Windows to the World
Missionary exhibitions and pageants were held in Europe and Britain from the beginning of the 1800s until the Second World War. These events were imperial institutions, held by Christian churches and organisations to show the public the work of their evangelical missions abroad, and to fundraise for future missions. These exhibitions became increasingly popular after the success of The Orient in London exhibition of 1908, spreading to the United States.
Objects included in missionary exhibitions were often subdivided into themes. These might include “local worship”, “idols”, “amulets”, or categories such as “everyday use” ranging from utensils to textiles, and boxes to baskets. Missionary exhibitions were considered “windows to the world” for visitors, but often inaccurately presented faraway places as exotic and dreamlike, and misrepresented their native cultures.
This group of cigarette cases and boxes were crafted in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
While some objects were for display only, others were available for sale in adjacent missionary “bazaars”. These provided opportunities for individuals to build anthropology collections, with, for example, Peach buying baskets from across Africa at such events.
Leicester also hosted a number of large-scale missionary exhibitions. These included two major exhibitions at De Montfort Hall in 1914, called Other Lands in Leicester, and the Congo Exhibition of 1928, held at the Junior Training Halls, now Granby Halls.
Missionary collecting created significant channels for the circulation of objects from across the world to Europe. Today, many European museums have collections of objects obtained from religious missionaries.
“I went to the Missionary Exhibition yesterday and picked up some odd baskets etc. You must come to one with me one year. We should find a lot of stuff, only it went digging out (things are hidden behind the stalls), and you have to pack everything up yourself and carry it away with you, and it is a nuisance with big native things”.
Credit: Archives and Special Collections of the University of Leicester’s David Wilson Library, ACC 2014/5, box 2. Correspondence Harry Peach – Benjamin Fletcher, 11th November 1926