 as well, though by that year his 'practical researches into the characteristics and capabilities of the boomerang' had extended to the spear-thrower. These are his first recorded contacts with the Museum. Note that in the illustration [above right] he is holding a boomerang, in commemoration of his interest.[2] He also donated boomerangs to the collections, though it is not known whether he ever visited Australia or obtained them from a dealer. [1922.56.1-11] In February 1946 he gave another boomerang, the accession book for 1946.2.40 records:

Australia, ?Queensland - Boomerang, 23 inches long, of plain wood - Donor, who has thrown it, states that it makes a good return flight, something of this pattern [see [Drawing] on XII 47a and on region card], 35-40 yards.

It is clear that his practical study of boomerangs continued for many years.

Once he had completed his first degree, he turned to anthropology and enrolled for the Diploma at the Pitt Rivers Museum. In 1908 he was one of the first two students to be awarded the Diploma in Anthropology (the other was Barbara Freire-Marrecco whose first contact with the Museum was also in 1905). His first donation to the Museum was in 1904 when he donated a large collection of stone tools from Biddenham in Bedfordshire and 6 arrowheads from North America, he gave 6 artefacts from Bedfordshire in 1905. In 1906 he exchanged a 'remarkably fine specimen' of a palaeolithic specimen from Biddenham in Bedfordshire, so he is obviously establishing a private collection of stone implements by 1904. In the 1908 Annual Report he is recorded as giving a set of artefacts to the Museum, 'Seven Palaeolithic flint implements and a used flake, from the gravel quarry at Biddenham, Bedford'. Two years later he gave 132 tools and flakes from the same place. The reason for his obvious connection with the Bedford area is not known. However, it seems his collections were affected by advice from Balfour, 'to the late Professor Henry Balfour ... I am indebted for his advice in my youthful collecting days to collect not merely the 'battle-axes' but also every flake and flaked piece found by the workmen in the Biddenham gravels'. [Knowles, 1953: 14-5]

These first donations were following by many hundreds of others before his death in 1953. Mostly he donated material, but he did also sell artefacts to the Museum (it is not now clear why he made the distinction). His first sale to the Museum was in 1911, according to the Annual Report for 1911 he sold:

A large number of palaeolithic flint implements, including coup-de-poing, ovate, discoidal, and other Chellean and Acheulean types, some implements of Moustierian type and a quantity of unfinished implements and flakes from the gravel quarry at Biddenham, near Bedford. Also a neolithic flake-saw with very finely serrated edge from the surface deposits at the same spot.

Not all the items he donated or sold were stone tools or archaeological, he gave boomerangs (some of which he had obviously thrown, using his practical skills acquired in the early parts of the twentieth century). He also obviously identified and filled gaps in the Museum collections. On 17 November 1931, he gave (or rather, sold / was reimbursed for) a wooden spear-thrower from Australia, 1931.81.2, 'Purchased by him in a shop in Oxford for the Museum', as the accession book records. Another item purchased specifically for the museum was 1936.81.2, a leather power-flask from West Africa, purchased from a dealer in South Parade, Oxford for 2/6. Knowles also purchased items from auctions and sales for the Museum, like 1935.12.7, a lute from Nigeria, purchased from 'a sale at the Old Manor House, Littlehampton, Sussex'.

In 1909 he joined the Royal Anthropological Institute as an Ordinary Fellow. [Journal of the RAI, vol. 43 January-June 1913, p. 4] The same year he became Professor Arthur Thomson's assistant in the University Museum, specifically to carry out teaching and research in physical anthropology, the first post of its kind in the University. During the next three years he catalogued and measured two large collections of skulls. In 1912 Knowles started fieldwork on the Iroquois Reserve in Ontario, Canada. His mother was Canadian and this might have spurred on his interest in that country. In 1914 he married Kathleen Lennon and they had one son, Francis Gerald William Knowles (who also donated artefacts to the Museum). Between 1914 and 1919 he held a post of physical anthropologist to the Geological Survey of Canada. He contracted typhoid in the field, and this permanently affected his health and forced him to give up his physical anthropologist career.

He returned to Oxford and began his study of the methods used by 'ancient and modern Stone Age peoples [sic] in making their tools and weapons'. [Blackwood and Penniman, 1953: 88] His first recorded work at the Museum after his return from Canada is in the Annual Report for 1932:

Sir Francis Knowles very kindly volunteered to make a card-index catalogue of a collection of more than a thousand specimens illustrating primitive methods of illumination, which I [Balfour] have presented to the Museum. This work occupied him during many months.

Knowles carried on producing card catalogues for specific types of artefacts from this date. In the Annual Report for 1933-4, Balfour records that Knowles has 'practically completed' his catalogue of lighting appliances and begun a card-catalogue of 'primitive Surgical and medical appliances'. He also worked on a catalogue of tobacco-related artefacts (for more information about this, see Petch, 2003).

In his obituary in Man Blackwood and Penniman described some of the work he carried out in the Museum:

After working through the collections in the Pitt Rivers Museum, he set out, with characteristic thoroughness, to discover how the different types had been made. By long and patient experiment, using only the materials and tools known to have been available to prehistoric man, he perfected his own technique. His discovery of the secret by which alone the best results can be obtained, i.e. the preparation of a striking platform from which cross-flakes can be detached, was published in ‘The Manufacture of a Flint Arrowhead by Quartzite Hammer-stone. ... Other evidence of his mastery of the subject appears in the series of exhibition cases he arranged for the Pitt Rivers Museum, showing the techniques employed in stone-working from the earliest times to the gun-flint-makers of Brandon, and illustrated with his own pen-and-ink or skillfully coloured sketches. Shortly before his last illness he completed ‘Stone-Worker’s Progress’’

He also taught students at the Pitt Rivers Museum:

who, inspired by his enthusiasm, were encouraged to try their hands at making flint implements, learning thereby to appreciate the skill of prehistoric man. Some of his pupils are now themselves teachers of archaeology, and are passing on the knowledge they gained from him. His passion for acquiring practical experience was not confined to stone-working. He was expert with the spear-thrower and with the boomerang; models in wire of the flights of returning boomerangs thrown by him are shown in the Museum. His pleasure in carved ivory led him to experiment in this field also, fashioning delightful little figures of animals and fishes out of elephant tusks, sperm-whale teeth and bits of amber.

He continued to teach students how to draw stone tools until at least 1949:

[the] Curator and Sir Francis Knowles, assisted in the practical work in Archaeology and Technology for Diploma students, both [Blackwood] and Sir Francis teaching drawing with very successful results in the examination. [Annual Report for 1948-9]

The following year the Annual Report makes Knowles' teaching support even clearer, :

During Hilary and Trinity Terms he gave practical instruction, together with Miss Blackwood and Sir Francis Knowles, on archaeological and ethnological draughtsmanship, identification of material, interpretation of air photographs, social data from maps, and recognition of physical types.

Among the displays Knowles worked on was a display of gunflint makers' equipment from Brandon in Suffolk. His contribution to the displays was assessed by Penniman, when he died, saying that he had 'prepared a very valuable teaching exhibition of screens and cases'. [Annual Report, 1952-3] Knowles did a lot of the practical work of setting up displays:

In the Upper Gallery removal of the false backs from the bow cases has enabled us to show the bows more clearly, and given us wood to make screens to illustrate and explain some of the previously arranged comparative series of ancient and modern Stone Age industries and of techniques. The former is mainly illustrated by photographs taken by Miss Blackwood from sources chosen by the Curator, who has also written the descriptive labels; the latter is partly illustrated with beautiful water-colour drawings by Sir Francis Knowles from which it is easy to understand the workmanship of the Stone Age makers. A good deal of the material for the exhibition on techniques was chosen by him while he was cataloguing the Seligman and other Stone Age collections. [Annual Report for 1941-2]

and

Several tons of stone implements have been sorted and arranged, and so far 160 photographs chosen by the Curator and taken by Miss Blackwood, and 120 drawings in colour and pen and ink by the Curator and Sir Francis Knowles, have been framed and glazed by Mr. Walters, and exhibited. [Annual Report for 1942-3]

Despite his poor health, he obviously engaged in the heavy work:

Francis Knowles, who continued to give invaluable assistance in the technology of stone implements, sorting over hundredweights, I had almost said tons, in the course of the year [Annual Report 1946-7]

His work thus not only involved cataloguing (in the earlier years), and displays (in the later years) but also arranging artefactual storage:

Sir Francis Knowles has continued his valuable work in selecting and arranging material for the Stone Age cases, and has completely arranged and classified the storage of the Upper Palaeolithic material under the exhibition cases. [Annual Report for 1947-8]

Knowles personally collected and donated a large collection of stone tools, gunflints, stone tool technology and equipment as well as ethnographic objects. He lived in Bradmore Road, Oxford until his death in 1953. It is clear that he had been increasingly ill several years before:

Sir Francis Knowles has unfortunately been ill for a considerable part of this year, so that students have been deprived of his unique teaching. We miss his company and the work that adds so much to the value of our Stone Age Collections. [Annual Report 1950-1]

Though the Annual Report of the next year records that he has 'improved greatly in health, and is now beginning to come to the Museum again'. The Annual Report of the Museum for 1952-3 records:

In our last report we were happy to announce that Sir Francis Knowles was improving in health, and beginning to come to the Museum, and we looked forward to his once more taking part in work on the collections and to his classes for students. But he died on 4 April of this year, and Lady Knowles did not long survive him, dying on 30 July. Obituary notices by Miss Blackwood in Nature, by the Curator in The Museums Journal, and by both in Man have summarized the considerable contribution made by Sir Francis both to Physical Anthropology and to the Archaeology and Ethnology of Stone Age peoples, and his forthcoming book in our series, Stone-Worker's Progress, will give an account of those contributions. Here we will do no more than say that he and Lady Knowles have been closely associated with the Museum as long as the oldest of us can remember, and have shown the kindest interest in all of us even to the most lately joined apprentice. A large section of the Museum will always testify to the importance of his work here, and those whom he taught here will remember how generous he was in the gift of his time and knowledge, and his character which developed in his pupils affection, respect, and a desire for hard work. His work will continue.

Penniman wrote a short account of Knowles' life for the introduction to Knowles' second Occasional Paper, published just after his death in 1953. In it he states:

he was most generous in the gift of his time and knowledge, and of a character to develop in his pupils affection, respect and a desire for hard work. Both he and Lady Knowles always followed the work of the Museum, of whatever sort, with the greatest and most helpful interest, and knew all of the Staff to the youngest apprentice, and noted their progress with approval. ... All his work, both in the Museum, and in his publications, was based on exact observation and experiment. His work will endure, and his example will live in those he taught, and will be passed on. [Knowles, 1953: 10]

Surprisingly perhaps, Penniman's words have turned out to be true, see for example, here, for an account of how Knowles' work can still be helpful.

A full list of the displays worked on by Knowles

It seems from careful reading of the Annual Reports that Knowles only started working on displays after Balfour died. Before this date his contribution to the Museum had been limited to cataloguing the collections onto cards. Obviously Penniman must have decided that Knowles had more to contribute and shortly after the commencement of his acting (then, confirmed) Curatorship, Knowles began. All the following extracts are from the Annual Reports for the relevant years:

1939-40 The Curator, ably assisted by Sir Francis Knowles and Mr. R. J. C. Atkinson, is rearranging the exhibition and storage of the Stone Age material in the upper gallery. ... Sir Francis Knowles is working on Stone Age Techniques

1940-41 Sir Francis Knowles and Mr. Atkinson have completed the arrangement comparing the Stone Age industries of different parts of the Old World, followed by a comparative series of native Stone Age industries of peoples who still used stone tools when they were discovered by Europeans. ... Knowles has prepared a census of our many thousand stone implements, and has made it possible for us to know what we have, where it is, and what we most need. He has also started the section on techniques with an exhibition of cores from which implements have been struck, classified according to the technique employed by the flint-worker, and the type of flake which is his objective. To accompany it, he has prepared a catalogue, finely illustrated in pen and ink and water colour, inspection of which teaches many facts of the craft of the ancient worker.

1942-43 This paper on ‘The Manufacture of a Flint Arrow-head by Quartzite Hammerstone’ is by Sir Francis Knowles, who used only the tools employed by ancient peoples and their modern primitive counterparts, of whose techniques he has a wide knowledge. The results of his work, including the hammer-stones, bone and antler pressure-flakers, stages of work, comparative material, and pictorial screen, form an addition to our series of Stone Age Techniques, preceded by an exhibition of specimens and illustrating showing the techniques of Edge-flake (Clacton), Topflake (Levallois), and Side-flake (prismatic) cores and the types of tools made from them, together with an unusually complete display of the Brandon industry. Screens and specimens illustrating Palaeolithic and Neolithic axe and adze-making are nearly ready, the material being largely taken from work and collections chosen by Sir Francis Knowles, and from specimens collected and observations and photographs made by Miss Blackwood in the interior of New Guinea.

1943-44 In the Technical section Sir Francis Knowles has added his study of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic axe and adze

1944-45 The section on Stone Age Techniques now includes the ... Knowles exhibition of Clacton, Levallois, and Brandon (Edge-flake, Top-flake, and Side-flake) technique, and the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Axe, ... a complete Brandon exhibition, one shewing sawing and drilling, and another shewing modern attempts to reproduce ancient and primitive techniques by Glover, Flint Jack, Snare, Spalding, Edwards, Balfour, Barnes, Coutier, and Knowles. Sir Francis Knowles’s exhibition of “The Manufacture of a Flint Arrow-head by Quartzite Hammer-stone” ...

1946-47 Among African accessions we should mention especially a large collection of stone implements from East Africa, made and presented by Mr. L.S.B. Leakey, Curator of the Coryndon Museum at Nairobi. Mr. Bradford and Sir Francis Knowles worked over this whole collection and made a special exhibition of the many and varied types of implements for the Top Gallery.

1947-48 Sir Francis Knowles has continued his valuable work in selecting and arranging material for the Stone Age cases, and has completely arranged and classified the storage of the Upper Palaeolithic material under the exhibition cases. ... Sir Francis Knowles continued research on the differences between English and French gun-flints and changes in type during the history of the English gun-flint, and did further work on the development of stone-working techniques.

1948-49 With Sir Francis Knowles [Penniman] also revised the cases showing the African Lower, Middle, and Upper Stone Ages, and the Bushman case. Labels were re-written, stratified material from the exchange with National Museum of Southern Rhodesia and from South Africa inserted, and a correlated series from South Africa and Rhodesia in the final stages of the Stone Age prepared, the whole being brought up to date with the latest views of African archaeologists.

Note that, sadly, none of these displays survive.

Knowles' publications

Leaving aside publications not related to stone tool technology,[3] here is a list of his major publications:

1. 1944. Occasional Paper on Technology I: The Manufacture of a Flint Arrow-head by Quartzite Hammerstone
As the Annual Report for 1942-3 explains, he:
used only the tools employed by ancient peoples and their modern primitive counterparts, of whose techniques he has a wide knowledge. The results of his work, including the hammer-stones, bone and antler pressure-flakers, stages of work, comparative material, and pictorial screen, form an addition to our series of Stone Age Techniques, preceded by an exhibition of specimens and illustrating showing the techniques of Edge-flake (Clacton), Topflake (Levallois), and Side-flake (prismatic) cores and the types of tools made from them, together with an unusually complete display of the Brandon industry. Screens and specimens illustrating Palaeolithic and Neolithic axe and adze-making are nearly ready, the material being largely taken from work and collections chosen by Sir Francis Knowles, and from specimens collected and observations and photographs made by Miss Blackwood in the interior of New Guinea.
The Annual Report for 1944-5 recorded that 'Sir Francis Knowles’s exhibition of “The Manufacture of a Flint Arrow-head by Quartzite Hammer-stone”, now published by the Museum, has had a most favourable reception throughout the world, and its sale has exceeded expectation'.

2. 1953. Occasional Paper on Technology VI: Stone-Worker's Progress, a Study of Stone Implements in the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The Annual Report for 1952-3 records:
By the time this report is issued the Museum will have published Number 6 of its Occasional Papers on Technology. For many years Sir Francis Knowles has worked in the Museum making an extensive and intensive study of the techniques used by ancient and modern peoples in making stone implements, and has prepared a very valuable teaching exhibition of screens and cases. His book, entitled Stone-Worker's Progress, a Study of Stone Implements in the Pitt Rivers Museum, deals with our very large collections, and contains the results of his own and other experimental work, of observations, and of references in the literature. It is illustrated by drawings made by himself and by Mr. I. M. Allen, and may be obtained from the Museum for 15s.

He co-wrote two articles, one with Alfred Schwartz Barnes, the other with Penniman, on stone tools. See here for more information.

Further Reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowles_Baronets
B.M. Blackwood and T.K. Penniman, ‘Obituary : Sir Francis Knowles: 1886-1953’, Man, June 1953, n. 127, pp. 88-89.
Knowles, Francis. 1937. (with A.S. Barnes) 'Manufacture of Gunflints' Antiquity xi 201-7
Knowles, Francis. 1941. (with T.K. Penniman) 'An Obsidian Blade found near the University Parks at Oxford' Man, vol xli, no. 88.
Knowles, Francis. 1944. Manufacture of a flint arrow-head ... Occasional Papers on Technology I, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
Knowles, Francis. 1953. Stone worker's progress ... Occasional Papers on Technology VI, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
A. Petch 2003 'Documentation in the Pitt Rivers Museum: The contribution of Sir Francis Knowles (1886-1953) Journal of Museum Ethnography, No. 15 pp 109-114

Notes

[1] Note that Knowles' name at first appears as F.W. Knowles in the Annual Reports, the reason for this is unknown, it is clear that it is F.H.S. Knowles that is being referenced.

[2] Throwing the boomerang seems to have been a lifelong interest of Knowles. In the short account of his life, written by Penniman, included in his second Occasional paper 'Stone worker's Progress', the author states, 'An especially interesting exhibit is of wire models of flights of boomerangs which he [Knowles] threw, and Mr H.F. Walters modelled under his direction, showing the shape of the flight, and the position of the boomerangs at each stage of the flight from the start to the return'. [Knowles, 1953: 10]

[3] A full list of Knowles' publications is given in Knowles, 1853: 10] The others relate to human remains.