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engaged as a Godeffroy contract collector, initially working in Fiji. His observations were published in the JMG
(Friederichsen 1879a) and Scheps (2005: 142–155) reported in depth on his collecting activities. In 1879 he moved
to the Bismarck Archipelago (Melanesia) to take on the post of the late Franz Hübner. Two years later he was killed
by natives on the island of Utuan in the Duke of York Group of the Bismarck Archipelago.
Richard Heinrich Robert Parkinson (1844–1909; Fig. 10) from Augustenborg, Duchy of Schleswig,
Denmark, and, as it is now assumed (Specht 2010), the illegitimate son of the Duke of Augustenborg. After
meeting Kubary, he applied for a position with Godeffroy and was employed to collect ethnographic materials in
Samoa, accompanying Kubary there in 1875. He also obtained zoological specimens during his travels, including
land snails. Parkinson remained under contract for the Godeffroy company and the succeeding DHPG until 1881
(Scheps 2005: 154). Following that period, he travelled widely in the South Pacific, managed plantations and
worked as surveyor and collector (selling and donating thousands of artifacts to institutions such as the Australian
Museum and Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History), and published numerous works, of which his Dreißig
Jahre in der Südsee [Thirty Years in the South Sea; first published in 1907] became most widely known. Parkinson
died in 1909 in Papua New Guinea.
Many other individuals contributed to the collecting and documenting efforts for the Godeffroy Museum.
Among these were the captains of Godeffroy’s merchant vessels, some of whom supplied specimens, formal
reports, and illustrations. Most prominent among them is Alfred Tetens (1835–1903; Fig. 11) who sailed for
Godeffroy from 1865 to 1868 (when a shotgun leg wound forced his return to Europe) and, together with collector
Kubary, provided the first ethnological reports, which were then edited and published by Graeffe (1873c). Many of
the figures in the JMG were based on his sketches. His travels for Godeffroy in the western Pacific were analyzed
by Bauer & Watkins-Colwell (2001). Tetens later held the office of “Wasserschout” of the Hamburgische
Admiralität, responsible for the central hiring of seamen. His fictionalized memoirs (Tetens & Steinberg 1889)
include his observations of native islanders during his South Sea travels.
The Godeffroy Museum
In 1861, the museum opened in parts of Godeffroy’s “Kontorhäuser” (counting house buildings) on the Alter
Wandrahm street in Hamburg (Fig. 12). An exhibition was open to the public and covered the natural history,
ethnography, and physical anthropology of the South Seas. The museum later (1876) expanded to two rented floors
in another building on the opposite side of street, at Alter Wandrahm 29, with the lower floor dedicated to zoology
and the upper to ethnographic and anthropological displays.
Two years after Graeffe’s 1861 departure to collect in Samoa, Godeffroy contracted Hamburg-born Johannes
Dietrich Eduard Schmeltz (1839–1909; Fig. 2) who joined the Godeffroy Museum as “Kustos” (curator). He was
later joined by two assistants, Eduard Dämel (see above) and C. A. Pöhl, the latter a merchant captain (see below).
Schmeltz had little formal training but was an enthusiastic and successful autodidact in many fields of natural
history who had contact with many of the established naturalists in Hamburg (Kranz 2005: 26; Scheps 2005: 66). It
proved to be a great hire; Schmeltz not only organized the collections, he also managed much of the scientific
operation, from aspects of field collecting to many of the museum’s publications for nearly the entire duration of
the museum’s existence. He frequently edited, summarized, and published the reports arriving from the overseas
collectors, both in external serials and Godeffroy publications. An example is his article in the journal Globus
(Schmeltz 1882), in which he delivered reports by Kleinschmidt and Hübner. He also published his own technical
papers (e.g., reporting on the pteropods and heteropods of the Museum Godeffroy; Schmeltz [1875e]). Schmeltz
equipped and advised the contract collectors, organized the incoming material, and made decisions on which
specimens were added to the various parts of the Godeffroy collection. Most importantly, he engaged leading
national and international specialists to help identify and describe the rich material that was streaming in with the
returning Godeffroy vessels (a partial list of some 50 zoologists and anthropologists was compiled by Scheps 2005:
54). Among the malacological specialists were J. R. A. Mousson (1805–1890) of Switzerland, W. B. R. H. Dunker
(1809–1885) and O. Semper (1830–1907) of Germany, and L. S. R. Bergh (1824–1909) of Denmark. Schmeltz also
advertised the availability of material to the broader research community (e.g., by placing announcements of
interesting, recently acquired specimens in the Zoologischer Anzeiger (1881b: 72) and—last but not
least—compiled extensive catalogs that listed the specimen material that was for sale (see below). At the same
time, Johan Cesar VI Godeffroy himself held close contact with scientists and naturalists of his day. The famous
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