John Evans, Augustus Wollaston Franks, John Lubbock and Pitt-Rivers were friends and colleagues, near contemporaries and very similar in class, taste and outlook. They shared many interests particularly anthropology, archaeology and collecting. There were some differences - Pitt-Rivers and Franks shared a keen interest in museums, Franks being the main creator of the British Museum as it is today, and Pitt-Rivers founding two museums - the others were less interested in the public display of artefacts.

Someone who was outside this circle of privilege and scholarship was Frederick John Horniman. A businessman, and Quaker by birth, he was associated with the collection which was left to the people of London and became the Horniman Museum. This museum's collections are perhaps wider in scope than Pitt-Rivers (including natural history specimens, for example) but parts of his collection are very similar. His details are included here in the spirit of 'compare and contrast'.

It is interesting to see how their lives parallel each other and how they garnered honours and awards at different times in their lives. Here is a quick summary of some of the comparable events in their lives:

Birth:

Evans - November 1823
Franks - March 1826
Pitt-Rivers - April 1827
Lubbock - April 1834
Horniman - 1835

First public lecture:

Evans - 1848
Lubbock - 1850
Pitt-Rivers - 1858
[Franks and Horniman not recorded; they may not have given one]

Started collecting:

Evans - 1832
?Lubbock - 1838
?Franks - 1839
Pitt-Rivers - 1851
?Horniman - sometime in the 1860s [according to Teague]

Started displaying collection in public:

Pitt-Rivers - 1872 (loan to South Kensington Museum)
Horniman - Before 1888

Elected Fellow of Royal Society:

Lubbock - 1858
Evans - 1864
Franks - 1874
Pitt-Rivers - 1876

Elected fellow of Society of Antiquaries:

Evans - 1852
Franks - 1853

Lubbock - 1864
Pitt-Rivers - 1864

President of Anthropological Institute:

Lubbock - 1871
Pitt-Rivers - 1875, 1881
Evans - 1877
[President of Ethnological Society Lubbock - 1863]

President Archaeological Institute

Pitt-Rivers - 1887, 1897

Details of Horniman's career is taken from Ken Teague's chapter, 'In the shadow of the Palace' in Collectors: Expressions of self and other edited by Anthony Shelton, 2001.

Here is the Word version of a table looking at the four main characters' work and life events for comparative purposes.

AP, 2010-11.

Pitt-Rivers, Evans, Franks, and Lubbocks Events