The Society for the History of Collecting

Invites you to its Online Lecture

‘New Perspectives on Hans Sloane’

ECR & PhD Workshop

Thursday, 20th January & Thursday 27th January, 2022 6.30pm (GMT)

This two-part workshop provides a platform for new research across the collections of Hans Sloane (1660–1753). Sloane – a physician, naturalist and president of both the Royal Society and Royal College of Surgeons – amassed a large and varied collection during his lifetime, participating in and profiting from global networks of European colonial expansion as he sought to collect the world. His collections brought together over 50,000 books and manuscripts, natural history objects, coins, prints and drawings, antiquities and ethnographic items. Sloane’s museum was sold to the British state at his death in 1753, and can now be found within three national collections: the British Museum, British Library and Natural History Museum. Over two sessions, doctoral and early career researchers will share their research from across Sloane’s collections, discussing particular objects as well as Sloane’s position in wider collecting cultures and networks. Topics will include: decolonising Sloane’s herbarium and botanical collections, the interrogation of his catalogues, his printed will and testament, and his network of peers.

The panels of speakers include Bradley Lewis Scott (Queen Mary University of London and Natural History Museum), India Cole (Queen Mary University of London and Oxford Botanic Garden), Will Burgess (Queen Mary University of London), Victoria Pickering (Natural History Museum), Edwin Rose (University of Cambridge), Alice Wickenden (Durham), Deborah Leem (UCL) and Janet Stiles Tyson (Birkbeck, University of London).

The discussion will be moderated by Miles Ogborn (Queen Mary University of London) and Julianne Nyhan (UCL).

Members will receive a flyer with the link to the talk at least two days before the event.

Nonmembers should register by emailing: events@societyhistorycollecting.org