The Scandalous Affair of the Anthropological Review: Hyde Clarke, James Hunt and Financial Discrepancies at the Anthropological Society of London
The Scandalous Affair of the Anthropological Review: Hyde Clarke, James Hunt and Financial Discrepancies at the Anthropological Society of London
Dr Efram Sera-‐Shriar F.R.A.I.
York University, Toronto
Some remarks have been made against the anomaly of an independent Review being supplied to the Fellows of the Society. This is a question which we hope the Fellows of the Society will fully and freely discuss. We believe that an Anthropological Review is a necessity of the time. That it has helped to establish the Anthropological Society we feel equally sure. 1
–James Hunt (1868)
In the summer of 1868 a huge dispute unfolded in the pages of the London-‐based weekly journal, the Athenaeum. Two groups of anthropologists argued over the connection between the Anthropological Society of London (ASL) and the supposedly independent periodical, the Anthropological Review (AR), which was owned and edited by an unknown party. The origins of this debate began in 1867 when the president of the ASL, the speech therapist and physician James Hunt (1833-‐1869), invited the philologist and engineer Hyde Clarke (1815-‐1895), to join the ASL’s council.