The case of Mrs Burnell: naming women in museum archives

Written by Candace Richards
The University of Sydney

In our previous article, Dr Alina Kozlovski highlighted some of the pitfalls in tracing married women’s research in bibliographies and citations, particularly with the popularity of the honorific Mrs during the 20th century. The historic social norm that had women changing their names in marriage also has implications for the ways in which museums understand their own archives. 

Calcite jar, from Abydos, Egypt. NM60.51, Nicholson collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney.

​In 1960 this calcite jar was donated to the Nicholson Museum by Mr and Mrs F.S. Burnell (as recorded in our official register). In a copy of the thank you letter addressed to Mrs Burnell curator Prof. James Stewart, remarks: “when I got down to the Museum on Tuesday I found your delightful gift of the Egyptian alabaster pot from Abydos … It will be accessioned in the name of the two of you.” A handwritten note on the file for this item also gives the address of the Burnells at the time of donation and includes the notation ‘Bought in Cairo in First World War.’ 

Thank you letter to Mrs Burnell from J.R. Stewart. Provided by Nicholson Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum

Object file note (street address redacted). Provided by Nicholson Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum

The inclusion of the address and initials is a great starting point for finding out more information about a donor, thanks to the ever-expanding online records available for historical research. In this instance, F.S. Burnell was relatively easy to identify. Frederick Spencer Burnell (1880-1958) was an journalist and WW1 war correspondent with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. The State Library of NSW and the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature both have online resources dedicated to his achievements, and there is a Wikipedia entry devoted to him. However, there is no mention of his marriage or wife’s name in these records.

Given that the museum’s archival record clearly states that the Abydos jar was purchased in Egypt during WW1 and the known fact that Burnell served in the war as a correspondent, one could easily assume that he had acquired it during that period, and then, following his passing in 1958, Mrs Burnell donated the item to the museum. However, Burnell was primarily stationed in New Guinea and the Pacific region and there is no record of his presence in Egypt. So how then did the jar come to be acquired? And who was Mrs Burnell?
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For those in Sydney, particularly in the field of classical studies, the name Burnell might be more familiar. In the 1940s, Burnell launched a campaign to save the James Martin Lysicrates Monument from destruction when the government took over the land in Potts Point where it stood, and he was instrumental in gaining public support for its transferral to the Royal Botanic Garden in 1943. In 2016, the Lysicrates Foundation published a history of the monument including a chapter on Frederick Burnell himself by Andrew Harting. It is in Harting’s wonderfully detailed chapter that he reveals when and who Burnell married:

“Relatively late in life in March 1935 Burnell became engaged to Marjorie Kane Smyth (1888–1974). She had worked as a nurse in Egypt and France during World War I, published a collection of her poetry, Poems, in London in 1919, and was also a painter, on one occasion exhibiting her works alongside other Australian artists in Paris at the Salon d’Automne in 1925” (Harting 2016, 85).

​As pointed out by Harting, Marjorie Smyth was an accomplished woman with a full career prior to her marriage. Smyth graduated from the University of Sydney in 1910 with a Bachelor of Science with honours in Physiology and Geology/Palaeontology. In 1920, her publication Poems was reviewed favourably in The Herald  and she contributed to several exhibitions at the Grosvenor Galleries in Sydney throughout the 1930s. Today the NSW State Library holds one of her works in their collection View of Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction, ca. 1930. 

Group photograph of women science graduates: Beryl Mclaughlin; Marian Morrison; Marjorie Smyth; Eileen Sly; Marion Sly; Dorothy Watkins. Image provided by University of Sydney Archives, G3_224_1127

Marjorie’s ‘late in life’ marriage, at the age of 47, led some to assume that instead of marrying in 1935, as confirmed in the Australian Marriage Index, she had died (Newman 2016, 168). It is easy to see how this assumption might occur. Biographical research relies heavily upon sources like military service records, census records and similar official documentation which do not easily incorporate name changes. On the Australian Electoral Roll and census records, Marjorie Smyth ceases to exist in 1935 with Marjorie Burnell appearing on the Electoral roll from 1936. The only government record that connect these two names is the Australian Marriage Index. These types of records were, until recently, difficult to obtain and connect together. The development of commercial online web providers specialising in this kind of documentation has made biographical research somewhat easier . For prominent citizens, we might expect that significant life events, such as a marriage, would be mentioned in historical accounts of their lives. However, as we have seen in the Burnell’s case, their marriage was of little consequence to either Frederick or Marjorie’s careers and thus easily overlooked in biographical histories that focussed on their many other achievements. Thankfully, art databases and records related to Smyth’s art works accurately reflect that Marjorie Smyth was also known as Marjorie Burnell. 

Marjorie Smyth’s service during WW1 places her squarely in Egypt, and we can be certain that she was the one who purchased the Abydos calcite jar, like many other service people who bought antiquities during their wartime postings. The fact that it was donated in both her married name and her husband’s, after he had passed, is not uncommon, and was followed up by Marjorie with a donation to the University of Sydney to endow a Classical Greek essay prize in Frederick’s honour in 1962 (Calendar 1963, 452).
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The pitfalls of tracking married women in scholarship are varied and require active recognition of the many ways in which women can be easily written out, or in this case, ‘assumed out’ of history. The donation credit line for the Burnell’s Abydos jar has now been updated in the Nicholson Collection's databases to reflect the full names of both individuals, including an acknowledgement of Marjorie’s maiden name, and Marjorie has now been acknowledged as the collector of the item.

References

• Harting, Andrew. 2016. ‘Frederick Spencer ‘Fritz’ Burnell (1886-1958)’ in The Lysicrates Prize 2016: The People’s Choice. Sydney. 77-89.
• Newman, Vivien. 2016. Tumult and Tears: The story of the great war through the eyes and lves of its women poets. Barnsley, South York Shire.
• Calendar of the University of Sydney for the year 1963. Sydney 1962. accessed: http://calendararchive.usyd.edu.au/Calendar/1963/1963.pdf