A

This account has been compiled using archive material from Adela C. Breton Papers, American Philosophical Society, Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution (BRLSI), British Library, City of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives, King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Philadelphia Museum, Royal Anthropological Institute, Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office, and The Bath Chronicle.

Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution16 –18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HNwww.brlsi.org reg charity no 304477

This is a portrait of an

extraordinary woman and her

adventures.

Adela Breton (1849–1923)

—well-known to scholars of

Mesoamerican art and culture for

her watercolours of Maya temple

murals—is relatively unknown in

her own country.

Most of her life was spent in

Bath, caring for parents, but after

her father’s death in 1887, she became an intrepid traveller in the Americas,

inheriting her father’s ‘inherent propensity to wander’.

Working with archaeologists in Mexico, Adela made beautiful and detailed

paintings of the ancient temple murals in the Yucatán Peninsula, thus

preserving an invaluable record for the future. She travelled extensively and

in her final years participated in international conferences of archaeology in

Europe and the Americas, until her death in 1923 in Barbados .

Both Adela and her father were members of Bath Royal Literary and

Scientific Institution (BRLSI) and their legacy continues with their donations to

the BRLSI collections. A dela bequeathed her art collection to Bristol Museum,

Art Gallery, and Archives, and to the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath.

THEREMARKABLE

MISSBRETONARTIST ARCHAEOLOGIST TRAVELLER

The Remarkable Miss Breton: Artist, archaeologist, traveller

This account has been compiled using archive material from Adela C. Breton Papers, American Philosophical Society, Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution (BRLSI), British Library, Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives, King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Philadelphia Museums, Royal Anthropological Institute, Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office, and The Bath Chronicle.

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the following individuals and institutions for photographs and illustrations: BRLSI; Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives; Hugh Gaskell-Taylor; Norman Hammond; King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Lancaster; Jeremy Mayes; Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Canada; Geoff Ritchie www.ontheconvicttrail.blogspot.co.uk; Royal Anthropological Institute; Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office, Australia; Victoria Art Gallery, Bath.

Errors and omissions remain the author’s alone.

Cover design: Jude HarrisMaps: Jeremy MayesDesign: Lucy Frontani

Published in Great Britain by Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution 2017

This is the fifth in a series of occasional pamphlets published by BRLSIMr Pinch’s WellAdventures of a Merchant BankerBath and the Nile ExplorersSaving the Dodo

Available from Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HN www.brlsi.org and local bookshops

© Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, review, as permitted under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the Publishers.

ISBN paperback 978-0-9935674-0-7ISBN e-book 978-0-9935674-1-4

Printed by Short Run Press Exeter

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAmerican Philosophical SocietyDr Elizabeth Baquedano, Institute of

Archaeology, UCLBristol Museums, Galleries & ArchivesBritish LibraryBRLSI Directors, Publications,

Collections & OfficeLucy FrontaniHugh Gaskell-TaylorSue Giles, Bristol Museum Galleries &

ArchivesIvan Godfrey, The Yucatán Railway

MuseumProfessor Elizabeth Graham, Institute of

Archaeology, UCL Jeff Groff, Winterthur Museum, Garden

& Library, USAProfessor Norman Hammond,

Cambridge UniversityJude Harris, BRLSI

King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Lancaster

Richard Maudslay CBE, British Mexican Society

Jeremy MayesPhiladelphia Museums, USA Fiona Philpott, Liverpool MuseumsProvincial Archives, New Brunswick,

CanadaJean Raleigh, Winterthur Museum,

Garden & Library, USAGeoff Ritchie, www.ontheconvicttrail.

blogspot.co.uk Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office,

AustraliaThe Bath ChronicleVictoria Art Gallery, BathSarah Walpole, Royal Anthropological

Institute

CONTENTSAcknowledgements iiiIntroduction 1Part I: The Bretons in Bath – and beyond 3Part II: Adela – Art, Archaeology and Adventure 24Part III: A Legacy of Colour 70Selected Bibliography 76

Photograph of Adela Breton, side-saddle, with Pablo SolorioPhotographer unknownEa11507 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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Introduction‘I lived for several seasons in the next hut to Miss Adela Breton at Chichen Itza.

I also visited her at Bath… she was a very remarkable woman’

Alfred M Tozzer, Curator of Middle American Archaeology Emeritus, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology 18 April 1950

‘Miss Adela Catherine Breton was born December 31, 1849 and died June 13, 1923. Her father was Commander William H Breton, RN, and her grandfather was Peter Breton of Jamaica.

From 1894 to 1899 she spent much time in archaeological investigations in Mexico. From 1900 to 1904 and again in 1907 her interests turned to the Maya area centering on the ruins of Chichen Itza. Her great work, carried out at the suggestion of Alfred P Maudslay, was copying the frescoes in the Jaguar Temple at Chichen. This most accurate and painstaking contribution can be understood only by those who saw her laboriously working over the mutilated paintings. Her original colored tracings are at the City Museum, Bristol, England’

Alfred M Tozzer in a letter to FS Wallis, Director of the City Museum, Bristol 30 October 1950

Adela Catherine Breton 1849-1923Growing up with her family in the ‘gilded cage’ of Bath and educated in the pursuits of a Victorian gentlewoman such as watercolour painting, Adela Catherine Breton (1849-1923) inherited her father’s ‘inherent propensity to wander’ and became an intrepid traveller, especially in the Americas, working as an artist with archaeologists and anthropologists.

In her late thirties, after her father’s death in 1887, Adela used her new-found independence to embark upon a solo tour in North and Central America, beginning with visits to extended family in Philadelphia but later spending time in Mexico. Under her pen name of ‘Your Mexican Correspondent’, Adela sent reports to The Bath Chronicle about her adventures in Mexico, accompanied by Pablo Solorio, her local guide.

Adela’s artistic talents became known to Alfred Percival Maudslay, an archaeologist and fellow Briton working on sites in Mexico, who invited

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her to assist him at Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán to copy and document ancient frescoes. Adela’s painstaking recordings, in watercolour, show the original colours of ancient Maya temple murals and architecture especially from the Temple of the Jaguars at Chichén Itzá, and at Teotihuacán and Acancéh. Many original frescoes have disappeared and lost their colours through the passage of time, so Adela’s work is often the only record which remains.

Although well-known to archaeologists and scholars of Mesoamerican art and culture, Adela is relatively unknown in the country of her birth. Adela graduated from being an amateur watercolourist and traveller, through her fieldwork and art, to become a respected archaeologist who participated in international conferences and published scholarly work.

Adela travelled into her early seventies but fell ill on her way back to England after attending the 1922 International Congress of Americanists in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and died in Barbados in 1923. Hearing news of her death, Adela’s brother, Harry D’Arch Breton wrote:

‘For the last 30 years and more…Adela has so often left England and returned safe if not sound that it is only the sight of her watch on a table in the dining room here that makes me realise that she will never come back from Rio – that fatal trip’

Adela loaned objects, collected on her travels, to the newly established Bristol Art Gallery and Museum of Antiquities and on her death in 1923, bequeathed her entire collection to the Museum. Today, Adela’s work is digitised and available online worldwide.

Breton, Adela C.Painting of ruined temple (Pyramid of the Niches) at El Tajin, Papantla, MexicoEa8144 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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Part I: The Bretons in Bath – and beyond

The Breton Family‘An inherent propensity to wander’

Lieut. Breton R.N. 1833

Excursions in New South Wales, Western Australia and Van Dieman’s Land during the years 1830, 1831, 1832 and 1833

Adela’s wanderlust is no surprise, with her family firmly rooted in the British navy and army, and colonial adventuring. She wrote many letters and kept diaries – some letters remain, largely from 1915 until her death in 1923. Sadly, the whereabouts of her diaries are unknown – possibly destroyed soon after her death when the contents of her house in Bath were dismantled. Adela’s writing style includes ‘+’ as shorthand for ‘and’ which is retained here in quotations from her letters.

The Old Rectory, Richmond, TasmaniaSCO1594 ontheconvicttrail.blogspot.co.uk Courtesy of Geoff Ritchie

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William Henry Breton 1799-1887 Adela’s father, William Henry Breton, was a twin – born in January 1799 – one of 11 children born to Peter Breton and his wife Lucy. His twin brother was Henry William Breton (1799-1889). Census records state William was born in Clapham, Surrey, although his father – Peter Breton – was still serving as a colonial magistrate in Jamaica at this time.

William joined the Royal Navy on January 7, 1812 at the age of 13 years and passed the Lieutenant’s examination in 1818. He obtained a commission on March 10, 1827 and served with the British anti-slavery fleet on the West African coast, visiting Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea), Gold Coast (Ghana), Sierra Leone, and the West Indies.

In 1830, William retired from active naval service on half pay to ‘indulge his inclination for travel’. According to ships’ passenger lists, William travelled on the ‘Royal George’, a 486-ton vessel transporting convicts, captained by William Powditch, which left London-Spithead on 26 August 1830 and arrived in Sydney on 24 December 1830. On 20 January 1831, the ship arrived at Hobart in Van Diemen’s Land – now Tasmania – before sailing on to Mauritius and West Africa.

After three years in the Antipodes, William returned to England and published an account of his journeys: ‘Excursions in New South Wales, Western Australia and Van Dieman’s Land, between 1830 and 1833’. In 1834, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and visited Sweden, Norway, and Russia, publishing a book about his travels in 1835 – ‘Scandinavian Sketches, or a Tour of Norway’.

William set out once more for New South Wales, now called Australia, and Van Diemen’s Land, becoming a Police Magistrate for Richmond from December 1835 to April 1841, prior to serving at Launceston from 1842 to 1847. Launceston, founded in 1806, is the third oldest European settlement in Australia after Sydney (1788) and Hobart (1803).

Launceston (Tasmania) drawn by Margaret Black; drawn on stone by F. Cogne [circa 1863] Cogne, Francois, 1829-1883AUTAS001124071010 Courtesy of Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office

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In September 1838 William bought The Old Rectory in Richmond for ₤1,900. Set in four hectares, this Georgian colonial house was built by James Gordon, Richmond’s Police Magistrate from 1829 to 1832. Richmond’s court building and gaol were built in 1825. Magistrates could sentence convicts to a range of punishments including the lash, treadmill, hard labour, and work in a chain gang.

Newspaper reports show William judged cases of transportation, sheep stealing, assault and robbery, including someone accused of ‘feloniously stealing one hundred and twenty kangaroo skins’. In 1839 a Police Magistrate received a salary of £300 per annum, plus £50 housing and forage allowance.

Not everyone welcomed William in this role. In 1848, a letter to the Launceston newspaper recommended William’s removal from the bench: ‘We trust that Mr. Breton will never again occupy the seal of Judge in either the Court of Quarter Sessions or the Court of Requests, for which he is not in the smallest degree qualified. He should retire while the opportunity is mercifully left to him; we forbear to follow up a report of his imbecile exhibitions’

Cornwall Chronicle, Saturday 8 July 1848

In March 1842 William was a founder member of the Launceston Mechanics Institute and was its President from 1842 to 1849, donating books and giving lectures. The Institute offered its members educational lectures and a library.

‘MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE…An addition has also been made to the already numerous donations from W. H Breton, Esq. president, in the presentation of the volume on Mechanics’

Launceston Examiner Wednesday 15 March 1843

Van Diemen’s Land – TasmaniaThe island of Tasmania, called Trowenna by aboriginal people, was colonised by Britain from 1803 when a penal colony was established called ‘Van Diemen’s Land’. The sea voyage from Britain could take eight months and the average sentence was seven years for those transported to a place ‘beyond the seas’. With good conduct, some convicts gained their freedom.

Between 1803 and 1853, more than 59,000 men and 13,500 women served in Van Diemen’s Land penal colony, sent to build bridges and roads

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or assigned to settlers as domestic servants and labourers. By 1824, the European population was over 12,000, comprising 6,261 convicts, 471 women and 5790 men. Transportation ended in 1853.

Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin were posted to Van Diemen’s Land from 1836 to 1843 where Sir John served as Lieutenant Governor. The ‘Beagle’ visited Hobart with Charles Darwin on board in 1836.

Elizabeth Anne Breton (née D’Arch) 1820-1874Adela’s mother was Elizabeth Anne D’Arch, born on 13 May 1820. Elizabeth’s parents were Thomas Darch and Elizabeth Darch, formerly of Netherclay House at Bishop’s Hull, near Taunton.

Elizabeth’s grandfather, Colonel Thomas Darch, was born in 1739 in Somerset – a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Earl of Cork’s regiment of Somerset Militia. He sold Netherclay House when he emigrated to America. Thomas had two sons: Edmund, who died a prisoner in France, and Thomas, Elizabeth’s father, who was a Private Secretary to the Lords of the Admiralty.

Elizabeth had three sisters – Mary Sarah (born 1822), Sarah Matilda (born 1825), and Sophia (born 1827). Following the death of her father, Elizabeth travelled to Van Diemen’s Land in 1837 with her mother and sisters, to live with her brother, Henry D’Arch – a Customs Collector at Launceston in Van Diemen’s Land:

‘Arrival 1837 from Sydney Mrs D’Arche Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary, Sophia

Sept. 28-WILLIAM (brig.) 149 tons, Thom, master, from Sydney’

The Cornwall Chronicle, Launceston 30 September 1837

William & Elizabeth BretonOn 16 March 1844, Elizabeth married William Henry Breton:

‘MARRIED -By special license, on Saturday, the 16th instant, at St. John’s Church, by the Rev. Dr. Browne, William Henry Breton, Esq., Police Magistrate of Launceston, to Elizabeth Anne, eldest daughter of the late Thomas D’Arch, Esq., of Teignmouth, Devon; and at the same time and place, Thomas, third son of Major Craufurd, of Ardmillan, Ayrshire, to Mary Sarah, second daughter of the same’

The Cornwall Chronicle, Launceston, 16 March 1844

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The Bretons attended social events at Launceston: ‘PRIVATE BALL…A ball and supper was given by Lieutenant Breton, our Police Magistrate, which was attended by upwards of one hundred of the inhabitants...Mr. Breton is doing much towards civilising Launceston’

September 1846

William and Elizabeth’s first child – a son, unnamed on his birth certificate, age 0 years – was born in Launceston on 17 June 1846 but his death was recorded on the same date. Early in 1849, William and Elizabeth returned to England. Their departure from Van Diemen’s Land is noted on the passenger list of the Shamrock, bound for Port Philip on 17 January 1849. Soon afterwards, a quantity of household furniture was sold at auction by Elizabeth’s brother, Henry:

‘AUCTION at the residence of Mr. D’Arch, Brisbane-street, on MONDAY, the 26th February instant, at 10 o’clock, A quantity of excellent HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, consisting of mahogany dressing tables, rose wood card ditto, rosewood cabinet chiffonniers, ottomans, carpets, fenders, fire-irons, eight-day clock, a brilliant tuned CABINET PIANOFORTE by Broadwood, Canterbury, music stool, curtains and poles, bedstead and hangings, chest of drawers, wash stands, with a variety of useful domestic utensils. Terms, cash’

The Cornwall Chronicle, Van Diemen’s Land 1849

Bretons in Jamaica Adela Breton’s paternal grandfather, Peter Breton, was a magistrate and judge in Kingston, Surrey in Jamaica. He may have been of Huguenot descent. In 1787 or 1788, Peter married Lucy Goldwin, daughter of Thomas Goldwin. Peter and Lucy had 11 children, including twin boys born in 1799 – William Henry Breton, Adela’s father, and Henry William Breton, Adela’s paternal uncle.

It is unclear where most of their children were born. British census returns state William Henry was born in January 1799 in Clapham, Surrey but the twins’ birthplace may have been in the county of ‘Surry’ in Jamaica, where Clapham and Clarendon were plantations. Peter Breton died in 1803 in Jamaica.

Adela Breton’s great uncle and Lucy’s brother – Thomas Goldwin, of Vicars Hill, Lymington, Hampshire – was formerly a Jamaica planter and

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merchant who owned ‘slaves and stock’ at the time of his death. In 1777, Thomas Goldwin married Elizabeth, daughter of John Shickle of Clarendon who owned ‘Danks’ or ‘New Savoy’ Sugar Estate and ‘Shickle’s Pastures’. In 1779 Shickle conveyed fourteen slaves as a gift to Mrs. Goldwin. Shickle’s estate on his death included slaves valued at £6000. Properties in Jamaica with links to Goldwin and Shickle include Mullett Hall, Chapman’s Hill in Clarendon, and Monnsons in Vere.

In 1796 Thomas Goldwin retired to England where he lived at Vicars Hill, near Boldre, Hampshire until his death on 23 October 1809, aged 60. Thomas’s will cites his sister, Lucy Breton, and her children, and mentions a conveyance to him of 65 slaves, dated 2 April 1787. His will distributed a large fortune amongst nephews and nieces in the Breton family, including William, Adela’s father. Adela’s paternal grandmother, Lucy Breton née Goldwin, died in 1820 and is buried at Boldre church alongside Thomas:

‘Here lie the remains of Lucy BRETON wife of the late Peter BRETON and sister of the late Thomas GOLDWIN Esq. who died on the 13th day of January 1820 aged 61 years’

15 Camden Crescent – formerly known as Camden Place, Bath. Adela lived here from 1852 until her death.Courtesy of Jane Sparrow-Niang

Necklace made from snake vertebrae, the ankle bones of a mouse-deer, shell, and the upper jaw of a carnivore. Collected by WH Breton in the 1820s when with the Navy off the coast of West Africa, Bioko or Fernando Pó AF365 Courtesy of BRLSI

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The Breton family in Bath Early in 1849, William and Elizabeth left Van Diemen’s Land to set up home in London. William retired from the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant, on half pay. Their daughter, Adela Catherine Breton, was born in Kensington, London, on 31 December 1849.

In 1850, William and Elizabeth moved to Bath, living at 1 Bathwick Hill Villas, where they employed three servants as the 1851 census shows.

In 1852, the Breton family moved to 15 Camden Place, Bath – now known as Camden Crescent. Camden Crescent was built by John Eveleigh about 1787 to 1790. Of Palladian design, the crescent was originally planned with thirty-two houses but was never completed. Its name derives from the First Earl of Camden, Charles Pratt – Recorder of Bath in 1759 and Lord Chancellor in 1766.

Adela’s brother, Harry D’Arch Breton, was born in Bath in 1852. A few years later, a stillborn child was born to the family at 15 Camden Place. The 1861 census shows the Breton family still at 15 Camden Crescent, with Adela aged 11 and Harry aged 9, together with William’s niece Lucy, aged 37, and four house servants.

However, the 1871 census shows the Breton family were living at 26 Queen Square in Bath, just a few strides away from BRLSI: William Henry Breton, Head, Commander Royal Navy Retired; Elizabeth Anne Breton 49; Adela Catherine Breton 21; and four servants including a cook and a lady’s maid. The family may have moved temporarily whilst refurbishments were carried out, as they were back at Camden Crescent soon afterwards. Harry had enlisted with the Royal Engineers by this time.

The Breton family house at 15 Camden Crescent was Adela’s base throughout her life. Apparently, the house was full of ‘curiosities’ brought back by William from his travels, including a ‘Burmese Dagger now used by me as a bread knife’.

Adela Breton with her mother Elizabeth d’Arch Breton (1820-1874), her father Commander William Breton (1799-1889) and her father’s twin brother, General Henry Breton (1799-1887)Photographer unknownEa11509 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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William Breton’s ‘List of Curiosities’Indian Procession – brought from Madras. Carved wooden spoon – This belonged to Martin Luther, and was given me by the widow of the owner in 1854. It had been in possession of the family since Luther’s death. Norwegian knife – used by the people in cutting instruments, given to me by Mr John Bull, a Norwegian clergyman, in 1835. This peculiar kind of knife is now very rare. The date is marked 1742. War Comb This relic of Maori warfare was worn by Shounga, a great Warrior, in New Zealand, as a distinguishing ornament throughout the Islands. He paid a visit to England, where he obtained some guns, and on his return home nearly extirpated some of the Tribes. He was finally killed in battle. How the comb came into the hands of the Bishop, I did not learn. It was given to me by Count Stregelski, when in Tasmania in 1839. The term Guerric implied Warrior. War Club A first club, covered with ornamentation, and a ridge down the centre of the blade, came from Samoa, one of the Navigator Isles. Ball-headed round Club, called Uta, used as a missle [sic]. This, with several formidable Clubs, came from the Fiji Islands. Burmese Dagger – now used by me as a bread knife. Its ornamented handle represents the Goddess of Death. A small Bronze Figure on a stand, with out-stretched hands, came from Siam. The small carved Image, in Ivory, came from Bali, one of the Sunday Isles, and is carved out of a Whale’s Tooth, the Natives employing extremely rude implements in cutting them. Three Chinese Bronzes. Taken from a Temple plundered by our Troops in 1869, [is this date correct?] and was considered of some value. I purchased it in Australia. Somewhat similar Bronzes may be seen in London. Three in number. Two Stools – cut out of solid wood – obtained by one when I was at Accra, on the West of Africa, in the Maidstone Frigate in 1827. Basket, with cover. I obtained this as a curiosity at Fernando Po, the Inhabitants of which Island were in a very low state of civilisation, and yet clever enough to do this kind of work, most cleverly… The Egg of the Ostrich, and some other large Birds, I obtained in Tasmania.

‘This is the writing of Commander WH Breton, R.N. Of 15 Camden Crescent, Bath – born 1799 died 1887 (H. d’Arch Breton 26 November 1923 Col. RE Retired)’

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‘Wasting time in Bath’Little is known about Adela’s childhood and education. It is likely Adela and her brother were tutored at home, until Harry left for military college. The Bath Chronicle in the 1860s shows there was a ‘Mr Lansdown, Drawing Master’ nearby, at Upper Camden Place. The family library would be on hand, including William’s travel memoirs. Adela was an able linguist in her adult life, so she may have learnt foreign languages in her youth.

In a letter to an American relative – Ella Lewis – Adela reflected on her childhood:

‘It is funny to look back on one’s own childhood, when one was expected to behave nicely in company, meaning sitting still + not talking – ‘little girls should be seen+ not heard’ ‘

National Hotel, Washington 23 January 1916

‘I had a little table to myself in a corner + felt exactly as if I were a naughty child again, when that was the punishment’

Hotel Savoy, Niagara Falls, Canada 30 March 1917

When Adela was 17 years old, her mother hosted a large ball at Bath’s splendid Assembly Rooms – perhaps this was Adela’s ‘coming out’ ball intended to show her to society:

‘A PRIVATE BALL was given at the Assembly Rooms on Monday evening by Mrs Captain Breton, of 15 Camden Crescent. The invitations were numerous and the ball was attended by upwards of 230 of the elite of the city. The supper and wine were supplied by Messrs. Fortt’

Bath Chronicle & Western Gazette 21 February 1867

The Bath Chronicle & Western Gazette reports Adela and Harry attended balls:

‘The Grand Fancy Dress Ball…Mrs and Miss Breton danced the Watteau Quadrille’

16 April 1867 [Adela age 17; Harry age 15]

‘The Inc. Law Society – Reception – Capt. and Miss Breton attended’

18 October 1883 [Adela age 33; Harry age 31]

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The Breton family travelled to continental Europe during Adela’s childhood, including a year in Italy in 1866 with visits to Vesuvius and Florence. Adela recalled her Italian excursions in letters:

‘The Florentines are very pleasant. We spent a winter there when I was 15 + enjoyed it’

‘We were all in a delightful house party for a week at Mr Digby Beste’s place, Torre dell’ Olmo, in the mountains above Florence, and it has been one of my pleasantest recollections’

They also visited the south of France: ‘Monaco is an earthly paradise. I stayed 3 weeks + loved it more each day. Such colour, air, sunshine + flowers! I was at Old Monaco, which is quite a different world to Monte Carlo of gambling + wickedness’.

Tales of Van Diemen’s Land, West Africa, and the South Seas, together with her father’s interests in the natural world may have inspired Adela

to explore the world herself. In 1834, William was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society, as well as the Royal Geographical Society, and he joined the Royal Institution in 1835.

Once resident in Bath, William devoted his time to local philanthropic institutions. In 1851, he joined the committee of the Bath Humane Society ‘for Recovery of persons apparently dead by drowning or other accident’ and was elected president in 1877. He

Breton, Adela C.Garden at Camden CrescentBATVG: P: 1924.39 Courtesy of Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and North East Somerset Council

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was a founder of the Bath and County Club, sat on committees for the Royal United Hospital in Bath, was vice-president of the Monmouth Street Society, and was a governor of the Mineral Water Hospital. William also served as president of the Bath Savings Bank for more than ten years and was president of the Mission to Seamen.

William was an active member of Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI) and contributed to its collections. In 1852, the BRLSI collections accessions list shows he donated ‘10 Specimens of the Sphaeria of Tasmania, growing on Caterpillars, and one Chrysalis, together with a Memoir on the same’, plus diverse minerals, stuffed birds, fossils, and objects from West Africa and Australia. Many of his donations were reported in The Bath Chronicle:

‘Royal Literary and Scientific Institution…The Museum of this excellent Institution continues to be an object of attraction and interest to the residents of Bath…several valuable additions have lately been made…Several specimens of Minerals and a stuffed Paroquet have been given by WH Breton, Esq.’

29 October 1857

‘The following acquisitions…Fine specimen of fossil wood of a coniferous tree, now extinct in Tasmania; skin of Temwinck Trogon; various ornaments worn by the aborigines of Fernando Po, on the coast of Africa; a wommora, or throwing stick, used by the natives of New Holland [Australia] when throwing a spear: contributed by WH Breton, Esq. of Camden Crescent’

15 January 1863

William also loaned objects for exhibitions:‘Somersetshire Archaeological & Natural History Society…The following Archaeological and Natural History specimens have been contributed…to the temporary Museum at the Assembly Rooms…These contributions have been lent by Lieut. WH Breton RN’

30 September 1852

‘Exhibition of Fine Arts…at Widcombe…Amongst Captain Breton’s collection is Luther’s spoon, some curious adzes and clubs from New Caledonia, and an African chief ’s seat – a somewhat elaborate affair, cut from a solid block of wood’

3 December 1857

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Becoming an artistAdela was studying at the Bath School of Science and Art when she was 27 years old:

‘BATH SCHOOL OF SCIENCE & ART – 2nd grade art exams…Breton, Adela C. Freehand, Geometry (E for Excellent), Perspective, and Perspective Model’

Bath Chronicle & Western Gazette 23 August 1877

The Bath Chronicle & Western Gazette charts Adela’s growing prowess as an amateur artist, winning prizes in fine art competitions which were organised by the Royal Bath and West Show and William Harbutt’s Paragon Art Studio which he ran with his wife, Elizabeth.

‘Paragon Art Studio – There is now on view at No 5, Paragon, some 200 commendable sketches from nature, the vacation work of 30 of the pupils who attend the classes conducted by W Harbutt at the Paragon Art Studios…Miss Breton’s sketch of a spot on the east coast, for which she was adjudged the prize for best single work, was characterised by firmness and fidelity to nature’

27 October 1881

Breton, Adela C.Mt. Blanc, St GervaisBATVG: P: 1924.34 Courtesy of Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and North East Somerset Council

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William Harbutt (1844-1921) was headmaster of the Bath School of Art and Design from 1874 to 1877. Later, Harbutt opened an art school with his wife, Elizabeth, at The Paragon Art Studio, 15 Bladud Buildings in Bath. Having invented plasticine in 1897, he founded Harbutts Plasticine, based in Bath.

Elizabeth Cambridge Harbutt (1847-1930) was a miniature portrait artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art. In 1887 she was commissioned to create portraits of Queen Victoria and her late husband, Prince Albert.

‘VACATION SKETCHES AT THE PARAGON ART STUDIO…The annual exhibition of vacation sketches and pupils’ work is now open at the Paragon Art Studio, where some 100 works of art of various descriptions have been tastefully arranged under the direction of Mr Harbutt…Vacation sketching…Study of a tree…Miss A Breton’

6 December 1883

‘Exhibition of Pictures…Mr W Harbutt’s eleventh annual exhibition of vacation and studio sketches in oil and water-colours at Victoria Rooms, Corridor…Miss A Breton securing a prize for ‘Bath from the River’

8 December 1887

‘Mr Harbutt’s Exhibition…This the 15th Exhibition…350 pictures…some works of Miss A Breton…was a former pupil…They are all water-colours and were painted in Mexico, The Rocky Mountains and Japan; No 63, a representation of Japanese temples, is of barbaric richness and brilliancy of colour’

29 March 1894

Adela’s mother, Elizabeth Anne Breton, died on 14 May 1874, and was buried at Lansdown Cemetery, Bath. Afterwards, Adela cared for her elderly father until his death, commenting:

‘In the 16 years of nursing my father, I learned the value of frequent small quantities of stimulant + nourishment especially at night...Real turtle is the best pick-me-up I know’.

On 12 June 1887, William Henry Breton died at the age of 88 years. His funeral was at Christ Church, Bath, conducted by Reverend Norton Thompson, with Adela, Harry, Captain Charles Breton, and the Reverend

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and Mrs Egerton as chief mourners. A few days later, on 16 June 1887, William was buried at Lansdown Cemetery.

Members of the Bath Savings Bank committee recorded their loss: ‘The Trustees and Managers desire to record with deep regret the death of their President, Captain Breton R.N., who during the long period of 37 years cheerfully and actively assisted in promoting the welfare of the institution, and whose urbanity and ability in discharging his duties will be long held in remembrance and esteem’.

The Bath Chronicle, 23 June 1887

The Probate Calendars of England and Wales for 1858-1959 contain William’s will:

‘BRETON, William Henry Personal Estate £45,587 5s. 1d

14 July 1887: The Will of William Henry Breton late of 15 Camden-crescent in the City of Bath Commander in the Royal Navy who died 12 June 1887 at 15 Camden-crescent was proved at Bristol by Adela Catherine Breton of 15 Camden-crescent Spinster the Daughter the sole executrix’

Today, William’s estate would be valued in millions. It also included 5000 stocks and shares in the Great Western Railway (GWR).

Breton, Adela C.Bath from the Avon BATVG: P: 1924 Courtesy of Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and North East Somerset Council

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The Breton family at large• Peter Breton 1792-1862• Henry William Breton 1799-1889• Edward Rose Breton 1803-1875• Thomas Goldwin Smith 1823-1910• Harry D’Arch Breton 1852-1924• Hubert William Breton 1875-1925

Peter Breton 1792-1862William and Henry’s older brother, Peter Breton, was born in 1792 and educated at the Royal Military Academy, Greenwich. Peter served with the East India Company and, in 1820, married Mary Anne Wright, eldest daughter of Blastus Godley Wright of Bartley Regis. Peter inherited Polygon House in Southampton on the death of his father-in-law in 1827.

Peter and Mary Ann Breton had six children – Mary Ann, Lucy Jane Bradby, Frederica, Alithea Catherine, Anna Maria, Henrietta, and Peter Wright Breton. The 1861 census shows Lucy resident at Camden Crescent with Adela and her family.

Peter was Deputy Lieutenant for Hampshire, Mayor of Southampton, and he served as a Magistrate. On 17 July 1862, Peter died at Polygon House, Southampton, with an estate listed at under £12,000 for probate.

Colonel Henry William Breton, 4th Regiment of Foot, the King’s Own, circa 1830, painted by Philip Augustus Barnard KO1391/01 Courtesy of King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum

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Henry William Breton 1799-1889Adela’s uncle – Henry William Breton – took a different path from his twin by joining the army as an Ensign in 1815. In 1820, Henry became a Lieutenant by purchase and served in the West Indies with the 4th King’s Own Regiment from 1821 to 1826. He then spent a year in Portugal from 1826 to 1827.

Shipping records show that Henry sailed from Portsmouth on the ‘William Glen Anderson’ on 14 May 1831, arriving in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on 7 November 1831. From 1831 until 1837 he was stationed at Parramatta, New South Wales, where he married Elizabeth Maria Blaxland at St John’s Church on 3 November 1832.

Henry’s twin – William Henry Breton – described Paramatta in his travel memoir:

‘Paramatta, a small town, sixteen miles from the capital; it is the headquarters of one of the Regiments, and is near the country house of the governor…3000 inhabitants…also the factory, a mile distant, to which the refractory female convicts are assigned’

Lieut. Breton R.N. 1833

‘MAJOR HY WM BRETON – AUSTRALIA 1833

Colonial Secretary’s Office, Sydney, 5th Nov., 1833.

HIS Excellency the Governor has been pleased to appoint Major Henry William Breton, of the 4th, or King’s Own Regiment, to be a Magistrate of the Territory, and Police Magistrate at Goulburn. By His Excellency’s Command, ALEXANDER McLEAY’

The Sydney Herald, Monday 11 November 1833

Having been promoted to Colonel, Henry commanded the 4th King’s Own Regiment from 1834 until March 1836 at Parramatta and Sydney, New South Wales. On 12 May 1837, Henry gave evidence to a parliamentary Select Committee on Transportation at the House of Commons, describing the lash as an ‘object of terror’ and highlighting flogging as a deterrent: ‘only one single instance of a man being sent to me a second time’.

Colonial New South WalesThis text, from an unknown source held at the King’s Own Museum’s collection, highlights Henry William Breton’s experience in New South

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Wales in the 1830s:‘Almost amalgamated with convicts as soldiers are in New South Wales, irksome and harassing as are their duties, it requires the most unremitting care on the part of the commanding officer to keep even common order in his regiment. With proper defaulters’-rooms, and means of hard labour, he may do much, but new barracks must be first built.

Hard labour, as inflicted in New South Wales, is utterly ruinous to the discipline of a regiment, the soldier being compelled, either in the hulks or at Norfolk Island, to herd with the greatest villains possible. At the expiration of a term at Norfolk Island the man should be discharged the service. Approves of solitary confinement.

From one to six months. When a man is sent away for a long time from his own corps, he thinks himself forgotten, and becomes callous or heart-broken, and either way becomes bad.

Temperance societies might be established, but that is impossible while the men receive spirits as a part of their ration. Far more is to be gained by example among the officers. He has discouraged the commemoration of particular days, and does not allow cheering at the mess table. “What must follow a great mess dinner in the centre of a barrack? The men will surely reason upon the conduct of their officers, and wonder why they also should not be allowed to enjoy themselves.”

The man in solitary confinement should be allowed his great-coat and no bed, and his food should be bread and milk. Hard labour should, as far as practicable, be in view of the regiment, such as cleaning drains, forming a regimental garden, and cleaning and washing the barracks. Cannot, however, call to mind, during twenty years’ service in the same regiment, more than two or three cases of permanent reform, and these had no reference to any particular system of management’

King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Lancaster Museum

In April 1850, Henry received a brigade command in India and was promoted to Major General in 1851. Postings followed to Mauritius (1857-1862) and Bombay (1859-1866) with the 56th West Sussex ‘Pompadours’. Henry was well respected and earned the title ‘Father of the Army’.

After retiring from the army, Henry lived with his only daughter – Eliza Harriet Breton – at St Margaret, London, spending winters in Malta. He died on 22 July 1889 and was buried at the Highland Road Cemetery,

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Portsmouth. Eliza died in 1913 and is buried with her father: ‘In Memory of General Henry William Breton Colonel 56th PompadoursJoining the 4th King’s Own Regiment Museum In March 1815He served in France, West Indies, Portugal, and AustraliaAfter holding various staff commands In India He commanded this DistrictFrom February 1855 to June 1857And in Mauritius from 1857 to 1862Born January 7th 1799Died July 22nd 188’9‘Also Eliza Harriet BretonDaughter of the aboveBorn March 17th 1834Died July 30th 1913’

In a letter to Adela’s brother, Harry, in 1923, curatorial staff at Bristol Museum refer to Henry’s ‘life history’ but the whereabouts of this autobiography are unknown:

‘In going over what we brought away [from 15 Camden Crescent] I found two books giving the life history of General Breton, at least I suppose that it is he. The story commences with Sandhurst in 1812, and goes on down to the year 1886 when the pages are cut out’

Thomas Goldwin Smith 1823-1910Thomas Goldwin Smith was born in 1823 at Reading to Richard Pritchard Smith, M.D, and Elizabeth (née Breton), eldest daughter of Peter Breton, Adela’s paternal grandfather. Goldwin Smith was named after his mother’s uncle, Thomas Goldwin, plantation owner in Jamaica.

Elizabeth died on 19 November 1833, when Goldwin Smith was ten years old. Educated at Eton, he graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1848 and was appointed Regius Professor of Modem History at Oxford University in 1859. In 1868, Goldwin Smith moved to Cornell University, New York and then to Toronto, Canada, where he married and stayed for the rest of his life. His writings cover a variety of issues – on war, diplomacy, women’s suffrage and Irish politics, as well as about Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Oxford University reform, empire, and capitalism.

Goldwin Smith’s correspondence includes letters to William Ewart Gladstone, Lord Grey, and Matthew Arnold, and was published in 1913.

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Arnold Haultain, who published these, also cites correspondence with his cousin, Adela:

‘Another cousin, Miss Adela C Breton, also writes to me...”His [Goldwin Smith’s] grandmother, Mrs Peter Breton, was left a widow with a family of twelve children [the youngest born after his father’s death], and then she died before they were grown up, and the eldest daughter, Eliza, G. Smith’s mother, mothered them before she married.

General Breton, and Captain Peter Breton, were all very gentle, refined men, very sensitive, inclined to take gloomy views of things, and always apart from the outer world, though genial and enjoying society. I only knew them when they were old, as my father was over fifty when I was born...I am sure that none of that family really understood ordinary human nature. They lived on a higher plane. My father used to say the twins had never had a word or a quarrel’

Goldwin Smith: His Life and Opinions, A Selection from Goldwin Smith’s Correspondence comprising letters chiefly to and from his English Friends,

written between the years 1846 and 1910.

Arnold Haultain 1913

Reverend Edward Rose Breton 1803-1875Edward Rose Breton, younger sibling of William and Henry, was born on 30 April 1803 in Barnstaple, Devon to Peter and Lucy Breton. Edward matriculated from Queen’s College in 1821, gaining a BA in 1825 and MA in 1828 when he became curate. In 1843, he moved to St Andrew’s Church in Charmouth, Dorset, where he was rector for 32 years.

Edward married Helen Catherine Arnott (1815-1902) and they had three sons – Charles (1834-1866), Goldwin (1836-1900), and Alexander (1838-1895), born in Southampton, and two daughters – Mary (1846-1865), and Alice Catherine (1851-1913), born in Charmouth.

After Edwards’s death in 1875, Helen left Charmouth to live with her brother-in-law, William Henry Breton at Bath. Helen died in Dorset in 1902 aged 89 years.

Harry D’Arch Breton 1852-1924Adela’s brother, Harry D’Arch Breton, was born in Bath in 1852. After military college, Harry served in the Royal Engineers becoming a Lieutenant by 1871. On 11 April 1874, he married Kate Clara de Moleyns,

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daughter to Reverend William de Moleyns and Kate Maria Rochfort Rae. Their first child, Hubert William Breton, was born in 1875 at Thorncliffe, Kent but daughter, Adeline May, was born in St Helena in May 1879. Only a few months later, on August 23 1879, their second son – Lionel Alured – died aged 3 years and 2 months.

During service with the Royal Engineers, Harry was posted with his family to St Helena, a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic. By 1891, the census shows Harry, Clara, and Adeline were back in England at 11 St Albans Road, Kensington, London. By 1899, Harry was Assistant General of Fortifications at the War Office in Whitehall and served as Mayor of Rochester from 1914 to 1919.

Clara died in 1901 and was buried at St Margaret’s Cemetery, Maidstone Road, Rochester, Kent. In 1903, Adela’s niece – Adeline – died and was buried alongside her mother. Harry was buried with them in 1924. The grave inscription reads:

‘R.I.P. Kate Clara wife of Harry D’Arch Breton Lieut Col. R.E.Taken without warning 10th Feb. 1901 Aged 48 years‘Psalm cxxi’

R.I.P. Adeline May BretonOnly & most dear daughter Born 25th Dec. 1880 In peace 29 April 1903‘Psalm xcii 12’

Colonel D’Arch Breton RE 1851-1924Mayor of Rochester 1914-1919’

Harry D’Arch BretonPhotographer unknownRAI 10045 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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Hubert William Breton 1875-1925Adela’s nephew, Hubert William Breton, was born in 1875 and went to school in Lancing, Sussex. In January 1906, Hubert married Cecilia (née Horlock) at Long Ashton in Somerset. The 1901 census shows Cecilia living at St George Easton in Gordano, about 30 miles from Bath.

Adela reflected on Hubert’s health – then aged only 29 – in a letter in 1904:‘I am sorry to say, my nephew is now in very bad health, but it is only natural, as he began smoking very young + much smoking + daily whiskey must be fatal to any man who is not exceptionally strong’.

By the 1911 census, Hubert and Cecilia were living with their children at 176 Cavendish Road, Balham, Wandsworth, London:

‘Hubert Wm Breton Brewer 36 Born 1875 Folkestone

Cecilia Breton 32 Born 1879 Penge, Surrey

Clare Breton 4 Born 1907 Hammersmith, London

John Breton 0 Born 1911 Wandsworth

Hilda Horlock Sister in Law Single 24 Born 1887 Camden Town

Alice Wilmott Servant Single Cook 40 Born 1871 Twickenham

By 1913, the family had moved to Kent, returning to London – Brentford & Chiswick – by 1918. Hubert died on 9 April 1925 in Sussex, aged 50.

In August 1930, Hubert’s daughter Clare married Gordon Vernon Smith at Battle in Sussex:

‘WEDDING AT ST PETER’S Miss C Breton and Mr G Vernon Smith

The wedding took place at St Peter’s Church last Friday of Miss Clare Breton, daughter of the late Mr Hubert William Breton and of Miss Cecilia Breton, of 2 Crossways Mansions, Marina, Bexhill, and Mr Gordon Vernon Smith, son of the late Mr Frederick Vernon Smith and Mrs Vernon Smith of London...She was given away by her brother Mr P Breton...They will make their home at Walton’

Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, August 1930

In 1988, Clare was living at 90 Marine Court, St Leonard’s on Sea, East Sussex – an iconic apartment building shaped as an ocean liner.

Augite St Helena presented by H Breton REGM1484 Courtesy of BRLSI

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Part II: Adela – Art, Archaeology & Adventure

Adela – TravellerThe Victorian fin de siècle was a time of great change. For Adela too, change was also in the air. After her father died in 1887, Adela took the opportunity to travel to the USA and Canada. She started her tour with a visit to relatives from the Darch side of the family – Ella and Clifford Lewis –in Philadelphia. Clifford Lewis had married Ella Eugenia Cozens, daughter of William Burr Nash Cozens, and they had four children – David, Clifford, William Burr Nash, and Eleanor Lewis.

Adela knew she was related to Clifford Lewis, through her great grandfather – her mother’s grandfather, Thomas D’Arch or Darch. The Philadelphia part of the Darch or D’Arch family traced their descent from Colonel Thomas Darch, born in 1739, who emigrated to America from Netherclay House, Bishop’s Hull, near Taunton in Somerset. In 1794, Colonel Thomas Darch’s daughter, Mary, from Pine Hill, near Sunbury in Pennsylvania married David Lewis (1776-1840) – the eldest son of Ellis Lewis (1734-1776) of the ‘Great House’’ or ‘Governors’ House’ in Philadelphia.

Adela reflected on Thomas’ travels in America in a letter to Ella: ‘I have been looking at a map of your region + wondering why Colonel D Arch took his family so far up country in those pre-railway days? It must have been quite ‘the back of beyond’ What sort of road could there have been? The Susquehanna was not navigable? yet they went to + fro apparently to Phila. It looks so very far to Sunbury on the map…I had painful experience in Mexico of what a daily riding journey of 30 miles can be’

Brunswick Hotel, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada February 6, 1918

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University holds a collection of Adela’s letters from 1915 to her death in 1923, with about 100 letters to Ella. Adela describes her travels, her holiday house in British Colombia, as well as her ailments and a lengthy hospital stay in New Brunswick. They offer a rare glimpse of her views of people, the exigencies of travel, the First World War, and other issues of the day.

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A handful of letters are from Harry D’Arch Breton, writing to Ella after Adela’s death in 1923. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of Adela’s journals are unknown.

Solo women travelling internationally were uncommon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Once free to travel whenever she wished, Adela was on the road for several months each year. She travelled widely in North America – to Philadelphia to visit Ella and Clifford Lewis and their family – to New York, New England, and Washington, to attend the International Congress of Americanists and other gatherings, and to Mexico. She also ventured to Egypt, India, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan, and Latin America, always seizing opportunities to discover new places: ‘I hope myself to leave on Sept 4th [1914] for Vancouver, but am wavering between seeing something of N. Zealand & Honolulu + going straight on’.

Adela used ships and the growing railway network to move around the globe, boarding trans-Atlantic liners from Liverpool and ships from Tilbury and Southampton. Passenger lists show Adela – ‘A Lady’ or ‘Archaeologist’ – was regularly aboard:

‘ATHENIE Departs 3 February 1912 London Destination Wellington, New Zealand Miss A Breton, Lady’

‘SCANDINAVIAN The Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Ltd. Departs St John’s New Brunswick, Canada Arrives 23 March 1920 Liverpool Passenger No.4 Breton, Adela C 15 Camden Crescent, Bath Archaeologist Age: 67’

Adela usually travelled solo on sea voyages but, in 1895, from Montreal to Liverpool she was accompanied by Pablo Solorio, her Mexican assistant, when they visited Bath.

In 1905, it took ‘10 days to come from Boston in the best steamer’. Later, in 1920, Adela described her voyage to England: ‘I had a very good crossing. The Scandinavian turned out to be my old friend, the New England, re-christened – she was always a steady, comfortable boat + everyone was very civil + attentive so that the much-dreaded adventure passed off well’.

In contrast, Adela complained: ‘I had such a stormy voyage…+ don’t feel at all settled yet, after such a shaking up’ and from the R.M.S. Scandinavian, in 1920, she wrote to Ella: ‘So many ships have come to grief lately that one must be thankful if one gets across safely’.

During lengthy excursions, Adela stayed at elegant hotels, using splendid

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headed stationery from hotels and shipping lines, as she reminisced to Ella: ‘Here is a fine sheet of paper that has survived in my possession since 1908…It was a nice ship that came from Constantinople calling at The Piraeus, whence I sailed to Alexandria’ ‘Khedivial Line’.

Bath March 10, 1922

Hotels could have their drawbacks: ‘This evening I feel capable of writing, after a good dinner, the first I have had for three months...Oh! American boarding houses. No adjectives could describe this one + I have borne it like a stoic till all my hair has come out + I have got so thin that my garments hang on me as a clothes peg’

Philadelphia, USA January 17, 1910

‘One really suffers many things in hotels + I always try not to expect too much, but when one gets to a well-managed and carefully looked-after house like ‘Glacier’, one does see the difference. The endless supply of mice at the National is a drawback’

Queens Hotel, Toronto, Canada October 22, 1916

Once the Canadian-Pacific Railway line was completed through the Bow Valley at Banff, in 1885, tourism developed in the Rockies. Adela benefited, as she notes in her 1892 article for The Bath Chronicle – ‘A summer at Banff ’:

‘Now that the Canadian Pacific Railway is becoming well known as the summer highway from the East, quite a number of globetrotters are making acquaintance with Banff and the Canadian National Park in the Rockies. They come for two or three days, drive to the different hot springs and

Breton, Adela C.Painting of volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes, Puebla, Mexico. Ea8400 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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to Lake Minnewonka, and go their way, pleased to have ‘done’ one more place on the long road to London the other way. But this is not knowing this beautiful and delightful neighbourhood. A man might as well fancy he knows the girl to whom he is introduced for one short dance in an evening. Really to enjoy Banff and the glorious air, which gives a new lease of life, you want to stay a month or two…The Banff Springs Hotel, or the ‘C.P.R.’ as it is familiarly called, is a picturesque building about a mile from the town...It can be no easy task to manage an hotel when the servants have to be brought more than two thousand miles, poultry and eggs one thousand, and fruit and vegetables six hundred. Certainly there is a chance – what one may call a bare possibility – of a bear arriving to disturb one’s dreams’

Adela recalled the time and distances involved: ‘I came through from Nelson, B.C. to Washington, 3030 miles in 4 days + 3 hours, including 4 hours wait in Spokane + 1 1/2 h. each in Chicago’.

‘I had 26 hours on through the interior of British Columbia, the latter part up the Fraser valley to the Yellowhead Pass through the Rockies, which many years ago I hoped to see in the old way, by canoe. I confess a good train is preferable to the hardships of an exploring trip, hot sun + mosquitoes, cold nights, sticking on sandbanks + food running short, but it must have been delightful all the same to pioneers...Curious to see quantities of bear skins hanging out to be ‘cured’ in some way’

Queens Hotel, Toronto, Canada October 22, 1916

During Canadian winters, Adela travelled by horse-drawn sleigh:‘I had a delightful sleigh ride yesterday – I have not been able to go far, as I soon tire, but how superior the pleasure of sleighing to going on wheels – I hope I shall be born a Canadian next time!’

Montreal, Canada March 26, 1909

Writing to Ella from New Brunswick, Adela reflects on her winter travels:‘I left Perce Nov. 28th, my host driving me in a sleigh over the difficult 9 miles to the station-village of Cape Cove. It was an ideal winter day, with scarcely any wind + with bright sun. I was well wrapped up, so though the thermometer was about zero, it was not unpleasant. That night I stayed at the house of an old French Canadian with Scotch wife + the train came early next morning. All that day I was going along the coast of the Baie des Chaleurs. It was again a beautiful day with warm sun. The sea was calm with large patches of ice already, tho’ it had been so rough only two days before. The train runs often along the very edge of the low cliffs + you look down into the

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water. Then I had more than 6 hours to wait in the station at Matapedia, till the express train came after 2a.m. but it was quiet + restful, well below zero outside + such a moon! I do enjoy the night silence of a wild land’

December 6, 1917

‘a sleigh to hire is quite difficult to get + costs two dollars an hour, just a one-horse sleigh...a sleigh ride is delightful on the right kind of day...I drove once to Ste. Anne de Beaupré + back, six miles, most enjoyable with one little horse from Quebec’

January 18, 1918

Adela often highlighted the vicissitudes of travel: ‘everything perfect except the American women who would ride astride – a sight to make gods + man weep. In all my wild rides, it never occurred to me as being possible or necessary’

‘I had occasion to send 55 dollars to London from Philadelphia before the recent heavy fall in exchange – it only produced £10.6.0! Someone must be making a heap of money out of this exchange business!’

‘I was very cleverly robbed of three 20 dollar notes at the station in Chicago by a new trick’

‘Reading the papers is my only amusement + existence varies according to the amount of heat supplied to my room – sometimes lacking, sometimes sufficient for me to revive like a dormant snake...How I wish there was not

Railway, MexicoPhotographer unknownRAI 10003 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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the dreadful ‘Border Inquisition’ to be endured in order to reach you, with the impertinent + insulting questions...I cannot understand why the U.S. makes it almost impossible for tourists to travel there’

‘for travelling one does need to be strong + energetic, able to assert oneself when necessary, not nervous or easily flustered + able to hold one’s own. For one does meet unpleasant people sometimes’

‘I came to Edinburgh…to attend the British Association meetings, which have been well managed + pleasant…The Belgian government abolished passport worries just before I went + in Europe one is never bothered by Customs, as they seem to know instinctively who is likely to have contraband. The officers look at me + make my things to pass in a moment. Oh! U.S. where I have my suit-case rummaged through for “opium + diamonds” when leaving British Columbia’

Edinburgh September 1921

Adela made at least thirteen visits to Mexico, between 1894 and 1908, reflecting ‘one cannot allow less than four weeks each way for the journey [to Chichén Itzá]’. She disembarked from ships at Progreso, a port on the Yucatán coast, then probably boarded steam trains to Mérida on the

Map of MesoamericaCourtesy of Jeremy Mayes

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Volador ceremony, MexicoAdela describes a ‘Volador ceremony’ – akin to bungee-jumping – at Tepexco, a village about ‘a league and a half north of Zacatlan’ which she observed on 17 and 18 January 1899:

standard-gauge ‘Rendon-Peniche Line’. The first steam locomotives used on this line were imported from Britain. When Adela was travelling to Yucatán, it was separated from the rest of Mexico and had over 500 miles of narrow-gauge railway, mainly used to transport ‘henequin’ – a type of agave plant which grows extensively in the Yucatán and is used for rope and twine, similar to sisal. Not until 1964 was the Yucatán region connected by road to the rest of the country.

As well as using traditional horse-drawn carriages – ‘calesa’ – Adela rode mules and horses but always sidesaddle, disdainful of local methods:

‘The young women here all ride astride which is so unnecessary + and ungraceful + also very bad for them’.

Adela regularly endured primitive living conditions at archaeological sites, sheltering under canvas or inhabiting ruined temples:

‘I shall have to camp in my Painted Chamber, which will be very hot + uncomfortable’

Merida, Mexico March 3, 1904

My tent, Pablo + mule at Atlixtaca, between Chipancingo and Chichihualco, Guerrero, 5,800ft. Feb. 1898Photographer unknownPhotograph in album Ea8453/30 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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‘A pole about 70 feet high had been erected in the churchyard...Ten or eleven men in high pointed caps with ribbon streamers danced round the pole for some time...Five men then mounted the pole, four of whom seated themselves on the four sides of the frame, whilst the fifth performed a short dance on the top of the pole. Suddenly the four cast themselves off, with arms outstretched, and a rope tied round the vaist [sic waist] and either fastened to, or held by the feet’

Survivals of Ceremonial Dances among Mexican Indians by Adela Breton

XVI Americanists Congress Vienna 1909

‘An outdoor life’ ‘She…knows Mexico end to end …and she considers it more her home than England now’

Alfred Tozzer 1902

Adela and her father would have been familiar with ‘Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán’, published in 1841 by diplomat, John Lloyd Stephens, and Frederick Catherwood, an English architect and artist. Their lavishly illustrated book rapidly became a best seller. Adela may have drawn inspiration from Catherwood’s illustrations later for her own artwork.

Adela visited Mexico for the first time in 1894. She travelled widely, sketching and photographing archaeological ruins and landscapes as she went. Several sketchbooks and photograph albums are in the Breton collection at Bristol Museum. On her travels, Adela was accompanied by a local guide and assistant, Pablo Solorio, from Michoacán.

Between 1900 and 1904, Adela lived and worked at Chichén Itzá for more

Volador ceremony, Tepexco, Mexico Photographer unknownRAI 10441 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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than 4 months of every year. She made full-size copies of murals in temples and buildings at Chichén Itzá, Teotihuacán and Acancéh, recording their colour and detail with precision. At the time, these archaeological sites in Mesoamerica were hardly known.

One may wonder why Adela worked at such sites. Apparently, a British archaeologist, Alfred Percival Maudslay, asked her to copy murals at Chichén Itzá, which she mentions in her paper, ‘The Wall Paintings of Chichen Itza’, read at the Congress of Americanists in 1901:

‘It was at Mr Maudslay’s suggestion that I attempted the great task of copying the whole series…It is only when copying them that one can appreciate the art with which each colour is added to enhance the brilliance and harmony of the whole, as one does in copying Turner’s best watercolours’

At the 1902 Congress she presented examples of her work, including copies of four panels of wall paintings from the Upper Temple of the Jaguars at Chichén Itzá. Maudslay highlighted Adela’s contribution:

‘Some years ago Miss Breton asked me if there was anything she could do at Chichen Itza. I did not hesitate to tell her that I thought there was nothing that would be more valuable than a record of the mural paintings at Chichen Itza. Mural paintings are very scarce. Nearly all of them have been destroyed…I think we really have a very great debt to Miss Breton for the extraordinary care and accuracy with which she has reproduced these paintings’.

Intriguingly, Adela mentions she sometimes went about ‘disguised…in dark glasses + a veil’. A curator at the British Museum noted she may have used an alias on her travels:

‘I did not know she [Adela] was called ‘Hernandez’ in Mexico’

HJ Bramholtz, Department of Antiquities & Ethnography, British Museum August 11, 1941

Adela camped in ruined structures at archaeological sites, especially at Chichén Itzá where she wished to avoid paying the hacienda owner and archaeologist, Edward Herbert Thompson, whom she disliked. This feeling appears to have been mutual. Thompson’s wife had no time for Pablo either, according to Adela.

Much later, Adela reflected on life in Mexico:‘Mexicans are the easiest people in the world to deal with if you treat them properly, but like the Irish, if you offend these people or are harsh +

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unsympathetic, you can never make friends with them again…When you consider that for five years I was travelling alone in remote parts of the country, just with one Mexican servant, I have a right to know something about the people + to have a very deep respect for + good opinion of the vast majority’

King Edward Hotel, Banff Alta, Canada July 14, 1916

‘the difficulty in going far into Mexico is the impossibility of getting any food. It is wonderful how little the people live on – I used to live chiefly on air + a few pea-nuts for the long riding journeys – 30 miles without any breakfast, + then some frijol broth’

Banff, Canada August 1, 1916

Pablo Solorio ‘You have no idea what a help he was to one in every way. I should never have done anything without him’

Adela Breton in a letter to Alfred Tozzer, Oxford September 20, 1904

Pablo Solorio was born in Churumuco, Michoacán, in West Mexico. His date of birth is a mystery. Pablo travelled with Adela in Mexico, looked after their mules and horses, prepared camp, bought food and cooked it.:

‘The devotion of poor good Pablo and his almost daily walks to Pisté to bring tortillas, plantains, eggs, enabled me to survive’

In 1895, Adela travelled with Pablo to Bath. Photographs were taken of him at Adela’s house -15 Camden Crescent – and the passenger list from Montreal to Liverpool shows both aboard:

Departs Montreal, Quebec Arrives 21 May 1895 Liverpool

Passenger No. 15 Miss A Breton – Lady

Passenger No. 77 Mr P Solorio – Male Single Servant

‘[Adela] travels with her inseparable and wonderful servant, Pablo, who cuts paths for her, cooks for her, and makes himself generally useful by tending to her numerous wants. In appearance, he is a short, thin, ill-looking Mexican of about thirty and very commonplace as far as I can see. Her hobby among all the others is this servant’

Alfred Tozzer, Chichen Itza, Mexico February 5, 1902

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‘It is not quite fair for Dr Thompson to use my house [at Chichén Itzá] considering what a tumble-down dirty shed it was before Pablo took it in hand’

St Margaret’s House, Rochester, Kent November 10, 1903

‘Pablo gets on admirably with the varied characters one meets when travelling’

Merida, Mexico March 3, 1904

By 1904, Adela still gives Pablo’s address as Churumuco, Por Ario des Rosales, Michoacán. Together they travelled widely in Mexico, including to Michoacán, Teotihuacán, Uxmal, and Mérida.

Pablo Solorio in Adela’s house in Bath, holding a box containing artefacts. Date is possibly 1895, probably photographed by Adela RAI 7921 © Royal Anthropological Institute Map of Maya area with archaeological sites

Courtesy of Jeremy Mayes

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Campeche Campeche is a walled, coastal city founded by the Spanish and a World Heritage Site.

Chichén Itzá Chichén Itzá – a World Heritage Site, one of the New Wonders of the World – is set in dense rainforest in Yucatán about 80 miles east of Mérida. Toltec and Maya ruins are present, with the earliest Maya buildings about 1300 years old. The El Castillo pyramid has four staircases of 91 steps, which together with the top platform, add up to 365 – representing days in a year.

Major features are a large ball court and a sacred well or ‘cenote’.

Ek’ BalamEk’ Balam is a walled city in Yucatán.

Edzná Edzná, with its large plaza and a system of canals and dams, is situated about 50 miles from Campeche.

MéridaMérida, known as the ‘White City’ because of its white limestone architecture, has been Yucatán’s cultural capital since 1542.

Breton, Adela C.From Moon Pyramid S Juan Teotihuacan 15.2.94Sketchbook Ea8372/41 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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Maya & Mexico: a timeline• circa AD 250-900 Over 60 Maya city states, each with their own ruler, emerge

in south-eastern Mexico and modern-day Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, western Honduras. Cities have stepped pyramids, plazas with ball-courts, and temples

• circa AD 0-500 Teotihuacán flourishes as a trading and cultural centre; the sixth largest city in the world circa 450

• 600-700 People migrate from the north into central Mexico • 800-1000 Decline of Maya population; building stops• 1000-1600 Maya cities, including Chichén Itzá and Uxmal, established in

northern Yucatán. Urban Maya society starts to decline in the 10th and 11th centuries

• 1428-1521 Aztec Empire, comprising Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) and other city states, increases its power in central Mexico

• 1519 Spanish army lands at Veracruz led by Hernan Cortes

Mound of GuadalupeIn 1896, Adela visited the Mound of Guadalupe, in western Mexico – a burial mound over 1500 years old – and photographed the site, recording grave goods and pottery figures found by workmen. In 1908, she published her notes in the form of an ‘excavation’ report.

Palenque Palenque – a World Heritage Site – dates to about 600 AD. King Pakal is buried in a large sarcophagus in the Temple of the Inscriptions.

TeotihuacánTeotihuacán, once Mesoamerica’s largest city with more than 200,000 residents, was spread across a wide area about 30 miles north east of the current capital, Mexico City. Teotihuacán has two large pyramids –

Pirámide del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun) and Pirámide de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon).

Tulum Located 95 miles from Cancun, Tulum is a Maya site on a cliff on the Caribbean coast.

Uxmal Uxmal is a Maya city in Yucatán, renowned for its limestone architecture including the Pyramid of the Magician, Nunnery Quadrangle, and House of Turtles which is decorated in the Puuc style, from the Late Classic Period (circa 600-900). Some façades are decorated with geometrical figures and masks of the Maya deity, Chaac. Frescoes in the Nunnery Quadrangle show owls and serpents.

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• 1521 Spanish army captures Tenochtitlan • 1521-1820 Viceroyalty of New Spain incorporates Mexico • 1810-21 War of Independence and creation of the Mexican Empire• 1824 Mexico becomes a federal republic. Central American provinces become

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua• 1845 Texas, formerly a province of Mexico, joins the USA• 1846-8 Mexican-American war ends. Arizona, California, Nevada, New

Mexico, and Utah bought by the USA • 1864-7 Archduke Maximilian Habsburg of Austria becomes emperor of

Mexico, later executed by Republicans• 1876-1911 Porfirio Diaz rules – the ‘Porfiriato’ • 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution; ends with the founding of a republic

Breton, Adela C.Watercolour of caryatid IX, showing front, side and back views. Three views, all same scale, from left to right: right side, front, back. Caryatid (properly called Atlantid) wears a white shell? and jade headdress, with jade armlets, ear plugs and necklace, with pink loincloth and legbands. Back view shows the feather cloak with long green feathers, and neckband of short red and yellow feathers. Side view shows feathers of cloak curving around to the side, and leather sandals are more obvious than in other views. Transparent and opaque watercolour and graphite on medium weight, slightly textured, wove paperEa8189(IX)b © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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Adela at work in Mexico‘She is an English maiden lady of much means direct from England, where she has been at home on vacation. Her appearance is typical of an independent, unmarried spinster of full sixty, tall, thin, and with a long face, grey hair, a few scattered hairs on her chin, considerably more on her lip, extremely near sighted but straight as an arrow. She wore a short skirt, a dark blue shirtwaist with straight collar attached, and a brimmed straw hat covered with flowers and planted perfectly square on her head, but the surprise comes when she starts to talk. She is Eng-lish, you know, Eng-lish to the very bone and her speech is exaggerated as any affected English you ever heard on the stage.

She is an artist and a very good one too…You look at Miss Breton and set her down as a weak, frail and delicate person who goes into convulsions at the slightest unconventionality in the way of living. But I assure you, her appearance is utterly at variance with her real self. She seems to court discomfort at any cost’

Alfred Tozzer in a letter to his mother Chichén Itzá, Mexico February 5, 1902

‘I have been looking through my diaries of Chichen + reviving long-buried memories. Food, fever + suffering from bites of many kinds, occupies a large space in the diaries’.

15 Camden Crescent, Bath August 22, 1921

Chichén Itzá Adela worked at Chichén Itzá from 1900 at Maudslay’s invitation. Stephens and Catherwood described the site: ‘Exposed for ages to a long succession of winds and rains, the characters were faded and worn…the greatest gem of aboriginal art which on the whole continent of America now survives’.

Adela needed great stamina and determination to battle harsh physical conditions duing her fieldwork. She described some of the challenges in her paper, ‘The Ancient Frescoes of Chichen Itza’, which was read at the 1911 British Association meeting in Portsmouth: ‘Visitors write their names over the frescoes, bats lived at one end, swallows at the other, and bees made tunnels in the plaster’.

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However, Yucatán heat had certain advantages: ‘The dry heat when I went to Yucatan did my hands + arms great good + I was able to draw without the great pain + difficulty of the previous 18 months’

Espirito Santo, Mexico July 23, 1907

In 1902, Adela helped to discover several stone caryatids which were concealed by rubble in the Upper Temple of the Jaguars at Chichén Itzá, and painted them. The caryatids are now in the National Museum collection in Mexico City.

Adela collaborated with archaeologists including Alfred Tozzer, from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and Edward Thompson. She regularly corresponded with Tozzer about her progress: ‘The building at north end of Ball Court proved most interesting. I feel pretty strongly that the only satisfactory way to record those sculptures, is to have good photos. + go over them on the spot, putting in day by day the details as one gradually sees them’

Fifth Avenue Hotel, Madison Square, New York, USA June 18, 1904

Adela spent much of her time copying wall paintings from the Upper Temple of the Jaguars and other parts of the Maya site. She made the only accurate and complete record in colour of these temple frescoes, as they looked in the 1900s. Colours have since eroded because of environmental conditions. Adela’s copies were never published, but a description was printed for the 1906 Quebec Congress of Americanists and the 1911 British Association meeting. Adela’s full-scale drawings are in Bristol Museum’s collection and are her best-known work.

Photograph of Adela Breton drawing at the Lower Temple of the Jaguars, Chichén ItzáPhotographer unknownRAI 9971 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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Adela reflected on her work to Frances Mead at the Peabody Museum: ‘The drawing to 1/4 scale gets on very slowly in these twilight days + when the outline is done I shall have to trace it, redraw + colour it, which will be at least a month’s work, as there are 120 figures without counting those of the border, the serpents, houses, etc. – Drawing in 1/32 of an inch + correcting to 1/64 is very trying to brain + nerves as well as to eyes + hand, + I have now had 18 months of it’

Bath December 26, 1906

In her paper for the 1906 Quebec Congress of Americanists – ‘The Wall Paintings at Chichen Itza’ – Adela highlighted the importance of colour to the Maya:

‘Students of Central American archaeology have scarcely as yet appreciated the important part that painting formerly played in the decorative art of the region. The first explorers were overwhelmed by the grandeur and strangeness of the ruins, and were too fully occupied in making plans of the structures, and moulds of the reliefs and monoliths, to have time for more than hasty notes of the colours on them. This was unfortunate, for where the buildings were covered with debris, when first excavated, the colours were often fresh, and exposure to the weather has since destroyed them. From the remains still visible, it is evident that all the sculptured parts were coloured and that the colours were more or less symbolic. Those people saw in colour

and light and shade...At Chichen Itza there was a remarkable development of Art...many chambers were entirely painted in fresco with historical

Breton, Adela C.Watercolour quarter-scale copy of wall painting from south end of west wall, Upper Temple of the Jaguars, Chichen Itza, MexicoEa8481 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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scenes. These wall paintings are of the highest interest, not only from the point of view of archaeology but from that of Art…one comes to feel a great admiration for artists who could so skillfully transfer the bright harmonious tints of their sunset skies to an intractable material like plaster…it was at Mr Maudslay’s suggestion that I attempted the great task of copying the whole series’.

Adela’s diaries have never been found but Tozzer quotes from her Chichén Itzá notes ‘Chichen Days’:

‘1900. February 20 to April 1. Nearly died of fever, ticks and hunger. Took the Maudslay plates of sculptured Chamber E and coloured them, the colour being often visible in the hollows of the reliefs, or sunk into the stone where the surface is weathered. It also varies, according to the light.

In Temple A traced and coloured the southern part of west wall frescoes and the piece over the door. Went over carefully the Maudslay plates for corrections and compared the inscription in Casa Colorada with the plate. Made a careful coloured drawing with full details, of the facade of the Monjas Annex. Stayed part of the time in the Akab Tzib. (Visited Usmal).

1901. (To Izmal and Ake) At Chichen Jan 24 to March 8. Continued copying colours and correcting Maudslay plates. Stayed in Akab Tzib. Pinonillas awful. Traced and coloured garden scene, east wall of fresco. Worked at improving Maudslay’s plates of the lintel and drew the underside. Many visitors and talking, and did little except a coloured drawing of the Door, looking outwards. (Stayed ten days at Uxmal, and visited Labna and Loltun).

1902. At Chichen Feb 4 to May 2. Cleaned west wall of fresco, traced and coloured copy. Also part of east side. Lived in cottage from Feb 22 Mrs Nuttall and her daughter came on April 2, leaving with Tozzer on the 7th. Traced and coloured fresco in vault of long upper chamber, Monjas with scaffold. (Visited ruins at Oxkintoc near Maxcanu, and Chacmultun).

1902-3. At Chichen Dec 23 to May 4, in same cottage. Used 36 yards of paper 27 in wide, doing fresco. Photographed North Building of Ball Court and began copying reliefs. Did south wall of fresco, having cleaned out the bats. This wall required much time to clean and study, especially the Sacrifice Scene in the vault. Drew and coloured (two views each) the fifteen caryatid figures found by Bolio in the outer chamber, buried by Dr Le Plongeon who found them standing there, buried in rubbish from fallen roof. They were then taken to the National Museum in Mexico. Also I made

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out and drew the sculptured table (not all found) that rested on the figures. Photographed them in their right positions, they having had the numbers painted on them by Dr Le Plongeon who photographed them as found (see his ‘Queen Moo’).

1904. At Chichen, in Temple A, April 9 to June 9. Traced and coloured north wall of fresco, very hard to make out, finished other bits. Worked at North building reliefs, putting details on enlarged photos and making drawings of them (See Washington Congress 1915). Copied objects from Cenote, brought by Mr Thompson. Suffered greatly from great flying chinches.

1907. Ten days at Chichen, correcting drawings. (Five works at Acanceh, tracing and colouring painted reliefs).

A.C. Breton’

AcancéhIn 1906, archaeologists revealed the ‘Palace of Stuccoes’ at Acancéh, about 1300 years old. Adela describes the site in her paper – ‘Archaeology in Mexico’ – published in ‘MAN’, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1903:

‘Acanceh, a small town an hour south-west from Merida by train, preserved three or four ancient mounds about 40 feet high…Unfortunately, while the Government prevents any exploration by foreigners, it cannot prevent destruction by owners of property, nor by time and weather’

Pablo at El Castillo, Chichén ItzáPhotographer unknownRAI 9975 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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To date, Adela is the only person to have copied Acancéh’s coloured wall friezes: ‘[I] copied the important coloured stucco reliefs found last year at Acanceh, 40 feet long…quite the most striking + artistic thing (such brilliant colouring) we have had yet’.

Xochicalco‘Everyone who goes to Mexico visits Xochicalco, riding down thirteen miles from Cuernavaca, by the Indian village of Tetlama, to the ruins. There one sees a number of shapeless mounds and terraces, scattered over the hills, and a low, sculptured building which at first sight perhaps does not appear especially interesting, but which, when it comes to be thoroughly studied and understood, may prove to be of great importance. The reliefs must record some striking event, just as on the facades of European cathedrals, the Biblical scenes and companies of saints recall the traditions of past age’

‘Some Notes on Xochicalco’ by Adela Breton

Transactions, Department of Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania, Vol II 1906

Adela & Pablo – CollectorsAdela and Pablo collected a wide variety of objects on their travels and donated many to museums in Bath and Bristol. Adela showed few scruples about exporting these, despite government bans.

Adela was interested in geology and collected large quantities of obsidian – created by molten rock which cools rapidly to form volcanic glass. With its valuable properties, obsidian has been mined and traded for millennia. In 1902 Adela published a paper, ‘Some Obsidian Workings in Mexico’, and commented ‘obsidian has been regularly mined…This would be an admirable place to study [Zinapécuaro, Michoacán]…careful digging might give interesting results’.

Heads from Teotihuacán dancing figures AM020 Courtesy of BRLSI

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Adela described how she and Pablo approached their field collecting: ‘Having visited several obsidian workings in the states of Hidalgo, Michoacan and Jalisco...I took out 2000 flakes in 1896-7, and that made a very small hole in the deposit. Very many of the flakes are broken. They are of all sizes, from razor-like blades 8 or 9 inches long, to the smallest and thinnest possible. Some of mine are in the Peabody Museum at Harvard and others in the Museums of Bristol and Manchester, England...In an hour or two my servant collected so many that I brought away thirty-one, and only left the others as too heavy’

Adela donated objects to BRLSI in Bath including ‘Mexican antiquities’ and ‘Gold in Quartz from Nova Scotia, and 2 specimens of Trilobites from Mount Stephen, Rocky Mountains, Canada’. Some of her donations were reported at BRLSI’s Annual General Meeting in 1896: ‘Thanks were also accorded to the donors of gifts to the library and museum…of the contribution by Miss Breton of a collection of Mexican antiquities’. However, space at BRLSI was limited: ‘I have a small case in the Bath museum but they have no room for more. Believe me.’

In 1899, Adela lent a collection of pottery figures and stone implements from Mexico to Bristol City Museum. She asked about loaning objects from her own collection:

‘I am looking about for a Museum in which to deposit my collection of Mexican antiquities before I leave England again. Do you think Bristol would care for it?...As it takes up the whole of my dining room, (including a long dinner party table), I am beginning to think it would look better in nice glass cases, like some things I have at the Peabody Museum at Harvard’

Later, Adela suggested to Professor Putnam at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, how Pablo might assist:

‘My servant, Pablo Solorio, brought me such a nice little collection of antiquities this time from the neighbourhood of his village, that I think it may be worth your while...to commission him to do the same for you…Pablo is a trustworthy observer + could make notes of how the things are found…he could deliver the things carefully packed at Patzcuaro railway station, which is 3 days journey by horse from Churumuco’

Fifth Avenue Hotel, Madison Square, New York, USA June 19, 1904

Pablo collected a good deal of pottery. When objects were exhibited at Bristol Museum in 1905, Adela requested that Pablo should be acknowledged as the collector:

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‘In giving any description of my things, I should like full credit awarded to the zeal of P Solorio, as it is an achievement for one man to have made such a collection – often on ploughed land, + always where the things were more or less covered with earth – and he has died lately, a victim to the hardships of camping in Yucatan’

‘I may tell you that I have been travelling + studying in Mexico for the last 12 years + all my life have been learning archaeology, as my father was much interested in it. Almost all the small specimens in the cases, except those from obsidian workings, were collected by my servant Pablo Solorio, in days of patient search + their value is added to by knowing exactly where they came from’.

‘My sister in law, my niece + now Pablo – I shall be like a violinist who has lost the one instrument he can play on – You have no idea what a help he was to one in every way. I should never have done anything without him + he had such beautiful thoughts + such a wonderful mind altogether, tho’ he was reserved with strangers, he talked to me as if he had been Dante or Shakespeare’

Adela Breton in a letter to Alfred Tozzer, Oxford September 20, 1904

Losing PabloIn December 1903, Adela sent an urgent telegram to Alfred Tozzer – ‘Don Alfredo’ – whom she worked with at Chichén Itzá:

TELEGRAMS: ‘EARNESTNESS’, LONDON Dec 8th 1903

‘I have not heard from Pablo since August + begin to fear that something has happened’

Throughout 1904, Adela expressed increasing concern about Pablo: ‘Dear Don Alfredo...I have been waiting a month for Pablo + I do hope he may really come by the next steamer – I shall have to camp in my Painted Chamber, which will be very hot + uncomfortable...I could do nothing in Mexico, as I was expecting Pablo every morning.’

Merida, Mexico March 3, 1904

‘If nothing can be heard of Pablo, I shall almost feel I ought to go myself + try to find out – only it would be carrying out a dreadfully prophetic dream I had two years ago + unluckily did not heed sufficiently...Ah! Chichen! I had very happy days in my little house’

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‘I have not heard from Pablo since I left Merida + feel anxious about him as he has such a talent for being unlucky’

Hotel des Trois Rois à Bale August 28, 1904

‘I am sure you will be sorry to hear I have lost my good Pablo. I can hardly bear to think of or realize it yet, but you will sympathize. You know I left him at Mrs James’, to go to Vera Cruz by the next steamer + I suppose he did, or she would have let me know. But he has never been heard of since – I had been very anxious about not hearing, but so often letters had miscarried that I hoped all was well, till a letter from his wife came yesterday – I cannot guess why she did not write in July when she must have seen my letters that I supposed he was at home – He was to have telegraphed to her from V. Cruz to send to meet him at Patycuaro, but did not – so I suppose he must have developed a fever on the steamer + perhaps been taken to the hospital + died without time to give his address. He had no strength to resist an illness – Oh Chichen! How much it has cost me – I was very disinclined to leave him all those days in Merida, but he had never been ill there – Now I grieve that I did not go round by Mexico + see him safe on his way. His poor wife – waiting from day to day all this time, hoping for him…I warn you against having anything to do with the ruins – Everyone who has, has been unlucky. I did think I might escape, as I was not digging up graves or hidden things’

Oxford September 20, 1904

‘The Vice-Consul at Merida has got Pablo’s ticket number on the Vigilance + he was writing to V. Cruz to know if it had been given up there – If you should chance to go by her, do ask the Intermediate stewards if they remember him. He would be known by the silver letters P.S. on his hat’

Bath December 10, 1904

In spring 1905, Adela wrote to Frances Mead, Professor Putnam’s assistant at the Peabody Museum:

‘I have had an extremely sad + painful time. My worst fears were realized as poor Pablo died of yellow fever at the hospital at Vera Cruz + everything combined to make a most terribly tragic ending to the years of happy travel which I owed him’

Espiritu Santo, Mexico March 30, 1905

Years later, Adela reminisced to Ella:‘If you have not read Robinson Crusoe lately, do. Friday is almost a portrait

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Alfred Percival Maudslay at the Casa de Monjas, YucatanPhotographer: Henry N. Sweet 1889RAI 34733 © Royal Anthropological Institute

of my faithful Mexican servant. I should like to know how + where Defoe was acquainted with him, for he could not have invented such a good description’

Bath June 17, 1920

Alfred Percival Maudslay 1850-1931Alfred Percival Maudslay – diplomat, explorer, and archaeologist – was born in 1850 – the son of a well-known marine engineer in London, Henry Maudslay. After graduating from Cambridge University in 1872, Maudslay travelled with his brothers to the USA, Iceland, and Central America. His early career was in the British Colonial Service, serving in Trinidad, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga until he resigned and returned to Central America to rekindle his curiosity:

‘The principal object of my first journey (to Central America) was not geographical or antiquarian research, but a desire to pass the winter in a warm climate. I had made no previous study of American archaeology, but my interest had been aroused by reading Stephens’ account of his travels, and I started for Guatemala in the winter of 1881, in the hope that I might reach some of the ruins so admirably described by him. My success in this first trip was so much greater than I anticipated, that I returned to pass another winter in the country, provided with a larger photographic camera, and generally better equipped for the work’

‘Alfred Percival Maudslay’ by Alfred M Tozzer

Maudslay’s ‘journey of curiosity’, between 1881 and 1894, led to several expeditions to Honduras, Mexico, and Guatemala where he surveyed Maya sites, including Chichén Itzá, Copán, Yaxchilán, and Palenque. Many sites were overgrown and difficult to survey and excavate, yet Maudslay

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produced copious records of his expeditions and was relieved when they were published, in five volumes, between 1889 and 1902 – ‘Biologia Centrali-Americana’.

Maudslay documented art, inscriptions, and archaeology through his own photographs and plans, as well as artwork by the London-based Hunter sisters and Adela, whom Maudslay inspired ‘to spend many weary years copying the Chichen frescoes, and making reproductions of ancient maps of Tenochtitlan’. Detailed plaster casts made by Maudslay and his assistant, Lorenzo Giuntini, glass photographic negatives, stone sculptures, and lintels – given to the Victoria and Albert Museum – were later moved to the British Museum where, in 1922, the Maudslay Room was created.

In 1892, Maudslay married Anne Cary Morris (1847-1926), whom he had met 20 years earlier on a trip to Yosemite. Anne’s grandfather was Gouverneur Morris, a signatory of the US constitution. The Maudslays honeymooned in Guatemala in 1893 where they carried out research for the Peabody Museum. They published an illustrated account of their trip – ‘A Glimpse at Guatemala, with some Notes on the Ancient Monuments of Central America’:

‘When, in 1894, my wife accompanied me to central America, a splendid opportunity offered of avoiding all responsibility in the matter [of writing a book about their travels]. She should keep a diary and write the book, and I would add some archaeological notes!’

AP Maudslay Biologia centrali-Americana 1889-1902

In 1912, Maudslay was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the International Congress of Americanists. As chair of the organising committee, he invited Adela to coordinate the 1912 Congress which was held in London.

In 1884, Maudslay became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. In his biography of Maudslay, Tozzer commented:

‘Maudslay was a man who was fond of simple things. He surrounded himself with a garden wherever he happened to live – in Fiji, at Zavaleta [where he owned a small gold mine], and at Morney Cross, where, during the last years of his life, he spent hours planning and planting, weeding and pruning his flowering terraces. His wide interests included a knowledge of embroideries and of old furniture; he was an excellent photographer, and a keen fisherman’

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Anne died in 1926. In 1928, Maudslay married his second wife, Mrs. Purdon of Fownhope near Hereford, who survived him. In 1930, Maudslay published his autobiography ‘Life in the Pacific Fifty Years Ago.’ Maudslay died at home at Morney Cross, Fownhope on January 22, 1931 and the British Museum received a bequest of manuscripts, books, and maps. The Maudslays are buried at Hereford Cathedral.

Adela mentions the Maudslays in her correspondence:‘Last week I spent two days with Mr & Mrs Maudslay at a country house they had taken in Dorsetshire + we had a great talk about Chichen’

King Arthurs Castle Hotel, Tintagel, Cornwall September 2, 1902

‘The Maudslays have sold their gold mine but have 4000 apple trees in Colorado which they want to sell – Then they would be free again for archaeology’

Bath May 8, 1906

‘A long letter from Mr Maudslay, sighing for Mexican skies + balmy air’

Hampton Village, New Brunswick, Canada February 2, 1919

Alfred Marston Tozzer (1877-1954) Alfred Marston Tozzer was born in Massachusetts, USA. He graduated from Harvard University in 1900 and visited central America soon afterwards, with a growing interest in Maya archaeology and anthropology. Tozzer joined Harvard’s teaching faculty, where he remained until 1947, and was a curator at the Peabody Museum. His publications include ‘A Grammar of the Maya Language’ (1921) and, posthumously, ‘Chichen Itza and its Cenote of Sacrifice’ (1957).

In 1913, Tozzer married Margaret Tenney Castle from Honolulu. Some years later, Adela wrote to Tozzer about their daughter:

‘What a darling your Anne looks. Don’t let her be spoilt. Most modern little girls are so entirely horrid. They have been going about in England with absolutely bare legs+ thighs are not pretty. What can mothers expect their young daughters to grow into with such want of training’

Bath November 16, 1921

Adela corresponded with Tozzer for many years about archaeology, her travels, and family matters:

‘The life here kills me, but I do not like to leave my brother...Please don’t call

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me ‘anthropological’ – It sounds as unflattering as ‘isosceles triangle’ did to the old woman’

St Margaret’s House, Rochester November 10, 1903

‘Dear Don Alfredo...It has been very cold this week, with snow + you have no idea how utterly miserable one is in English houses with the least cold...’Bath stone’ is a dreadful material, it is so porous’

Bath November 23, 1904

‘I have a lot of work in prospect, in arranging two cases of my Mexican things at the Bristol Museum, especially the labels, for the benefit of schools!’

Bath December 10, 1904

‘If I could have Pablo + the horses, an outdoor life + tortillas, I should soon be better, tho’ I suppose I must prepare for the gradual loss of the use of my fingers and toes’

Bath May 8, 1906

Breton, Adela C.Spider, Chichen Itza, Yucatan 1902Sketchbook Ea11047/39 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

Adela Breton Photographer unknownRAI 44550 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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‘I don’t think you need bring a tall hat…What a nuisance material possessions are! I hope someday science will find means to materialise things just on the spot where they are wanted, instead of having to drag them about’

Bath May 18, 1906

‘My private opinion of Athens is that it is a horrid place, all white dust + glare...and the acropolis is hideous at a distance. I have not been up to it yet’

Hotel Grande Bretagne, Corinth October 11, 1908

‘I wish someone would give me some out-door work. How often I have longed for Pablo + my horses’

Canadian National Park, King Edward Hotel, Banff, Alberta, Canada September 15, 1919

In 1919, Tozzer wrote to Adela:‘Dear Miss Breton, I have intended to write you my appreciation of your work on the Xiu manuscript. I consider it a wonderful piece of work and we are very glad to get it...With best wishes from Mrs Tozzer and myself ’

‘A diary without words’‘It was her [Adela’s] habit to carry a pocket sketch book in which she made pencil studies or small coloured sketches, all named and dated – a diary without words’

GR Stanton, Bristol Museum, May 1950

Watercolour of a stone relief in natural rock by Adela Breton – Piedra de Malinche, Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico. This shows a stone relief cut into the natural rock. The figure of a god faces forward holding a tree branch in his right hand and a container in his left hand. He wears an enormous headdress of feathers which hangs down on either side (decorated with curls and circles). A glyph is on the rightEa8283b © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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Alongside archaeological illustrations, Adela drew landscapes and botanical specimens and made geological and ethnographical sketches. She even sketched movements during an earthquake which she experienced in San Francisco – an early attempt at seismology.

One of Adela’s notebooks in Bristol Museum’s collection shows her interest in Maya calendar symbols. The Maya developed a complex calendar – the Long Count – to calculate dates, as well as an elaborate writing system.

A community of scholars‘She does wonderfully accurate work and I think the scientific world are at last beginning to appreciate her’

Alfred Tozzer’s diary January 26, 1903

When Adela started to copy frescoes at Chichén Itzá for Maudsley, she got to know archaeologists and museum curators from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and elsewhere.

Herbert Bolton 1863-1936Adela corresponded regularly with curators at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, including Herbert Bolton (1863-1936) who served as Director from 1898 to his retirement in 1930:

‘Please try to interest your patrons in the subject – when any other interest than the war becomes possible, the Bristol Museum should become a headquarters for American archaeology in England’

Brunswick Hotel, Moncton, Canada January 27, 1918

Charles Pickering Bowditch 1842-1921In 1888, Charles Pickering Bowditch travelled to Mexico and developed a strong interest in the Maya. As a benefactor of the Peabody Museum, he funded the Museum’s first expedition to Central America and travelling fellowships, including for Alfred Tozzer from 1901. Adela regularly corresponded with Bowditch and visited him at the Peabody Museum:

‘I do want very badly to be in an outdoor world for a time. Except the 6 weeks that I was in Yucatan in the summer of 1907 + a month at Luxor, from 1909, it is nearly 10 years now that I have been doing various drudgery indoors’

Philadelphia, USA March 9, 1915

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‘I have to thank Mrs Bowditch for a very charming Christmas card with an old English coach in the snow. My father always remembered as one of his hardest youthful experiences, going from London to Edinburgh on the top of a coach in winter – straight through’

Washington, USA January 17, 1916

Annie, Blanche & Ada HunterAdela knew the Hunter sisters well:

‘I heard from Miss Hunter 3 weeks ago. The B. [British] Museum had after all been partly commandeered for the Air Board, but she was endeavouring to get them to keep out Codex Kingsborough’

Moncton Hospital, New Brunswick, Canada April 15, 1918

Annie (1860-1927), Blanche, and Ada – were London-based artists who worked on illustrations for Maudslay and other archaeologists, including for Biologia Centrali-Americana. They were official artists for the Victoria & Albert Museum, supplying painted reconstructions of textiles.

Dr Augustus Le Plongeon 1826-1908 & Alice Le Plongeon 1851-1910French-American archaeologist and photographer, Augustus Le Plongeon, and his English wife, Alice (née Dixon), were amongst the first to photograph Chichén Itzá, arriving in 1875. Le Plongeon’s views about links between Atlantis and ancient Mexico were ridiculed by the establishment which sidelined them from mainstream archaeology: ‘I also found a note from Mme Le Plongeon with the news of her husband’s death. Poor man! Why are some people accepted + not others?’

On occasions, Adela supported the Le Plongeons: ‘Please ask Prof. Putnam if Dr + Mme Plongeon are still at the same address at Brooklyn + if in a more prosperous position’

London December 4, 1901

‘I should be very sorry to give up on the Le Plongeons, tho’ I fear they will wear out my patience...I am sure she guesses that I send her money, as I get a letter about once a month, asking about my health + a wail over their circumstances’

Bath July 31, 1906

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Frances Harvey Mead 1847-1932Frances Mead became Professor Putnam’s assistant at the Peabody Museum in 1889, replacing Alice Putnam, and remained in post until 1909 when Putnam retired. Adela corresponded with her about work and financial affairs:

‘It is sweet of you to interest yourself in my affairs. I am thankful to say that I have had no ‘financial reverses’. It is my relations who have been doing stupid things…which is the reason I want to earn something, or do some exploring ‘on the cheap’...That is the advantage of having to earn money, that one may say ‘Bother Duty, I must look after myself ’...I should like to spend November at Cambridge in some quiet house + am prepared to hire out my time, head + hands at 75 cents an hour...I am curious to know what value was placed on my ‘Paintings’

Bath July 31, 1906

‘Would you also kindly tell me whether the piece of my Chichen fresco copy, which you have...is in good condition? I should like to sell it to some museum...American archaeology is quite looking up in England...The Bristol Gallery gets 500,000 visitors a year’

The Queen’s, Montreal, Canada March 14, 1908

Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall 1857-1933Zelia Nuttall, an American archaeologist and anthropologist, specialised in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican manuscripts and pre-Aztec culture in Mexico. She visited Chichén Itzá in 1902. Author DH Lawrence visited Zelia at her home near Mexico City and based a character on her in his novel ‘The Plumed Serpent’ – ‘Mrs Norris’:

‘She was an archaeologist, and she had studied the Aztec remains for so long, that now some of the black-grey look of the lava rock, and some experience of the Aztec idols...had passed into her face…A lonely daughter of culture, with a strong mind and a dense will, she had browsed all her life on the hard stones of archaeological remains’

DH Lawrence ‘The Plumed Serpent’ 1926

Frederic Ward Putnam 1839-1915Frederic Ward Putnam was an American anthropologist who, in 1874, became curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University in Massachusetts. Adela first gave paintings to the

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Peabody Museum in 1896 and regularly donated work to their collections, writing to Putnam:

‘I hope you understand that the price I put on them [small fresco copies], 120 dollars, does not include the right of reproduction...If you really think of reproducing the frescoes, perhaps you would let me know what you consider a fair arrangement’’

Bath September 25, 1906

‘If any of your rich friends care to buy that spare piece of my Chichen frescoes for 30$, I should be glad to have it off your hands’

Canadian Pacific Railway Atlantic Service, RMS Empress of Britain, October 24, 1907

Eduard Georg Seler 1849-1922 Eduard Georg Seler – a German archaeologist from Berlin University and the Royal Museum of Ethnography – travelled to Mexico several times between 1887 and 1910. Seler did little excavation himself but put together botanic and archaeological collections and published on pre-Columbian codices, early colonial manuscripts, and ancient Mesoamerican cosmology.

Edward Herbert Thompson 1857-1935Having been an archaeological assistant to Maudslay, Edward Thompson served as US Consul to Yucatán from 1885. He bought land at Chichén Itzá and explored this site for over 30 years, including dredging the Sacred Cenote from 1904 to 1910 where gold, copper and jade artefacts were found. Thompson sent finds to the Peabody Museum and complained about Adela in a letter to Putnam:

‘To tell the honest truth, she’s a nuisance. She is a ladylike person but full of whims, complaints and prejudices’

Adela Breton and Vicente Thompson, son of archaeologist Edward H Thompson Photographer unknownRAI 44549 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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Tozzer observed Adela’s poor relationship with Thompson:

‘Miss Breton and Mr Thompson do not get on well together. He is very jealous of her work and especially now as she is doing something that he has already done and doing it much better [copying the Upper Temple of the Jaguars murals]. She treats the whole family with great coolness so that they now almost never go to see her which in turn pleases her very much’

Chichen Itza, Mexico February 5, 1902

‘All my life I have been learning archaeology’ Adela participated in international conferences and represented the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) on several occasions, having been elected a Fellow in 1901.

In 1902, in New York, Adela made her debut at the International Congress of Americanists where she presented her drawings and dined with archaeologists and anthropologists, hosted by Frederic Putnam. The Congress was held every two or three years, alternately in Europe and America, with the first in 1875 in Nancy, France.

From my window, Pachuca, shows one of the crates of jars wh. a man will carry on his back 20 miles a dayPhotograph album Ea8453/67 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

Great Ahuehetes [Taxodium Distichum] formerly enclosing villa & garden of the Kings of Texcoco [Basque del Contador]Photograph album Ea8453/49 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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Maudslay invited Adela to arrange the first Congress of Americanists ever to be held in London, whilst he was President (1911-1912):

‘The International Congress of Americanists has accepted the invitation to hold their next session in London in the last week of May 1912...A sum of £2000 will be required to receive the members of the Congress in a proper manner’

Royal Anthropological Institute, 50 Great Russell Street, London November 1911

Adela served as honorary assistant secretary and treasurer, arranging visits to Cambridge and Oxford during the Congress, as well as an exhibition with artefacts, paintings, and photographs. She collaborated with anthropologist Frank Boas to edit the conference proceedings.

In 1915, the Americanists met at New York where Adela read papers on Chichén Itzá and a Guatemalan language, based on her research.

A group photograph of the 1912 meeting of the International Congress of Americanists held in London, England. Photograph by J Russell & Sons, Photographers, 17 Baker Street W and 13 High Street, WindsorEa11501 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

A postcard from Adela to Professor Alfred Tozzer, sent on her travels in Bosnia with Charles Peabody, Dr Seler & Cecilia Seler after attending a Congress of Americanists, September 22, 1908Courtesy of Professor Norman Hammond

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In 1921, Adela attended a Prehistoric Congress at Liège, attending her last international congress in 1922, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Adela wrote to Bowditch:‘I quite understand how you feel about discussions. I have never been for them myself + I fear I do not care enough whether people agree with me or not. The great thing is to train one’s own judgement to see right + let the world go hang – don’t be shocked’

Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada January 28, 1919

Adela Catherine Breton’s publications include:1902 Some Obsidian Workings in Mexico Reprinted from the Transactions of the International Congress of Americanists 1906 The Wall Paintings at Chichen Itza Reprinted from Quebec Congress of Americanists1909 Survivals of Ceremonial Dances among Mexican Indians XV1 Americanists Congress Vienna1911 The Ancient Frescoes of Chichen Itza Section II – Portsmouth, 1911 British Association [Reprinted]

‘Pathless wilds’Adela spent the summers of 1889, 1890, and 1891 in British Columbia and returned many times in later years. After an early trip to Canada, Adela wrote to The Bath Chronicle highlighting the absence of vicars in the ‘pathless wilds’:

‘SIR, Will you allow me to appeal in your columns on behalf of the diocese of New Westminster, British Columbia? It is probably unknown to the majority of your readers…British Columbia is developing so rapidly, and so many towns are springing up in what, only the other day, were pathless wilds, that it is most important the Church of England should make an effort to provide for the wants of the people…In a total stay of five months a Church service was within reach on only five Sundays. I would appeal specially for Nelson, on Lake Kootenay…to a priest who delights in an outdoor life, riding from Mission to Mission, camping out, always in the presence of great mountains, rushing rivers, life-giving air, the diocese of New Westminster would be overpoweringly attractive….

The Bath Chronicle, December 31, 1891

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Adela enjoyed visits to her holiday house at Ainsworth, Lake Kootenay, in British Columbia:

‘I have been at Revelstoke which is a pleasant place in the valley of the Columbia, between the Selkirks + the Gold Range, with a softer climate than Banff + at a lower altitude’

Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada December 19, 1919

Her correspondence is peppered with observations about the landscape and its inhabitants:

‘I was glad to reach my journey’s end + find this lake + Ainsworth lovelier than ever...I have been up at my little house each day till today + come back here for the night...I went from Glacier Park, back a few miles, to Browning, the Agency on the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana + stayed a few days to see something of the Indians. Alas, they have given up their costumes except for dancing, except that the women wear blankets as their ‘wrap’…The scenery here makes me wish to paint again. I am so tired of the constant writing, but one has to do what is wanted + so little is known about these languages I have been studying’

Ainsworth, Lake Kootenay, British Columbia, Canada October 18, 1915

‘Today + tomorrow a large party of Indians are camping 2 miles away, having races + games, very picturesque as they wear their costumes for the occasion, the great feather headdresses + garments covered with bead work. Their tepees are in a meadow at the foot of the Cascade Mt. which towers up in more than 5000 ft. of precipice. This morning I walked out there + watched the children playing.

King Edward Hotel, Banff Alta, Canada July 14, 1916

‘I wished you had been with me yesterday, when I took the river trip in a steam launch, about 8 miles up, with these wonderful mountains in many aspects + effects of light + shadow, always with enchanting foreground of tall firs + the blue river + the heavenly restful air’

King Edward Hotel, Banff, Alberta, Canada September 8, 1919

Breton, Adela C.Banff, AlbertaBATVG: P: 1924.80 Courtesy of Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and North East Somerset Council

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Philadelphia & ‘The Red Rose Girls’When in Philadelphia with Ella and the Lewis family, Adela visited Ella’s sister, Henrietta Cozens (1862-1949), a horticulturalist, who lived at ‘Cogslea’ – with three professional artists: Violet Oakley (1874-1961); Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935); Elizabeth Shippen-Green (1871-1954). Known as ‘The Red Rose Girls’, Elizabeth became a successful illustrator, including for Harper’s Magazine;

Jessie, a renowned illustrator of children’s books and magazines; and Violet, a well-known designer of murals at the Pennsylvania Capitol building.

About 1900, Violet, Jessie, and Elizabeth, moved to the Red Rose Inn at Villanova, Pennsylvania, making a pact to live together as constant companions. Henrietta joined them as a housekeeper and gardener where they lived together for 15 years until Elizabeth married. From 1906, they lived at Cogslea, named with first letters from their surnames.

‘In the gilded cage of civilisation’ Adela returned to England occasionally, and her home in Bath, but did not always find it agreeable:

‘I always feel so good for nothing in Bath + cannot sleep. It is very annoying when one has a comfortable house in which it ought to be easy to work’

Bath November 6, 1905

‘I should like ‘a paying job’ in the autumn or winter! Any drawing that you want done...or a ‘Mission’ in Mexico. I must be away from England in the winter – I am too ill + miserable here’

Bath June 5, 1906

Adela Breton, Canada Photographer unknownRAI 10106 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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‘My Bath house has been robbed – ‘thoroughly ransacked’ I am told’

Espirito Santo, Mexico July 23, 1907

‘the smell of breakfast bacon cooking is one reason why I dislike England!’

Hotel Savoy, Niagara Falls, Canada November 26, 1916

‘Bath does not suit me except in summer’

The Wayside Inn, Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada December 13, 1918

‘I would be content to spend the winter here, but must soon make another attempt to go to England, much as I dislike the prospect of plunging into that dreadful anthill’

Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada December 19, 1919

‘my “English wail”. I have never belonged to England nor been happy here, tho’ I appreciate this god old house to come back to – into port after my wanderings’

Bath November 8, 1920

‘It is unfortunate that Bath always makes one so limp – ‘wilted’ as you said of me in 1906’

Bath August 22, 1921

Breton, Adela C.Sioux. Wild West 8.03 Headdresses hung on poles. Poles 6 ft.Sketchbook Ea11047/77 © Bristol Culture / Bristol Museum, Galleries & Archives

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‘my house needs a lot of immediate attention, also the garden + must have it + as servants are not to be had, most of my time + energy while at Bath have to go in household matters...Anyone who comes to Europe this year must expect much unpleasantness...Prices are two or three times higher + getting about London is difficult’

Bath April 22, 1920

In Bath, Adela attended lectures at BRLSI at Terrace Walk, including an archaeology lecture about local Roman excavations in 1913. She also visited local sites: ‘Today…I have taken a holiday + went by train an hour into Wiltshire, to Avebury, a celebrated stone circle’.

‘Since I have been home I have been as busy as a whole hive of bees, except when fatigue has compelled a rest..London is quite hopeless as to hotels...Railway fares being 50 p.c. more than formerly + no cheap weekend tickets...I expect to be here for the next six months but not for the winter, as the cold damp and gloom kill one’

Bath April 28, 1920

‘Life in England is always such a rush…I have been running about seeing people at Weymouth, Dorchester, Portsmouth, with intervals in London + Bath + have now been staying with cousins in Devon whom I had not seen for many years, so am at Taunton for two days…You will remember the D’Arches lived at Taunton…Food is still difficult – chickens not to be had + in Bath one has to carry home one’s purchases, which is tiresome with the hill up to your house’

Great Western Hotel, Taunton, Somerset July 4, 1920

Adela visited her brother, Harry, at home in Rochester, Kent:‘My brother is sadly overworked + I feel anxious about him but I cannot help him. Unfortunately, Rochester disagrees with me just as these places do + for the same reason, the muddy river. I tried to stay there for a few months

Adela at home in Bath Photographer unknownRAI 7923 © Royal Anthropological Institute

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after my niece’s death, but I was worse than useless as it only worried him to see me so ailing’

National Hotel, Washington DC, USA February 16, 1916

‘It is the constant committees + hospitals, children’s homes, drainage + all the thousand things that have to be superintended in a wide-spreading place like Rochester, that wear out my brother. He really seldom has a leisure half hour’

National Hotel, Washington DC, USA March 3, 1916

‘My brother’s house depresses one by its emptiness + the feeling that his wife + daughter, for whom he bought it, could enjoy it for so few years. Luckily for him, he has been immensely busy with public duties, and altho’ no longer Mayor, he has many committees – housing, hospital, etc. which take him out most of the day’

London September 23, 1920

‘He [Harry] + I have always been such good friends that my chief wish is that he should have a happy + cheery old age’

Bath November 5, 1921

Adela devoted time to studies and enjoyed social events:‘some of my doings in London + how I have been finding my way into learned societies. I was lucky in an invitation to the Royal Society soiree on June 15, always a remarkable gathering of scientific + distinguished persons…I had not been to a real party since Washington, January 1916, so it was quite an excitement’

Bath June 17, 1921

‘I shall try to go on with studying Maya as well as I can, in order to become more competent at transcription’

The Queen’s, Montreal, Canada March 7, 1920

‘I have an immense quantity of reading to get through – publications of Societies that have accumulated during these 6 years’

Bath May 7, 1920

‘when in London, I have been immersed in the British Museum at old Spanish documents’

Bath July 4, 1920

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Yet, Adela always yearned for the wild:‘I would always have a wild corner in a garden, where nothing should be touched, but allowed to grow at its own sweet will...when left alone they arrange themselves so much more gracefully than anyone could for them’

Glacier House, Glacier British Columbia, Canada September 5, 1916

‘Until I went to Luxborough on the edge of Exmoor, where the D’Arches lived so many hundreds of years, I never realised why I was so unhappy in a city + why I always felt so different on a moor. One does inherit something from the soil’

Hotel Savoy, Niagara Falls, Canada March 30, 1917

‘My world of travel is so completely over’Adela’s final sketch book in the Bristol Museum collection is dated 1916. Her travels came to an abrupt halt when she suffered a leg injury in Canada and was admitted to Moncton Hospital, New Brunswick, where she stayed for more than six months:

‘Now the leg has come to grief again. I slipped on a little ice on the hotel verandah on March 23, and have been 3 weeks in bed in this hospital, encased in an armor [sic] of plaster of Paris, having sustained ‘an impacted fracture of the hipbone’ + a sprained thigh…It is fortunate that this hospital is comfortable + I have a nice private room + a good nurse. Also that I can read + write a little lying on my back. The nights are very long, as supper is at 5.15 and breakfast 7.15...But I feel how thankful one ought to be, thinking of the poor wounded’

‘I was uncommonly fortunate in my fracture...Mine was vertical + the bone jammed into itself + certainly at present the leg does not appear shorter than the other’

Moncton Hospital April 28, 1918

‘I cannot guess what to do when I leave the Hospital. My world of travel is so completely over, and going back to England now with all the difficulties there and winter coming, I dread, and I am not strong enough to face all the regulations or even understand them. Then there is the impossibility of getting servants…But I should be very glad to be in our old house again. My father bought the house about 1852, and the previous owner bought it in 1812’

Moncton Hospital June 24, 1918

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Moncton Hospital, New Brunswick ca 1910P779-1-1-1 Courtesy of Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Canada

‘I expect to be here some weeks longer...The process of learning to use limb+ muscles again is very slow...I can walk with difficulty a few yards now, with a stick, but that has been only the last few days, after nearly 4 months since my accident + I am very weak still’

Moncton Hospital July 15, 1918

Adela worked on texts from Mesoamerica whilst convalescing and regularly corresponded with Ella, Tozzer, and Bowditch. Adela was discharged from hospital in October 1918 to The Wayside Inn at Hampton in New Brunswick:

‘I did not get away from the hospital until Oct. 4th, when I came here – a decided change for the better. This is a small house, 22 miles east from St John, in a suburban village...The constant noise has prevented any effort to work, for everyone talks and laughs at the top of their voices. Doubtless it is lively + cheerful + mercifully they sleep 8 hours nightly...I would have returned to England but was really not equal to the journey + there were so many reasons against spending this winter there. But I must endeavour to go in the spring. How thankful you must be that the fighting has stopped’

The Wayside Inn, Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada November 25, 1918

Glimpses of the political landscape appear in Adela’s correspondence: ‘I never have had anything to do with suffrage or women’s proceedings of any kind, for they always seemed to me foolish au fond. What women can do in company with men is all right, but when a lot of women get together, that is another matter. I have sat on committees with men + held my tongue, as obviously the wisest thing to do + earned a good deal by listening’

Baker’s Hotel, Gaspe Basin, Montreal, Canada July 17, 1917

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‘The war news gets worse. My mail this week must have sunk in the Arabic. It usually comes by her. That is the iniquitous thing – at least a million letters lost, from all the neutral countries especially, thousands of humble folk all over this country expecting their letters from home + they never know what they have lost’

The Normandie, Philadelphia, USA undated

‘It is always a pleasure to have one of your interesting letters but I do feel for you + everyone else in U.S. with anxiety about all their boys. Our own terrible losses of fine young fellows have been heartrending. One must hope yours [Bowditch] may somehow be more fortunate + that the octopus may be killed in time’

Moncton Hospital, New Brunswick, Canada April 15, 1918

‘A letter has just come from Merida, Yucatan, telling of the enormous prices of everything there. They have now a sort of Bolshevik government and the working class are living like little lords. I suppose there is no really cheap place left in the world. And I remember when English families of position could spend the summer in Switzerland and pay 3 francs a head per day, for board and lodging!’

Moncton Hospital, New Brunswick, Canada July 8, 1918

‘Writers who have tried to belittle ancient Mexican civilisation, have been amongst those who ‘fill volumes with what they do not know’ ...As to the oil, why should Mexico’s chief asset be exploited by foreigners? I am informed that the chief agent of the anti-Mexican propaganda, gets a salary of 20,000 dollars a year, from some of the great corporations in US who would like to be masters of everything. The extent of that propaganda is astonishing’

King Edward Hotel, Banff, Alberta, Canada January 25, 1920

Having been in Canada throughout World War I, Adela finally left for England in 1920 after prevaricating for more than a year:

‘I sail for England on March 12 from St John, NB + hope for a comfortable voyage, but am not looking forward with any pleasure to being in that unrestful land. However, I am not going for pleasure, having many things to attend to’

The Queen’s, Montreal, Canada March 7, 1920

‘One scarcely knows what one was doing in that struggle to exist + work...It is strange in life, how things come to an end. Never to have gone back since 1908 to Mexico’

Bath August 22, 1921

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Adela’s final journey 1922-1923In January 1922, Adela was not in the best of health but still intended to travel to an international conference in Rio de Janeiro: ‘I am sure it will be worth the effort to attend’.

‘I am struggling to be ready for Rio on Aug. 1 but have been very ill + weak, unable to make preparations...I expect the S. Americans will make rather a muddle of the Congress, something like Mexico in 1910’

Bath July 30, 1922

On 1 August 1922, Adela sailed from Liverpool on the ‘Deseado’ which left Liverpool on August 1, 1922 destination Buenos Aires, Argentina. She wrote to Ella on route:

‘We are not calling anywhere between Lisbon and Rio. When I came in 1910, we stopped at St Vincent, Pernambues + Bahia…I have made no plans for this trip. It must depend on what I find myself able to do, but I shall try to go round the coast to Para at the mouth of the Amazon + return from there. After all these years of invalidism, it is quite a novelty to start out on adventures, but I believe it will do me good…This is the fifth time I have crossed the equator’

South of St Vincent, ‘Deseado’, The Royal Steam Packet Company August 10, 1922

Post-congress, Adela reported her poor health:‘I have continued wretchedly ill + weak…Petropolis is the summer resort for Rio…I am going to try and sail on January 21st by the Vandyck for Barbadoes [sic], though my legs are so bad with oedema that I have great difficulty walking’

Palace Hotel, Petropolis, Argentina December 26, 1922

Adela disembarked in Barbados to convalesce, staying at Hotel Pomeroy, formerly The Marine Hotel: ‘the largest hotel in the West Indies…situated at Hastings, a watering place, two and one-half miles from Bridgetown…The sea bathing there is the finest in the world, the temperature of the water being about 80 degrees, suitable for the most delicate invalids’

Stark’s History and Guide to Barbados and the Caribee Islands 1903

Earlier in 1923, Hotel Pomeroy was advertised for sale ‘to settle an estate…200 rooms, many with bath and showers; beautiful ballrooms…14 acres of spacious grounds…Direct steamship lines from England, Canada, and the United States’

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York January 6, 1923

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From the hotel, in April 1923, Adela wrote to Tozzer: ‘I have been hoping to get a nice gossipy letter from you, telling me about your doings, the Museum + our friends, but nothing has come since your little red Christmas card was forwarded from Bath. I have been three months at Barbados, ill and incapable all the time, just better enough the last ten days to begin thinking again a little + to wish to hear of the outside world now that this hotel has emptied of the winter visitors who have been keeping it lively.

I came here from Rio in the ‘Vandyck’ at the end of January, hoping then to go on by the Islands to Canada, but it has not been possible + my doctor has not considered me fit for travel. The climate is so delightful that I have been reconciled to an invalid life, sitting or lying about all day, unable to walk, write, or think, at all. I certainly wrote to you + asked you to be charitable enough to send me something of a letter...Do you want any work doing on the Xiu or Cacalchen photostats? I expect to be back in England during the summer + must then try to take up something again but have been dreadfully worried by some new next door neighbours who want me to cut down my trees. On my own ground + I have loved them dearly. Send me one, if you can, on the chance of my being here still’

Hotel Pomeroy, Barbados, West Indies April 27, 1923

Burial register, Westbury Cemetery, Bridgetown, Barbados Courtesy of Hugh Gaskell Taylor

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In June, Adela wrote to Ella:‘I have been + am what the doctor calls ‘seriously ill’...I am exceedingly weak, which is apparently my chief trouble, the heart weakness which causes the oedema. I am kept on broth + light custard…Barbados is a good place to be ill in, with the constant soft sunshine + sea breeze + perfect temperature…You used to be so kind when I was ill at Moncton…Yours always affectionately’

Hotel Pomeroy, Barbados, West Indies June 10, 1923

On June 13, 1923, aged 73, Adela died at Hotel Pomeroy in Barbados. Her death was notified in a letter to Harry by a Mr Chapple – a friend from Rio – and is recorded in a burial register in Bridgetown, with an incorrect age of 83 years: ‘ADELA CATHERINE BRETON of Bath England Born 31 Dec 1849 Died 13 June 1923’.

Adela was buried at Westbury Cemetery in Bridgetown, with an unmarked cross at her grave. This cemetery – once a plantation – is the largest cemetery in Barbados. The Bath Chronicle announced Adela’s death:

‘BATH RESIDENT’S DEATH

Miss Adela Catherine Breton, of 15 Camden Crescent, died on June 13th at Barbados. Miss Breton, who was 73, was the only daughter of the late Commander W H Breton, RN, and sister of Colonel H Breton, of St Margaret’s House, Rochester. The announcement of her death has reached England by cable’

June 23, 1923

Adela Breton’s grave at Westbury Cemetery, Bridgetown, BarbadosCourtesy of Hugh Gaskell Taylor

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Part III: A Legacy of ColourWriting from Niagara Falls in 1917, Adela described women’s travel writing as ‘dreadful rubbish’. She never published an autobiography. Yet, during her lifetime, Adela became respected within the small international community of scholars in Mesoamerican art and archaeology.

On her death, her art collection was bequeathed to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. As Adela’s executor, in November 1923, Harry recorded: ‘My late sister, Miss AC Breton, of 15 CC Bath, left a wish that the art gallery of the Bristol Museum should have her ‘collections’.

‘BATH LADY’S WILL

Miss Adela Catherine Breton of 15 Camden Crescent, Bath, who died at Barbados, on June 13th last, left estate of the gross value of £27,368 9s 8d, with net personality £26, 365 11s 9d. Probate of her will has been granted to her brother, Col. Harry d’Arch Breton, R.E. (retired) of St Margaret’s House, Rochester. Miss Breton left £1000 each to Alison Henderson and Martha Burden, and also to Mary Maddock (who predeceased her), £250 to Amanda Lush, and all her property to her brother, Col. Harry d’Arch Breton’

The Bath Chronicle Saturday December 1, 1923

Harry arranged for Bristol Museum curators to visit Adela’s house:‘Doctor Bolton, Director of the Bristol Museum, has authority to search this house [15 Camden Crescent] + take away all books, journals + literature in general – also drawings + paintings – all objects whether ethnological, geological or curios + have any boxes or packages opened for his account – on behalf of the said Bristol Museum’.

‘There are no private papers at Bristol, and very few manuscript notes. It is possible that much of Miss Breton’s work may survive elsewhere…it remains for somebody who knew Miss Breton to say what drew her attention to Mexican archaeology’

GR Stanton, The City Museum, Bristol May 1950

Both Adela and William were members of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI), which has a collection of about 200 artefacts donated by Adela and other members of her family, including pottery, obsidian, a Canadian sledge, and a model ‘ship of the line’ constructed by

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French prisoners of war. In 1899, Adela wrote ‘I have a small vase in the Bath Museum but they have room for no more’. She was unimpressed by BRLSI’s apparent lack of care:

‘The last ten days I have been very busy, taking down from our walls, arranging + having my father’s South seas ceremonial weapons + implements photographed – quite a job – As he collected them in the islands when he was a young man, voyaging for pleasure, they are really valuable – obtained before the days of making such things for sale! Unluckily, he gave a quantity to the Museum [BRLSI] 50 years ago, where they have been neglected + damaged, uncared for’

Bath October 1, 1921

The Victoria Art Gallery in Bath has more than 75 watercolours and drawings which document Adela’s life in Bath and travels. Her work can be found at the Royal Anthropological Institute in London, Penn Museum in Philadelphia, and the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In recognition of her contribution, BRLSI has a room at 16-18 Queen Square, Bath, named in honour of Adela Breton.

Harry corresponded with Ella in Philadelphia, after Adela’s death:‘I grieve to say my sister Adela passed away on June 13 at Barbados. I have not as yet received all details but suspect the end was just heart failure consequent on a worn out body + exhausted heart’

July 2, 1923

‘Knowing her house + mode of life, I am confident that she was more comfortable + better looked after, at Barbados than she would have allowed herself to be at Bath’

July 25, 1923

‘For the last 30 years and more Adela has so often left England + returned safe if not sound that it is only the sight of her watch on a table in the dining room here that makes me realise that she will never come back from Rio – that fateful trip’

St Margaret’s House, Rochester, Kent September 7, 1923

‘If you had seen the rooms in the house [Adela’s] you would probably have agreed with me that for some years she had not been in a fit condition to live alone, or fend for herself, and she was to engrossed in outside affairs to realise what a legacy of unnecessary labour she was leaving to her

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administrator. I think that at a certain age it is necessary to dispose of superfluous property, and things that would be useless to other people, as well as to oneself ’

October 9, 1923

‘Doubtless when socialism comes in + we all have $5000 a year with no work + no taxes, + everything supplied by a maternal government, everything will be bliss. Till then we can only make the best of uncomfortable things. A worse state is that of the temporary officer. In his new dignity + uniform he marries. After demobilisation he lives a time on his gratuity. He finds his old job (if he had one) filled up, none other open for him + nothing before him but pauperism’

March 21, 1924

Harry died a few months after his sister, in 1924, and is buried with his wife and daughter at Rochester where his epitaph reads:

Colonel D’Arch Breton RE 1851-1924 Mayor of Rochester 1914-1919

Bristol City Museum, Bristol, UK (1946) The curator, G. R. Stanton, catalogued the collection of Adela’s work over several years and exhibited larger tracings in 1946.

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK (1952)The International Congress of Americanists met for its thirtieth Session at Cambridge in August 1952, during which there was a temporary exhibition of Adela’s work at the Fitzwilliam Museum:

‘a good occasion to exhibit the coloured drawings by Miss Adela Breton of ancient Maya mural paintings at Chichen Itza, etc. which are, I believe, in the possession of the Bristol City Museum’.

Bristol Museum, Bristol, UK: ‘The Art of Ruins: Adela Breton & the Temples of Mexico’ (1989)This seminal exhibition, curated by Sue Giles and Jennifer Stewart, showed about 50 of Adela’s paintings and 100 of her artefacts, with an accompanying publication: ‘Drawn from the Adela Breton Archive in the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, the works in this exhibition celebrate the spectacular architecture of Mexican archaeology and the life and work of an extraordinary late Victorian explorer’

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Sue Giles & Jennifer Stewart The Art of Ruins: Miss Adela Breton and the Temples of Mexico, Catalogue for an exhibition, December 1989 – March 1990 City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol, 1989

Touring, UK : ‘The Art of Ruins: Adela Breton and the Temples of Mexico’ (1992) In 1992, the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery organised a national touring exhibition in the UK.

Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City, Mexico (1993) A major exhibition of Adela’s work was mounted in Mexico City in 1993, opened by Prince Charles.

BRLSI, Bath, UK: ‘The Remarkable Miss Breton: Artist, archaeologist, traveller’ (2016)An exhibition to celebrate ‘the life of a remarkable Bath woman, Adela Breton, and her legacy in painting and recording for posterity the murals and architectural details of the ancient societies which flourished before the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. Thanks to her, these fragile remnants were captured on paper before they weathered and vanished’.

Bristol Museum, Bristol, UK: ‘Adela Breton: Ancient Mexico in Colour’ (2016-2017)Adela’s large watercolours, displayed for the first time since the 1940s, celebrate her art and the art of ancient Mexico:

‘The remarkable Adela Breton (1849-1923) worked at archaeological sites in Mexico making full-size colour copies of ancient Mexican ruins. Her copies of the wall paintings in temples and buildings in Chichén Itzá, Teotihuacan and Acancéh are now the only full record of what was there in the 1900s and allow today’s academics to interpret the images and the history they show. They are recognised as of great importance for Mesoamerican studies...Born in London, lived in Bath, worked in Mexico, travelled the world, died in Barbados – Miss Adela Catherine Breton was not today’s idea of a typical Victorian woman. In 1892, she went to Mexico for the first time. With her guide, Pablo Solorio, she travelled the country, sketching the landscape and the archaeological ruins. Breton’s beautifully

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accurate watercolours are just part of the 1,500 items that she bequeathed to Bristol Museum & Art Gallery upon her death’

‘From ‘interfering old busybody’ to respected Americanist in a few short years...Her importance lies in her copyist work. As an artist, she understood colour and she was happy to copy work and get the colour exactly right – a vital obsession in the days before colour photography’

Sue Giles, Senior Curator, World Cultures, Bristol Museum

Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives: Digitisation of the Adela Breton Collection The Adela Breton Collection at Bristol Museum comprises about 300 paintings, drawings and photographs of landscapes, buildings, archaeological sites, and frescoes, together with 1000 artefacts collected by her assistant, Pablo. Adela’s detailed copies of frescoes are often the only record which exists, important to scholars of Central American history and archaeology.

Adela’s talents are no longer hidden in archives, now the Adela Breton Collection is digitised and online. Her work and objects can be studied, with large pieces of artwork accessible in the same scale as the originals, together with thirteen sketchbooks and photograph albums.

‘It is a remarkable body of work from a woman who considered herself a semi-invalid and was ill with malaria and fever almost all the time she was in Mexico. Without Adela Breton’s copies, the wall paintings would today be known from a few fragmentary copies made in about 1900…Very little now remains in situ’

Adela Breton and the digitisation project 13 November 2014

Commemorative plaque – 15 Camden Crescent, BathOn 19 July 2016, a commemorative plaque to Adela Breton was unveiled at a ceremony in the presence of David Nájera, Embassy of Mexico in the UK, Camden Crescent residents, and representatives from BRLSI and Bath and North East Somerset Council.

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‘She was a very remarkable woman’ ‘Fifty years ago I lived for several seasons in the next hut to Miss Adela Breton at Chichen Itza. I also visited her at Bath. After a long delay, I am writing an introduction to the report on the Cenote of Sacrifice at this site. Miss Breton gave me a description of her ‘Chichen Days’ and what she accomplished there. We already have her reproductions of many of the frescoes of the Jaguan [sic Jaguar] Temple. I trust it will not be too much trouble to provide me with a list of what you have of her work at your Museum especially from Chichen Itza. It is well to have a record of these most valuable contributions to Maya archaeology. She was a very remarkable woman’

Alfred M Tozzer, Curator of Middle American Archaeology Emeritus

Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Massachusetts

April 18, 1950

Commemorative plaque to Adela Breton,15 Camden Crescent, BathCourtesy of Jane Sparrow-Niang

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHYANON (1852) Bath Annual Directory 1852 A

Directory for the City & Borough of Bath and its environs. Bath: Samuel Vivian.

BAIGENT, E. (2004) Breton, Adela Catherine (1849-1923). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. [Online May 2010] Oxford: OUP. Available from: www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53011 Accessed 9 May 2016.

BRETON, A.C. Adela Catherine Breton Papers [transcripts 3262, 3501, 6823, 7705, 7706, 7173] American Philosophical Society & Peabody Museum. Bristol Museum, Bristol.

BRETON, A.C. Adela Catherine Breton Sketchbooks & Photograph Albums. Bristol Museum, Bristol.

BRETON, A.C. (1902) Some Obsidian Workings in Mexico. Reprinted from the Transactions of the International Congress of Americanists.

BRETON, A.C. (1906) The Wall Paintings at Chichen Itza. Reprinted from Quebec Congress of Americanists.

BRETON, A.C. (1911) The Ancient Frescoes of Chichen Itza. Section II-Portsmouth, 1911 British Association [Reprinted].

BRETON, W.H. (1833) Excursions in New South Wales, Western Australia and Van Dieman's Land during the years 1830, 1831, 1832 and 1833. London: Richard Bentley.

ENGLAND. 1861, 1871, 1881, 1911 census. [Online] Available from: www.findmypast.co.uk

FIND MY PAST (2016) Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960. [Online] Available from: www.findmypast.co.uk

GILES, S. & STEWART, J. eds. (1989) The Art of Ruins: Miss Adela Breton and the Temples of Mexico, Catalogue for an exhibition. December 1989 to March 1990. Bristol: City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

GODFREY, I. (2016) Railways in the Yucatán [email & telephone] J. Sparrow-Niang. May 2016.

GRAHAM, I. (2002) Alfred Maudslay and the Maya: A biography. London: University of Oklahoma Press & British Museum Press.

GREAT BRITAIN. (1837) Report: Select Committee on Transportation. House of Commons. Henry Breton evidence, 12 May 1837. pp.144-145

GREAT BRITAIN (1858-1959) Probate Calendars of England & Wales 1858-1959. [Online] Available from:

HAULTAIN, A. (1913) Goldwin Smith: His Life and Opinions, A Selection from Goldwin Smith’s Correspondence comprising letters chiefly to and from his English Friends, written between the years 1846 and 1910. New York: Duffield & Company.

JAMAICA FAMILY SEARCH (2016) [Online] Available from: www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com

LAWRENCE, D.H. (1926) The Plumed Serpent [Online] Available from: www.gutenberg.net.au

MAUDSLAY, A.P. (1879) Biologia Centrali-Americana-Archæology in Godman, F.D. & Salvin, O. Biologia Centrali-Americana (1879). Available from: www.archive.org

MAUDSLAY, A.C. & A.P. (1899) A Glimpse at Guatemala, and some notes on the ancient monuments of Central America. London: J. Murray.

MCVICKER, M. (2005) Adela Breton: A Victorian Artist Amid Mexico’s Ruins. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES (2016) Shipping lists. [Online] Available from: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

NICHOLSON, I. H. (1990) Log of Logs: A catalogue of logs, journals, shipboard diaries, letters, and all forms of voyage narratives 1788 to 1988, for Australia, New Zealand & Surrounding Oceans. Roebuck Society Publication No. 41 & The Australia Association for Maritime History Inc. Available from: www.xenodo.org

POST OFFICE (1863) Bath Directory 1862-1863 Bath: William Lewis.

RGS (1857) Journal of the RGS of London Volume 27 pp. i-lxxxiv. London: RGS.

RITCHIE, G. (2016) On the Convict Trail. [Online] Available from: ontheconvicttrail.blogspot.co.uk

SHAKESPEARE, N. (2004) In Tasmania. London: The Harvill Press.

STARK, J.H. (1903) Stark's History and Guide to Barbados and the Caribee Islands, Containing a Description of Everything on or about these islands of which the visitor or resident may desire information. Including their History, Inhabitants, Climate, Agriculture, Geology, Government, and Resources. [Online] Boston & London. Available from: www.archive.org

STEPHENS, J.L. & CATHERWOOD, F. (1841) Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán [Online] New York: Harper & Brothers. Available from: www.archive.org

The Bath Chronicle Available from: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

TOZZER, A.M. (1931) Alfred Percival Maudslay. American Anthropologist. N S 33 pp.403-412

YUCATAN RAILWAY MUSEUM (2016) [Online] Available from: ww.yucatanliving.com/destinations/the-yucatan-railway-museum

Launceston Examiner [Online] Available from: www.trove.nla.gov.au

The Cornwall Chronicle [Online] Available from: www.trove.nla.gov.au

Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution16 –18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HNwww.brlsi.org reg charity no 304477

This is a portrait of an

extraordinary woman and her

adventures.

Adela Breton (1849–1923)

—well-known to scholars of

Mesoamerican art and culture for

her watercolours of Maya temple

murals—is relatively unknown in

her own country.

Most of her life was spent in

Bath, caring for parents, but after

her father’s death in 1887, she became an intrepid traveller in the Americas,

inheriting her father’s ‘inherent propensity to wander’.

Working with archaeologists in Mexico, Adela made beautiful and detailed

paintings of the ancient temple murals in the Yucatán Peninsula, thus

preserving an invaluable record for the future. She travelled extensively and

in her final years participated in international conferences of archaeology in

Europe and the Americas, until her death in 1923 in Barbados .

Both Adela and her father were members of Bath Royal Literary and

Scientific Institution (BRLSI) and their legacy continues with their donations to

the BRLSI collections. A dela bequeathed her art collection to Bristol Museum,

Art Gallery, and Archives, and to the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath.

THEREMARKABLE

MISSBRETONARTIST ARCHAEOLOGIST TRAVELLER

This account has been compiled using archive material from Adela C. Breton Papers, American Philosophical Society, Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution (BRLSI), British Library, City of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives, King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Philadelphia Museum, Royal Anthropological Institute, Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office, and The Bath Chronicle by Jane Sparrow-Niang.