Everywhere in the world there is a special place that allows people to learn about history while promoting public understanding of the preservation of art and culture. This place is called the museum.
The museum as highlighted by the Arna Bontemps Museum (Museum of African American History and Culture) is an institution that collects, preserves, interpret and display artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance.
The mission of the museum is to promote the public understanding of art, science and history.
The museum offers opportunity for people to learn about other cultures and to appreciate the diversity of the world we live in.
Around the world there are museums that collect and preserve different types of artifacts like the famous Egyptian Museum in Cairo that house the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities, the Natural History Museum in London that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history, the Louvre Museum in France that houses some of the most recognised work of Western art like the Mona Lisa painting and the British Museum that is dedicated to art, culture and human history.
Mentioned are only a few famous museum, there are countless others that house collections of valuable history and art pieces around the world.
Today we will expand our knowledge on our very own – the Fiji Museum. If you walk into the museum today you will notice a slight difference to what it was a few years back. The museum now has an innovative exhibition called the Voyages: Stories of an Ocean People.
The exhibition according to the Fiji Museum explores the stories of the people of Fiji who have close connection to the sea, so if you have time visit the museum to learn about Fiji’s rich history. Here we quickly look back at how the Fiji Museum had come to be in the Capital City.
The Fiji Museum was established back in 1904 to preserve examples of Fijian craftsmanship and material culture according to the Fijian History website (www.fijianhistory.com).
The establishment of the museum had simply started with a collection of Fijian materials donated by a William Allardyce to the Suva Town Board. Mr Allardyce according to Fijian History was a career British civil servant in the British colonial office who had served as acting governor of Fiji from 1901 to 1902.
The exhibitions donated by Allardyce were displayed on the walls of a room at the town hall as there wasn’t an official museum in the capital city at the time.
In 1908, according to history a number of interested citizens met to form a society with an aim of promoting and conserving interests towards historical, literacy, scientific and kindred matters in any way related to Fiji.
They also wanted to take care and assist in the formation of the museum, a good idea at the time in preserving Fiji’s history.
Two years later the government of Fiji had given a total grant of 25 pounds to the trustees so that a caretaker was appointed to look after the museum and its valuables.
As highlighted by history, the grant was increased from 25 to 100 pounds one year later for the job.
A Colman Wall was appointed as curator of the museum with the grant given. In 1919 an unfortunate incident occurred, the town hall caught fire which caused considerable damage to the collection on display.
Fijian history highlighted that the exhibits were wholly or partly destroyed in the fire and because of this the museum was moved to a concrete building in Draiba.
The building was the Veivueti House. After Wall had passed away in 1921, George Wright an American geologist who wrote prolifically about history and theology was appointed as curator of the museum.
The museum in 1929 achieved a breakthrough; it was finally inducted as a government statutory body with a board of trustees. This was a big move for the museum.
A year later the museum was able to move to a better spot which was the upper floor of the Carnegie Library at an annual rate of 100 pounds.
It was at the library that the museum remained for twenty four years and its collection were stored in various places during World War II (WWII).
In 1949, due to the threat of air raids during the war, some 1588 exhibits were packed in 86 cases and evacuated.
Even though some exhibits were evacuated from the library, some were left behind.
The evacuated exhibits were first stored in a tunnel along Cakobau Rd – below the British High Commissioner’s residence in Suva – just metres away from the current Fiji Museum.
After about 12 months, the tunnels used for storage were opened for inspection and upon opening the tunnel it was discovered that the exhibits were badly affected by mould and damp.
It was quite devastating as the whole purpose of preserving exhibits was for it not to have mould or be damaged.
