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. 

​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.’ 

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?
​
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:

​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. 

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).
​
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.

​I first stepped foot in the Nicholson Museum as a high school student on a class excursion eager to become an archaeologist one day. I was lucky enough to join the ranks of the Nicholson’s volunteers as an undergraduate and have gone on to work with the collections as an educator, a collections’ auditor and am now the Assistant Curator for the Nicholson Collection. While I continue to be enthralled by the antiquity that surrounds me, I have become more and more fascinated with the people who have made the Nicholson Collection what it is today. With over 30,000 items representing many ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures, the collection reflects the interests, specialities and relationships of the people who helped it grow over the past 160 years. Unfortunately, when the story of the Nicholson Collection is told, it is often only the people in the most prestigious position, that of Honorary Curator (also Head Curator or Senior Curator), who are highlighted. As this position has been exclusively held by men, an official institutional history has been created without any women. To recover the stories of women and their role in shaping museum collections we must look beyond the Curator.

The roles of women in museums varied greatly throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, largely responding to the social constraints of gender roles in contemporaneous society. In 20th century Australia, women were restricted from the public service due to their marital status up until 1966 when the Marriage Bar was finally removed from the Public Service Act. Legislation like this had a number of knock-on effects for women’s education more broadly, but also the roles women were able to pursue in museums and universities. Nevertheless, a great many women made a substantive contribution to Australian museums including the Nicholson.
​
Archival research at the Nicholson has revealed that women’s contributions come in many forms including administrative and technical support often undertaken behind the scenes for the improvement of the collections; research and publication of the collections; education and public outreach; collecting activities, often as part of archaeological research on behalf of the museum or financing collecting practices; donors to the collection; and finally, as family support when women are often active in the research or collecting process and then if outliving their partner assume responsibility for the management of collections and posthumous legacies. The teasing out of the individual stories and collective roles women played is part of my long-term research project ‘The Hidden Women of the Nicholson Museum.’ It is hoped that in addition to highlighting the many accomplishments and contributions women have made throughout the history of the Nicholson, we can examine how we construct our own histories, and offer new approaches to constructing historically accurate and inclusive institutional narratives.

​I was delighted to be able to contribute to the Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies panel on the history of women in the discipline at ASCS 41 and introduce this research project. I hope it will continue to contribute to the broader goals of AWAWS to document the varied ways in which women have forged new paths in ancient world studies and mentored the next generation of women in the discipline.

​I spent my years as an undergraduate student in the University of Canterbury Classics Department in Christchurch hearing stories of Miss Marion Steven, a legendary past academic of the Department.
 
Those in the Department who had known Marion spoke about her with warmth and joviality. When the opportunity for an oral history project on Marion’s life was suggested, I jumped at the chance and set about interviewing family, friends, past students and colleagues of Marion. The project took me up and down New Zealand and as far as Sydney and Adelaide where I followed the threads of Marion’s network. Throughout these interviews – twelve in total – I learned about Marion’s impressive career as a scholar, a collector and a teacher. Through the memories of those closest to her I came to understand the extraordinary legacy that she left behind, not only in her remarkable collection of antiquities, but also in the influence that she had on the lives of great Classics scholars whom she nurtured.
 
Marion began her academic career in Medicine, excelling at university and receiving a medical scholarship to a London Hospital. But she was rejected upon arrival, as her application had not made it clear that she was a woman. Marion then turned to Classics – perhaps what she had wished to study all along. She soon began teaching at the University, where her compassion for students earned her their respect. She valued the traditional learning of Latin and Greek, but she also valued material culture as a way of understanding life in the ancient world, which inspired her to begin collecting antiquities for her teaching.

AWAWS was delighted to host a special panel session at the 41st Annual Meeting and Conference of the Australasian Society of Classical Studies. Entitled “Towards a History of Women in the Discipline”, the panel was chaired by AWAWS co-founder Dr Rachel Yuen-Collingridge and featured three speakers Natalie Looyer, Candace Richards and Professor Tim Parkin.

Natalie Looyer, from the University of Canterbury, was first to present her paper ‘The Academic Legacy of Miss Marion Steven.’ This was the culmination of Natalie’s wide ranging oral history project on the legacy of the woman who not only founded the Logie Collection, but whose legacy can be measured by the success of her students and who is remembered as a remarkable teacher who shaped the lives of generations of classicists.