Emile Clement

Emile Louis Bruno Clement (1844–1928) was a prominent collector of ethnographic artifacts and natural history specimens from northwest Australia at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Emile Clement was born in Muskau, Niederschlesischer, Oberlausitzkreis, Sachsen, Lower Silesia (Prussia) in early 1844—now called Bad Muskau and situated in the Federal State of Saxony on the border with Poland (Polish name: Muskau (Muzaków)). He died at Hove in Sussex on 4 August 1928, aged 84 and was buried in the south aspect of Hove cemetery, near Brighton UK. His wife Emily Elizabeth died two years later and was also buried at Hove cemetery, alongside her beloved husband.

Throughout his life, Dr Clement pursued a variety of occupations, including archaeologist, teacher, naturalist, mining engineer, ethnographer, children's book author, and ethnographic dealer.

During the period 1877 to 1890 Dr Clement undertook a series of archaeological excavations in Silesia, and sold collections of Silesian Bronze Age archaeological material to museums throughout the United Kingdom including the British Museum, the Department of Science and Art museums in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Dublin, the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the Reading Museum.

However Dr Clement's largest contribution to museums was the sale or donation of numerous collections of Western Australian Aboriginal artifacts to museums throughout Britain and Europe. During the period 1896-1928, Clement sold over 1600 Australian Aboriginal artifacts from Western Australia to museums throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, and continental Europe. In many of these museums the Clement material comprises a substantial part of their total holdings of Australian Aboriginal material.

Dr Clement made three trips to Western Australia: 1895; 1896–1898; and 1899-1900. These trips related to his involvement with establishing and later managing a number of gold mines around the Towranna and Roebourne regions. Among these mines were the Towranna Gold Mines of WA Ltd lease at Towranna and leases held by the Lydia Exploration Syndicate on the Lower Nickol field northwest of Roebourne.

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