Finders Keepers?

Finders Keepers? introduces some of the men and women who gave their collections to RAMM. These gifts helped to establish the museum’s world-class collections of objects. The museum is filled with objects people have collected, from prehistoric flint tools to rare shells and Devon lace.

Explaining where an object comes from, who collected it and why, can raise difficult questions. RAMM was created when Britain was a major colonial power controlling the lives of millions of people around the world. Some collectors abused their position and took without permission. Others treated the people and wildlife they encountered with respect.

The methods of many 19th-century collectors were very different from modern standards. Collectors were fired by curiosity and wanted their collections to look as impressive as possible. They didn’t always give much thought to recording information about where and how objects were found.

Today there is much more interest in how objects relate to the places they come from. The goal is to uncover what the objects in this museum can reveal about the environments and ways of life that have changed around the world.

Close-up captions: RAMM’s digital close-up captions enable you to use your own mobile device to read the information that is on display beside each object. Follow the link for the close-up captions of Finders Keepers?.