From Kenya to Kendal: Colonel Edgar Garston Harrison’s taxidermy collection, Kendal Museum

Abstract

The collections at Kendal Museum date back to 1796 when the museum was first formed as a private collection. Today the collections are publicly owned by Westmorland and Furness Council, cared for by longstanding curators Carol Davies and Morag Clement, and managed through Kendal College. One of the major donors to, and benefactors of, the museum in the 20th century was a local man called Edgar Garston Harrison (1863-1947), of High Hundhowe, near Staveley. A soldier and big game hunter, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Kings African Rifles, Harrison was active in several military campaigns related to British colonialism in eastern Africa between 1895 and 1905. During this time Harrison acquired a significant number of ‘hunting trophies,' mounted taxidermy animal heads and animal skins of the characteristic fauna of the region. In 1937 Harrison proposed to donate £2,000 towards the building of an extension to the museum’s existing buildings, on condition that this be used to display his collection of hunting trophies and other artefacts to the public, the majority of which were at that time housed in his purpose-built trophy room at High Hundhowe.