ABSTRACT
Museums of general science have a simple mission to collect, to preserve and to educate. It is a role they have been undertaking in Australia for well over 100 years; and it is reflected in museum collections containing specimens of historical importance, many rare and unique, in quality research and, most familiarly, museum display. Robert Etheridge Jr, the curator of the Australian Museum, was prompted to remind the Queensland Government of the role of museums when he reported to it on the conditions of the Queensland Museum. Anthropology collections constituted a significant part of the purview of colonial museums of general science. Every Australian state museum at the turn of the 20th century maintained an ethnological collection. The Queensland Aboriginal collections of Walter E Roth are a good illustration of this complexity. While Roth's relationship with the Queensland Museum directly related to ethnography and Aboriginal people, also raises intriguing questions about the role of museums in society now as then.
