ABSTRACT
In 1994, members of the political campaign group called the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) wrote to the British Museum in London, to request the return of two animal skin bags containing human ash. The cremation bundles are thought to have been acquired in Australia in 1828 by George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of Aborigines, and to have arrived in the collection of the British Museum via the Royal College of Surgeons in 1882 (BM 2006a). Robert Anderson, director of the museum, refused the request, explaining that it was neither legally possible nor desirable, as the institution was dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of mankind:
[O]ur collections are held under Act of Parliament which does not permit us to de-accession them: nor would we want to do so, because we are an international museum and resource devoted to preserving mankind’s cultural heritage. (Anderson, cited in TAC 2001: § 36)
In ten years this position was reversed. After vigorous campaigns, the law referred to as a barrier by Anderson was relaxed to permit specifi c museums to remove human remains. Members of the museum sector came to advocate the repatriation of the bundles, to make reparations for British colonization and improve the lives of contemporary Aboriginal communities. British Museum trustee and prominent barrister, Helena Kennedy, fronted the decision to send the cremation bundles to the TAC. Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Kennedy explained that whilst the decision was diffi cult due to the potential loss of knowledge for researchers, the distress caused to descendants from the colonial period meant that the return of the cremation bundles was the right decision (Kennedy, H. 2006).
