1998.101.74

Research Notes - It has been identified by Philip Grover that this photograph, as well as the album [1998.101] in which it appears, is almost certainly the work of John Cole Hartland (1860-fl.1905), though nowhere is this made explicit, either in the album itself or in any other documentation. Instead, the attribution is based on new research findings and a series of intuitive deductions which derive from these. Firstly, the album was transferred to the Pitt Rivers Museum from the Ashmolean Museum's Department of Eastern Art in 1990, but unfortunately was donated without any related or other documentation. The only indication of any kind concerning its previous ownership or authorship is a handwritten annotation recording the album as the 'Gift of Dr. & Mrs. E[.] Sidney Hartland'. This undoubtedly refers to Dr. Edwin Sidney Hartland (1848-1927), a lawyer with a long-standing interest in the discipline of anthropology, and his wife Mary Elizabeth Hartland (fl.1933). Outside of his professional and other responsibilities, Edwin Sidney Hartland was a collector - and, indeed, a donor of objects to the Pitt Rivers Museum - who, notably, at the turn of the twentieth century served a term of office as President of the Folklore Society: E. Sidney Hartland, 'Presidential Address: Totemism and Some Recent Discoveries', Folklore, 11 (1900), pp.55-80. There is no record, however, of E. Sidney Hartland having ever visited Japan: http://objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID62913.html (accessed 2 December 2014). E. S. Hartland published several books during his life and also numerous articles, notably in the journal Folklore, including several articles which include details of findings on various subjects by his brother, 'Mr. J. Cole Hartland, who is resident at Yokohama': E. Sidney Hartland, 'Japanese New-Year Decorations', Folklore, 5 (1887), p.154. This article just cited identifies J. Cole Hartland as being resident in Japan from at least as early 1887, and other references - in both Folklore and the ornithological journal Ibis - show that he continued to reside there in the succeeding years, and indeed that he was was still living in Yokohama in 1905: J. C. Hartland and E. S. Hartland, 'Burial Custom in Japan', Folklore, 13 (1902), p.276; 'Letter, Extracts, and Notes', Ibis, 5 (1905), p.288; 'Members (corrected to 1st September, 1905)', Folklore, 16 (1905), p.ix. In fact, John Cole Hartland (born 1860) was the younger brother of Edwin Sidney Hartland; and he is mentioned in an entry in the published diary of Sir Ernest Satow for 22 April 1896, recorded (by the editor) as the 'assistant manager of Hunt Trading Co. of Yokohama, a tea trading company': Ian Ruxton (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister in Tokyo (1895-1900): A Diplomat Returns to Japan (Tokyo, 2003), p.84. These details are entirely consistent with the subject matter of the Pitt Rivers Museum's album [1998.101], a considerable part of which is devoted to the farming and processing in Japan of three crops or products in particular, these being tea, rice and silk. One is led to conclude, therefore, that the album almost certainly comprises of photographs by John Cole Hartland, taken undoubtedly for both personal and professional reasons, some time during the period of his long-term residence in Yokohama, Japan. [PG 02/12/2014]