Manuscripts and Personal Documents
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Brinkworth, William Ian
setName: label: See more items in
content: William Ian Brinkworth collection
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 65 Documents (Boxes 6-7)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1901-1991
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: EEPA.2008-009, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Documents
arrangement: label: Arrangement note
content: Series II, Brinkworth's manuscripts and personal documents, were kept in the original order in which they arrived at the National Museum of African Art. The folders correspond to Brinkworth's original folder content and arrangement.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: This series contains Brinkworth's passports, typed and hand-written notes, book drafts and film treatments. The most prevalent focus of these documents is the art and people of Benin. Also in the series is a 1954 issue of the magazine Functional Photography for which Brinkworth wrote an article discussing the difficulties of storing, developing and preserving film in a harsh African climate [Brinkworth, Ian. Aspect of Photography in Nigeria.Functional Photography 5 (1954): 4+].

The series also contains many items not authored by Brinkworth but personally relating to him. Among these is a folder of documents pertaining to the law suit filed against him by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Investigation into the reasons for the law suit has yielded ambiguous results, but it is understood that the suit was settled peacefully in 1970. Also in the series is a folder of legal documents recording governmental and court processes of the Ogwashi-Uku Native Court in Nigeria during the 1940's, Brinkworth's passports, a journal from 1960 titled Bamenda, correspondence to British Officials, historical chronologies, a 1961 issue of MAN A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science, and a Genesis written in Pidgin.

One item of particular interest is a document dated from 1901 to 1910. In his autobiography, The One-Eyed Man Is King, Brinkworth mentions his discovery of an original manuscript written by former British Traveling Commissioner Major W.R. Reeve-Tucker [Ian Brook, The One-Eyed Man Is King (London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1966), 301-302.]. The passage cited by Brinkworth can be found on page 222 of the original Reeve-Tucker manuscript. Brinkworth located the manuscript in Ado-Ekiti. It was in his possession until it was donated to NMAfA with the rest of the collection. The manuscript contains a report on the state of affairs in the North Eastern District of the Lagos Protectorate covering the period between November 8, 1899 and December 31st, 1900. Reeve-Tucker reported on the political systems, natural resources, industries, marriage and burial customs, geographical features and secret societies in the North Eastern District known as "Ekitiland." Attached to the report is an incomplete collection of "Minute Papers" dated from June 1901 to May 1920. Major W.R. Reeve-Tucker is depicted with Captain W.G. Ambrose on one panel of a palace door (c. 1904-1910) carved by the Olowe of Ise, a Yoruba artist (d. 1938). This panel is in possession of the British Museum [catalogue number 1979.AF.I.4546] while the second accompanying panel is in the permanent collection at the National Museum of African Art [NMAfA permanent collection 88-13-1] [for reproduction of this panel see Sieber, Roy and Roslyn Adele Walker, African Art in the Cycle of Life. Washington D.C. and London, England: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987: 55.].