Inscribing missionary impact in Central Polynesia: Mapping the George Bennet Collection

Together with the Revd Daniel Tyerman, George Bennet formed part of a deputation sent out in 1821 by the London Missionary Society with the aim of undertaking a global inspection of the state of the mission. This paper aims to map the collection that Bennet assembled in Central Polynesia during that journey and to ask what the parties involved in the collecting encounters understood to be embodied in the material forms that were collected. By paying attention to how the various agents involved in the collecting process played a role, the Bennet collection offers an appropriate case-study to query the view of missionary collecting as merely trophy collecting.