Louis William Gordon Malcolm papers

Papers written by L.W.G. Malcolm, mainly research notes and typescripts relating to his interests including the history of medicine and medical museums.

Please contact enquiries@horniman.ac.uk to arrange viewing these records.

Originally from Australia, L. W. G. Malcolm trained as an anthropologist at Cambridge with A. C. Haddon and W. H. R. Rivers, receiving an MA before apparently continuing his studies in Germany. He worked for a time as curator of archaeology and ethnography at the Bristol Municipal Museum. In 1926, Malcolm replaced C. J. S. Thompson as the Conservator (ie curator) of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. Like Wellcome, Malcolm seems to have planned an arrangement for the museum which saw medical history as simply one aspect of anthropology. His appointment brought the museum some academic credibility, and a series of connections with notable anthropologists ? including Malcolm?s former tutor, A. C. Haddon, who, newly-retired, offered his services as an 'advisor in Ethnology'. Nonetheless, the museum?s approach remained broadly conservative: Malcolm's main interests seem to have lain with physical anthropology, and his displays tended to favour the arrangement of objects in developmental series. He continued to research during his conservatorship, and was awarded a PhD by the University of Cambridge for his 1933 thesis on 'Medical museums: an historical and bibliographic study'. From 1935 until October 1937, Malcolm was part of the London County Council's inspectorate, organising the use of museum collections for teaching in London schools. In October 1937, he succeeded H. S. Harrison as Curator (ie director) of the Horniman Museum, a position he held until his death in 1946.