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The Bequest of Francis Douce
Francis Douce, portrait by James Barry
When he died in 1834 he left an unusual stipulation in his will. He wanted all his personal papers donated to the British Museum, but they were to be first sealed in a box and only opened sixty-six years after his death. The text of his unusual will was recorded in The Gentleman's Magazine (July to December, 1834, Vol. II, New Series, p.217):
"I desire my executor to collect together all my letters and correspondence, all my private manuscripts, and unfinished or even finished essays or intended work or works, memorandum books, especially such as are marked in the inside of their covers with a red cross, with the exception only of such articles as he may think proper to destroy, as my diaries, or other articles of a merely private nature, and to put them into a strong box, to be sealed up, without lock or key, and with a brass-plate, inscribed "Mr. Douce's papers, to be opened on the 1st. of January 1900," and then to deposit this box in the British Museum, or, if the Trustees should decline receiving it, I then wish it to remain with the other things bequeathed to the Bodleian Library."
Sixty-six years is an extremely long time to make someone (even an institution) wait, and there were grumbles from scholars about the oddity of this bequest. For instance, in the August 21, 1880 edition of Notes and Queries, one scholar wrote in with this complaint:
As Douce died in 1834, if the conditions of this bequest are literally observed, these books will have been sealed up for sixty-six years, which appears to be an unreasonable time. I am the last person in the world to disregard the wishes of testators, having left my own collections to be sealed up for twenty years; but there is a medium in all things, and, if no limit is to be observed, some literary Thellusson may order his manuscripts to be uselessly warehoused for centuries.
Nevertheless, the British Museum dutifully observed Douce's wishes and waited the full length of time. Finally, on January 1, 1900 the trustees of the museum gathered to open the box. There must have been some anticipation. After all, having made them wait that long, Douce must have left them something of interest.
Numerous newspapers reported what the trustees found. The following representative account is found in The Dubuque Herald on Sunday May 27, 1900:
Hoax on British Museum
— Mysterious Box, Bequeathed in 1834, Opened and Found to Contain Only Trash. —
The British museum trustees, who include Premier Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Alfred Rothschild and several other eminently important personages, have just been made the victims of an extraordinary hoax.
Francis Douce, a famous antiquary, who died in 1834, bequeathed a box to the British museum trustees, stipulating it should not be opened until 1900.
At a meeting of the trustees the box was solemnly unsealed and unlocked by the curator of the museum, when it was found to contain nothing but old fragments of paper, torn book covers and other rubbish, with a note from Douce saying that, in his opinion, it would be wasting any more valuable or interesting objects to leave them to persons of the average intelligence and taste of the British museum trustees.
The trustees tried to look amused, but the meeting dispersed in silence. The janitor was called to throw Douce's bequest into the ashbin.
— Mysterious Box, Bequeathed in 1834, Opened and Found to Contain Only Trash. —
The British museum trustees, who include Premier Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Alfred Rothschild and several other eminently important personages, have just been made the victims of an extraordinary hoax.
Francis Douce, a famous antiquary, who died in 1834, bequeathed a box to the British museum trustees, stipulating it should not be opened until 1900.
At a meeting of the trustees the box was solemnly unsealed and unlocked by the curator of the museum, when it was found to contain nothing but old fragments of paper, torn book covers and other rubbish, with a note from Douce saying that, in his opinion, it would be wasting any more valuable or interesting objects to leave them to persons of the average intelligence and taste of the British museum trustees.
The trustees tried to look amused, but the meeting dispersed in silence. The janitor was called to throw Douce's bequest into the ashbin.
It seemed that Douce had contrived to play a practical joke from the grave on the trustees of the British museum.
Controversy
The tale of Douce's bequest makes an appealing story (especially since it fits into the ever-popular genre of jokes played upon academics). But is it true?
The broad details are correct. Douce did die in 1834 and he did leave behind his unusual bequest to the British museum. However, there is controversy over whether the box actually contained either trash or a spiteful note.
Arundell Esdaile, in The British Museum Library: A Short History and Survey (George Allen & Unwin, 1946), suggests that the contents of Douce's box were slightly less dramatic:
By the terms of the will, the British Museum had the option to refuse the box and allow it go with the other material to the Bodleian. Instead, they kept the box and, according to Douce’s wish, did not open it until 1 January 1900, whereupon it was decided that the contents were not valuable. At the request of the Bodleian, the box was at last transferred from the British Museum to the Bodleian in 1930.
Joby Topper, who in 2002 completed his master's thesis at the University of North Carolina on Francis Douce (Francis Douce and his Collection: An antiquarian in Great Britain, 1757-1834), suggests that it might be a case of "one's man's trash being another man's treasure." In response to an email query about the subject of Douce's bequest, Topper wrote:
The keepers of manuscripts at the British Museum (Scott and Kenyon) were not at all impressed by the unpublished manuscripts, notebooks, and letters they found in Douce's box. To my knowledge, they never made so much as a handlist of the contents. In 1930, they sent the box to the Bodleian at the Bodleian's request. There, the notebooks and correspondence were found to be very useful in understanding Douce's collection and the collecting interests of several friends, among them Isaac D'Israeli and T.F. Dibdin.
As for the insulting note, though I've never read or heard about it, I could believe that Douce was capable of writing it. He worked as Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum for a short time (1807-1811), and he resigned in disgust after a disagreement with the museum Trustees over the assignment of a person to his department without his approval--though later he made it very clear that he had never been happy working in the BM, and this incident was simply the last straw. Was he bitter enough to leave the BM such an insulting note? I doubt it. Surely Douce knew that his little joke would be played on innocent people of the next generation and not on the people he believed had treated him unfairly during his tenure.
As for the insulting note, though I've never read or heard about it, I could believe that Douce was capable of writing it. He worked as Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum for a short time (1807-1811), and he resigned in disgust after a disagreement with the museum Trustees over the assignment of a person to his department without his approval--though later he made it very clear that he had never been happy working in the BM, and this incident was simply the last straw. Was he bitter enough to leave the BM such an insulting note? I doubt it. Surely Douce knew that his little joke would be played on innocent people of the next generation and not on the people he believed had treated him unfairly during his tenure.
However, after looking at the newspaper articles describing Douce's practical joke, which were written soon after the British Museum opened his box, Topper professed more doubt:
The article is written in such a convincing tone and style, and so soon after the opening of the box ... it really makes me wonder if there's a nugget of truth in this story. But then again, the article was written at the height of the "yellow journalism" era, so we have good reason to be skeptical.
So ultimately we don't know whether Douce actually did perpetrate an elaborate practical joke from the grave, or whether the story of his insulting bequest was an invention of either an enterprising newspaper reporter or the trustees of the British Museum.
Links and References
- Topper, Joby. (April, 2002). Francis Douce and His Collection: An Antiquarian in Great Britain, 1757-1834. A Master’s paper for the M.S. in L.S. degree.
- "Obituary -- Francis Douce, Esq. F.S.A." (Aug., 1834). The Gentleman's Magazine. Vol. 2, New Series: 212-217.
- "The Douce Bequest to the British Museum." (Aug. 21, 1880). Notes and Queries. Series 6. II: 146.
- "Hoax on British Museum." (May 27, 1900). The Dubuque Herald.