ABSTRACT
Whilst travelling and working he continued to build his collection, using both the traditional methods of the curio hunter - such as attendance at salesrooms, curio shops, auctions and dealers - and the newer 'scientific' methods such as excavation, discovering finds whilst walking and through correspondence and contact with fellow collectors and enthusiasts. It is notable that he never permitted his family to handle his collection. His methodical nature and the strength of his habit is indicated by his notes and cataloguing system. His notes are meticulously detailed and make full use of his artistic abilities to record his objects. His cataloguing system, developed personally, was equally meticulous and was revised at least once. His collection was organised by type of object, with subcategories according to chronology and country of origin, with quite detailed provenance. The purpose of his collection, as he saw it was: To illustrate typology - the development and evolution of the eommoner and 'everyday' artefacts of early and primitive man, by bringing together and grouping, as widely as possible, series of such objeets from all over the world. (Faweett Manuseripts) Fawcett believed that studying an artefact type in sufficient quantity and variety can: not only reveal mueh of the evolutionary progress through the ages, but have an unbroken eontinuity in similarity of intention and from the earliest time to the present day. (Faweett Manuseripts) These ideas are similar to those ofPitt-Rivers's theories of 'gradual evolution', although Fawcett was collecting several decades later. Pitt-Rivers's ideas grouped objects from all over the globe into sets with like form and function to form series. Fawcett appears to have been unaware of Pitt-Rivers 's ideas of collection organisation, which like his own made a shift away from categorisation by location and period and focused more on the relations between different varieties of artefact. He continued to collect throughout his life and career, which was varied.
