Ethnological Society of London - 1860s

1860s

The 1860s saw a revived interest in ethnology, triggered by recent work, such as that involving flint implements and the antiquity of man. The Ethnological Society became a more of meeting-place for archaeologists, as its interests kept pace with new work; and during this decade the became a very different institution. The society's original members had mainly been military officers, civil servants, and members of the clergy, but by the early 1860s younger scientists had supplanted them. The background was of continuing encounters worldwide with many peoples; John Thomson the photographer who was recording them became a member in 1866. Thomas Henry Huxley, Augustus Lane Fox, Edward Tylor, Henry Christy, John Lubbock, and Augustus Wollaston Franks all figured prominently in the society's affairs after 1860.

The ESL's meetings and journal served as a forum for sharing new ideas, and as a clearing-house for ethnological data. In 1868 the Society set up a Classification Committee to try to get on top of the issues caused by haphazard reporting, and lack of systematic fieldwork. This initiative was a proposal of Lane Fox.