Henry Stewart Rohu 1844-1921
Henry Stewart Bonaventure Rohu was the eldest surviving son of John Vincent Rohu and grandson of Bonaventure Rohu. He was born on 7.9.1844, probably in Devon, England as his father was posted there. JV was transferred to Inis Cú in Donegal, NW Ireland that same year, but it is likely that his wife, Mary, stayed in Devon to have the child. Henry, who was a taxidermist and naturalist, led a colourful and eventful life. He entered the British Navy in 1861 and served extensively in the Southern Hemisphere. He moved to Australia and in 1868 married Ada Jane Coates in Wooloomooloo in New South Wales.
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Ada Jane Coates, a former actress and widow with 3 children, was a taxidermist who with her mother Jane Tost had opened Tost and Coates, a Fancy Work Depot and Taxidermy Studio in Sydney. The business was renamed Tost and Rohu after she married Henry Stewart. As well as taxidermy, items sold included Berlin wool, feather flowers and glass domes. The couple ran lessons in taxidermy and fancy work, and exhibited their work, winning numerous awards. Later, the company began to sell furs and curios. From the 1890’s the company claimed to stock the largest collection of Pacific Islander and Australian material in the country.
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Henry and Ada had seven children, Alver, Sylvester, Elsie May, Ada, Ruby, Millicent and Jane. Henry deserted Ada in April 1890 and Ada petitioned for divorce in November of that year. Henry moved to New Guinea and spent some years pearl fishing, exploring and hunting specimens for the British Museum. He was appointed to the staff of the resident Magistrate on the north east coast of New Guinea and is credited with the discovery of a hitherto unknown bat which he presented to the British Museum and which has been named after him. It was during his time in New Guinea (1895) that, like Robinson Crusoe, he was marooned for over a year on a sandbank and survived. This remarkable story is recorded in the Wide World Magazine in 1909. This Family photograph was probably taken in 1916 before Sil embarked for the Great War.
Back: Alver, Ada (McCann), Millicent. Middle: Sil, Elsie May, Ella McCann, Ada Jane. Front: unknown man. The two little girls are Millicent's daughters Ada and Sylvia Robey. Tragedy was to hit the family in 1902 when Ruby died of bubonic plague.
Back: Alver, Ada (McCann), Millicent. Middle: Sil, Elsie May, Ella McCann, Ada Jane. Front: unknown man. The two little girls are Millicent's daughters Ada and Sylvia Robey. Tragedy was to hit the family in 1902 when Ruby died of bubonic plague.
Furrier and Taxidermist
Henry married Charity Pitman on 14.2.1901 and then moved to England, setting up as a Naturalist and Furrier in Bournemouth sometime between 1901 and 1905 when he gave an interview with a local paper about his experiences in New Guinea. Henry Stewart died in Bournemouth on 21.8.1921. His first wife, Ada Jane died in Sydney on 28.7.1928.
Pitt Rivers Museum
In 1903 and 1904, possibly to raise funds, Henry Stewart sold nearly 500 ethnographical items to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom. The Pitt Rivers Museum was founded in 1884 when General Pitt Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, gave his collection of about 18,000 objects to the University of Oxford. There are now over half a million objects in the collection. You can visit the Pitt Rivers website here.
The museum is organised in a very distinctive way. In most ethnographic and archaeological museums, the objects are arranged according to geographical or cultural areas. At the Pitt Rivers Museum, they are arranged according to type: musical instruments, weapons, masks, textiles, jewellery, and tools are all displayed to show how the same problems have been solved at different times by different peoples. |
Below is an entry in the original museum log book and samples of some of the objects collected by Henry Stewart Rohu and later sold to the museum. Only a small number are currently on display. Images of objects are reproduced by kind permission from Pitt Rivers online archive, and are Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum.