Catalogue description British Museum (Natural History): Unofficial Archives: C W Andrews' expedition to Christmas Island, 1897-1898: correspondence, notes and photographs

Correspondence, notes and photographs relating to C W Andrews' expedition to Christmas Island, 1897-1898.

Charles William Andrews, (1866-1924)

Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated

The series was transferred to Archives in 1984.

Custodial history: The photograph albums were presented by Andrews in 1923, and the letters and notebooks by C D Sherborn in 1940.

Andrews, C W, and others, 'A monograph of Christmas Island (Indian Ocean)', British Museum (Natural History), 1900.

• Places: Christmas Island

Charles William Andrews (1866-1924), a 2nd class assistant in the Department of Geology, was given special leave by the Museum Trustees to visit Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The Island had been annexed by the Crown in 1888, the year after a visit by Captain Pelham Aldrich in HMS Egeria, and it was leased to the Christmas Island Phosphate Company for commercial development in 1897. Sir John Murray, one of the directors of the Company, proposed and financed an expedition to study the island in advance of its commercial exploitation. Andrews left England in May 1897, and arrived on Christmas Island on 29 July. He remained on the island for ten months, studying the geology and collecting rocks and minerals, plants and animals. He spent one month on the Cocos-Keeling atoll on his way home, and finally returned to duty at the Museum in August 1898. Andrews' collections were worked on by a number of scientists at the Museum, including R Bowdler Sharpe (birds), G A Boulenger (reptiles), A G Butler, G F Hampson and Lord Walsingham (butterflies and moths) and W F Kirby (other insect groups). The results of their work was published in 1900, along with a geological report by Andrews himself, as a Museum monograph.