Charles Heape

In 1922 Charles Heape donated his ethnological collection of artefacts from Australia and Oceania to the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester. Many were weapons from islands in the South Pacific and reflected his aim to make a comprehensive collection of weapons and paddles from the South Pacific islanders. Heape, born in 1848, spent some of his early years in Australia. Some of the Aboriginal clubs, shields and boomerangs he collected are of a type found in Victoria and may have been acquired while he was in Australia. Most of his Pacific Island material was procured from missionaries and others who had been in that area in the 19th century.