Emile Clement

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[edit] Museum collector and entrepreneur

Dr Emile Louis Bruno Clement (1844-1928) was a prominent collector of ethnographic artefacts and natural history specimens from northwest Australia at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Clement was born in Maskau, Silesia in 1844 and died on 7 August 1928, aged 84. He was buried in Hove cemetery , near Brighton UK.

Throughout his life, Clement pursued a variety of occupations, including archaeologist, teacher [1], naturalist [2], mining engineer, ethnographer [3], children's book author [4], and ethnographic dealer. During the period 1877 to 1890 Clement undertook a series of archaeological excavations in Silesia, and sold collections of Silesian Bronze Age archaeolgical material to museums throughout the United Kingdom including the British Museum, the Department of Science and Art museums in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Dublin, the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the Reading Museum.

However Clement’s largest contribution to museums are the numerous collections of Western Australian Aboriginal artefacts he sold and donated to museums throughout Britain and Europe. During the period 1896-1928, Clement sold over 1600 Australian Aboriginal artefacts from Western Australia to museums throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, and continental Europe. In many of these museums the Clement material comprises a substantial part of their total holdings of Australian Aboriginal material.

Clement made three trips to Western Australia:

  • 1895
  • 1896-1898
  • 1899-1900

A study of the acquisition of different museums holdings of Western Australian Aboriginal objects related to Clement material suggests there were two distinct stages to Clement's involvement. The early collections (1896-1910) were probably all collected by Clement personally. In contrast, the collections acquired by museums during the second stage (1923-1928) seem to be derived from residents from the North-west area of Western Australia, who sent the material to Clement in England, who then sold it to museums.

As well as the ethnographic and archaeological material, Clement contributed substantial quantities of botanical material from Northwest Australia to the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew between 1898 and 1900, as well as to herbariums in Leiden and Berlin. Collections of his zoological material, containing many type specimens, are held in the British Museum (Natural History), and the Oxford University Museum.

[edit] Clement's collections

[edit] Museums holding collections of Western Australian Aboriginal material acquired from Clement

[edit] Museums holding collections of German Bronze Age material acquired from Clement

[edit] Institutions holding collections of natural history material acquired from Clement

[edit] Flora named after Clement

  • "Acacia clementii" Domin
  • Acacia clementii Maiden & Blakely (as `clementi')
  • Alysicarpus muelleri var. clementii Schindler
  • Amaranthus clementii Domin (as `Amarantus')
  • Brachyscome clementii Domin (as `Brachycome')
  • Convolvulus clementii Domin
  • Convolvulus clementii var. biflorus Domin
  • Convolvulus clementii Domin var. clementii
  • Erythraea clementii Domin
  • Euphorbia clementii Domin
  • Goodenia clementii K.Krause
  • Helipterum clementii Domin
  • Hibiscus campylochlamys var. clementii Domin
  • Justicia clementii Domin (as `Justicea')
  • Mimulus clementii Domin
  • Neptunia dimorphantha var. clementii Domin
  • Neurachne clementii Domin
  • Panicum clementii Domin
  • Paspalidium clementii (Domin) C.E.Hubb.
  • Polygala stenoclada var. clementii Domin
  • Psoralea clementii Domin
  • Ptilotus clementii (Farmar) Benl (as `clementi')
  • Rostellularia adscendens subsp. clementii (Domin) R.Barker
  • Rostellularia adscendens var. clementii (Domin) R.Barker
  • Rumex clementii Domin
  • Sida clementii Domin
  • Stackhousia clementii Domin
  • Tephrosia clementii Skan
  • Tephrosia rosea var. clementii Domin
  • Tribulus angustifolius var. clementii Domin
  • Trichinium clementii Farmar (as `Clementi')
  • Triumfetta bartramia var. clementii Domin

[edit] Zoological type specimens collected by Clement

  • Cephaloplatys clementii, sp. n. [5]
  • Pseudælia clementi, sp. n. [6]
  • Roebournea diversa [7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ During the 1870s Clement taught at Bramham College in Yorkshire and at Alston College near Preston, Lancashire.
  2. ^ Clement, E.1882 Tabular view of the geological systems, with their lithological composition and paleontological remains (especially adapted for students preparing for the Royal Military Colleges of Woolich and Sandhurst) W Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London
  3. ^ Clement, E. 1899 Vocabulary of the Gualluma tribe inhabiting the plains between the Yule and the Fortescue Rivers Royal Anthropological Institute Journal Vol. 29: 192-196.

    Clement, E. 1904 Ethnographical notes on the Western-Australian Aborigines (with a descriptive catalogue of a collection of ethnographical objects from Western Australia by J.D.E. Schmeltz) Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie 16:1-27 + plates
  4. ^ Clement, E. 1902a Naughty Eric and other stories from giant, witch, and Fairyland Syd H.E. Foxwell, London

    Clement, E. 1902b Doctor Frog and other fairy stories Syd H.E. Foxwell, London.
  5. ^ Distant, W.L. (1910). Rhynchotal notes. LII. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (8)6: 369-386, 465-481, 585-603
  6. ^ Distant, W.L. (1910). Rhynchotal notes. LII. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (8)6: 479
  7. ^ Distant, W.L. (1910). Rhynchotal notes. LII. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (8)6: 595