- Person
- 1851-1924
Charles F. Newcombe was a British physician, botanist, and ethnographic researchers and collector. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., he studied medicine in Aberdeen, Scotland. He immigrated to the United States with his wife and three children, moving to Oregon, before moving to Victoria, B.C., in 1889.
Shortly after his arrival in Victoria he became an unpaid researcher at the provincial museum in Victoria, where he met people with whom he shared interests in botany, geology, marine biology, geography, palaeontology, and anthropology. [...] In 1895, with Francis Kermode of the provincial museum, Newcombe had travelled by steamer on an expedition to the Kwakiutl community at Alert Bay and to Haida Gwaii. On this trip, he began acquiring anthropological artefacts for his personal collection and he also established a practice of recording detailed field notes. In 1896, he became a founding member of the Victoria Natural History Society. By 1897, Newcombe had had a boat specially made for his fieldwork. The Pelican, a 24-foot double-ended Columbia River boat, was easy to row and to sail, could be transported by steamer, and permitted independent expeditions to the remotest areas of the coast. That year he returned to the same regions on his first major independent collecting trip. At the request of the provincial government he purchased a Haida totem pole for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (London) and he acquired artefacts for George Mercer Dawson of the Geological Survey of Canada. [...] By 1900, he had received commissions from major American museums. American anthropologist Franz Boas hired him to conduct research on the Haida history of the southern portion of Haida Gwaii. Newcombe was accompanied on this expedition by assistant, Douglas Scholefield, and Haida Chief, Elijah Ninstints. As they rowed and sailed together, Ninstints described the geography and history of his homeland, while Newcombe took notes and photographs, made sketches, and collected specimens. In late 1901, he agreed to work on a full-time basis for the Columbian Museum of Chicago, an arrangement that would last until late 1905. He acquired comprehensive ethnographic collections for displays on the Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Salish peoples. In 1904, he was commissioned to assemble ethnographic exhibits for the Louisiana Purchase exposition in St Louis that would include a group of Nootka and Kwakiutl cultural performers and artists, as well as a traditional Native house, a canoe, and other artefacts purchased and shipped for the event. He eventually developed a web of patrons, clients, and colleagues that extended throughout British Columbia and around the world.
For decades most ethnological artefacts from the northwest coast of Canada were purchased by foreign interests. Newcombe was dismayed that he could not interest provincial and federal governments in the collection and preservation of native artefacts and specimens of natural history. Since his overriding concern was to preserve these items for posterity, he was obliged to deal with American and other foreign institutions. In response to this situation, in 1911 the provincial museum at Victoria hired him as its agent. For four years he travelled throughout the province, compiling a major collection of artefacts. After 1914 his pace began to abate and he turned to researching and writing about the exploration history of the British Columbia coast. After a collecting trip to Alert Bay, he contracted pneumonia and died in 1924. From: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/newcombe_charles_frederic_15E.html