Gold in Ironstained Quartz, Museums Victoria

Figure 1: Gold in Ironstained Quartz, National Museum of Victoria, M35440, showing original label by Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth and the more recent label naming the specimen as part of the ICI collection at the National Museum of Victoria, now Museums Victoria. [i]Photographer: Andrea Witcomb. Courtesy Museums Victoria.

This gold specimen is one of about 400 mineral specimens that once formed part of the Western Australian Mineral Display, which could be seen by those visiting the rooms of Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth (1865-1950) in the Elder Building in Hay Street Perth during the 1920s and 1930s. Captain Smyth, a WWI veteran, was the West Australian representative for Nobel Explosives, a Glasgow based company founded by Arthur Nobel  who was an industrial chemist. Captain Smyth’s job was to sell explosives to the growing mining industry as well as to farmers wanting to clear their land. He thus travelled the countryside from 1911 to 1939. During his travels, Captain Smyth took to collecting examples from each mine he visited, making his collection an example of what is known as ‘circuit collecting’ (Peterson et al).

Smyth was an avid enthusiast for the mining industry and wanted to use his collection to advertise the economic potential of Western Australia to investors and to educate potential miners as to the whereabouts of various minerals and the kinds of geological contexts in which they occurred (Anon. 27 April, 1927, 4). His collection is thus an example of what is known as an economic mineral collection. His display contained twenty showcases which, as well as showing a wide range of auriferous specimens documenting the great variety of geological contexts in which gold was found in Western Australia, also showed examples of “asbestos, gypsum, clays, mica, felspar, alunite, magnesite, graphite, antimony, bismuth, arsenic, copper, iron, tin, lead, molybdenite, wolfram and other economic minerals” (Anon. 20 December, 1923, 76–77). The display covered just about every mine in Western Australia.

Figure 2: Inset showing Captain Smyth, 1920, from “Matthew McVicker Smyth with his Western Australian Mineral and Aboriginal Artifact Collection at His Office in the Princes Building, 23 William Street, Perth.” State Library of Western Australia; Series: E. L. Mitchell Collection of Photographs, BA533/422. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia.

Captain Smyth however, didn’t just collect mineral specimens. The development of the Western Australian mining industry went hand in hand with the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their Country and their removal to various missions and other settlements. As he travelled, Captain Smyth also amassed a large collection of Aboriginal items, putting these on display in his exhibition as well. Over time, he collected around 400 Aboriginal objects, particularly from the Kimberley and the Pilbara regions and the eastern goldfields region. There are also objects from the south west and the Geraldton midlands area. While many of these objects are boomerangs which he displayed as a frieze around his room like a picture rail, there are also numerous spears which he displayed as a group in the corners of the room, a considerable number of sacred and ceremonial boards, shell and hair ornaments, nose bone ornaments as well as a smaller quantity of dilly bags and rare items such as feather shoes and a medicine bag.

His collecting of Aboriginal material is, from our contemporary perspective, problematic. We know very little about his methods, though there are various references to the fact that he did pay for the items in staples like flour and sugar which was not an unusual practice at this time. He was also prepared to wait over a few days for a particularly valuable item. This was the case for example, with the medicine bag, which, according to an article in the Kalgoorlie Miner (Anon. 14 November, 1921, 1), was collected ‘some distance from Norseman’ during a ‘gathering of hundreds of natives’ for the initiation of three young men. “Captain Smyth went to the locality and it took him some days to find out the medicine man and then some days to persuade him to sell the kit for money, tucker and tobacco”. It is clear that while he ‘paid’ for the objects he collected, he did not respect Aboriginal cultural laws, as he displayed material which he knew was secret sacred and should not be seen by women for example. His audience shared a similar outlook, as is made clear in a newspaper article titled ‘Yalgoo Notes’ in which the author, who is unnamed, describes the showing of several items to Yalgoo’s citizens where ‘words fail to describe all the curios, including even sacred native weapons that must not be shown to women. (This only made the ladies curious, of course).” (Anon.  July 21, 1920 in Geraldton Guardian, 24 July, 1920, 2).

Figure 3: Full view of display with sacred/secret items obscured from view. “Matthew McVicker Smyth’s Western Australian mineral and Aboriginal artifact collection in his office in the Princes Chambers, 23 William Street, Perth.” State Library of Western Australia; Series: E. L. Mitchell Collection of Photographs, BA533-424. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia.

This collection disappeared from public view in 1939. Our research established that the mineral collection was bought by ICI, a company that took over Nobel Explosives. ICI donated this collection to what is now Museums Victoria in 1981 under the Tax Incentive for the Arts Scheme where it is now known as the ICI collection, obscuring Captain Smyth’s role as the original collector (Information supplied by Mr. H. R. Hart in Mineralogy Department Files: Donations 1980–1987).  We do not know what happened to the Aboriginal material. The display itself was photographed by Ernest Lund Mitchell, a leading photographer of the period. There are five photographs in the State Library of Western Australia’s collection (call numbers :BA533/422-424; 102228PD; 102229PD). The image shown here has had the secret/sacred items obscured so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past while still being able to document the existence of this collection and the complex nature of colonial encounters as Western Australia developed its mineral and agricultural industries.