The origins of my own Fragmented Museum goes back to 1982 but it was some five years later that a great aunt of mine, rummaging through her attic came across an old trunk “full of rubbish.” It turned out to be a collection of oddments having belonged to a great, great, great uncle.
Edwin Charles Ashford of Morlands, like many gentlemen of his time, was a collector of curiosities. His wife proclaimed that a gentleman should dedicate his life entirely to leisure and, perhaps in an attempt to forestall the eventual ennui resulting from this forced idleness, he embarked upon a fantastic and futile task: an inventory of the world.
With the methodical implacability of a museum curator, he gathered indiscriminately anything that came his way, giving his entire attention to the most ordinary objects and in so doing, inspiring them to display their exclusive individuality.
The objects in the trunk were, for the most part, a collection of very ordinary items - a lump of coal with price per ton in 1876, wrapped up, boxed and neatly labelled; clay found in an orchard 3ft.4ins deep on 19th Oct.1876; a piece of wood picked up by Dr. Ashford in Englishcombe Lane on Sunday April 28th. One item is particularly intriguing; a piece of wood in the form of a one inch cube on which is inscribed: “This cube represents in bulk 1000 grams of sea water of sp. gr. 1.022, taken at Sheerness at half-flood.”
When unnecessary or ludicrous information concerning commonplace objects is put forward seriously or when an object exists uniquely as a representation of something totally incongruous, we are invited to adjust our appreciation of them. By enacting the roles allotted them in this magical theatre, they become objects of curiosity, and can henceforth stand their ground alongside items of unquestionable significance.
Coincidence, heritage, whatever! I somehow felt that my museum was no longer entirely of my own making but rather a continuation of this strange Victorian gentleman’s collection of oddments. It is for this reason that his humourless photo presides over my museum along side his own curious collection.
Here are a few examples :
