University of Cambridge transfers ownership of 116 artefacts deemed to have been looted from Benin in 1897 to the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments.

The University of Cambridge has transferred the ownership of 116 artefacts deemed to have been looted from Benin in 1897 to the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, according to a press release issued on 8 February 2026. Most of the objects are expected to be returned to Nigeria in the coming year, although seventeen will remain in Cambridge on loan for three years, remaining on display in the university's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Small bronze high relief figure of a warrior. Probably part of a pendant. University of Cambridge.

The Kingdom of Benin dates back to at least the twelfth century, and covered much of what is now southwest Nigeria. The Oba (King) of Benin ruled from his capital, Edo, which (slightly confusingly) is now the modern city of Benin in Edo State, Nigeria. By the 1890s the Benin had become a major exporter of Palm oil to British traders on the Niger Delta, but in 1896, following a dispute over taxes, the Oba of Benin cut off this supply of oil. The Acting Consul-General of the Protectorate of Nigeria, James Robert Phillips, drew up plans to invade the state and overthrow the Oba, but these were rejected by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Salisbury. Instead, Philips dispatched an expedition to 'negotiate' with the Oba, which included 250 soldiers and a pipe band. This force was interpreted as an invasion by the Iyase (commander in chief of the army) of Benin, who dispatched a force to intercept the party. The two forces met at Ughoton, with the British force being defeated and the majority of its leaders either killed or captured.

This was used by Philips to justify a much larger 'punitive' expedition, under the command of Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson. On 9 February 1897 Rawson invaded Benin with a force of 1200 heavily armed soldiers and marines, with the city of Edo falling on 18 February. The city was subsequently looted of its rich artwork, with individual soldiers, sailors and marines stripping not just the royal palaces and major temples of the city, but also smaller shrines and the homes of individual citizens. These artefacts were subsequently shipped back to the UK, and disposed of as their new owners saw fit, either being sold privately to museums or collectors, or retained as mementos of the expedition. 

A brass penannular bracelet decorated with heavy slanting bands. University of Cambridge.

The university of Cambridge holds about 470 items from Benin (collectively, often known as 'Benin Bronzes' although this is a little misleading, as none of the items are made of bronze; many metal objects are made of brass, but items made from wood, ivory, and over materials are also lumped under this description). Some of these were donated by family members of people who had been involved in the expedition, but many more were obtained either from the auction house J.C. Stevens, which held a major auction of items from Benin in June 1902, or via the ethnographic dealer and collector William Downing Webster, who made a speciality of dealing in these items. The majority of the items held by the university, however, were donated later in the twentieth century, making it harder to determine their exact provenance. 

The ethnographic dealer and collector William Downing Webster with a collection of carved Elephant tusks. Despite the huntsman-like pose, Webster is not recorded as ever having visited Africa, but travelled widely in the UK, contacting soldiers who had taken part in the sacking of Benin in order to purchase items from them, which he then sold on to museums across Europe. Wikimedia Commons.

In 2017 the university hosted a meeting of the Benin Dialogue Group, which had been set up in 2007 by a consortium of European museums in combination with the Government of Nigeria and the Royal Court of Benin, with a view to building a museum in Benin to house the artefacts looted from the city, at which it was agreed, at least in principle, that the university would consider returning the objects it held to Nigeria. 

In 2019 the university formally adopted a commitment by the to return artefacts to their countries' of origin when they appeared to have been removed illegally, which has also seen items returned to Uganda and Australia. Since when a number of visits have been made to Nigeria by staff from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and to Cambridge by representatives of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments.

Brass Leopard with raised spots, attached by the head to a chain. University of Cambridge.

In 2022 the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology received a formal request from the National Commission of Museums and Monuments in Nigeria for the return of items taken by British-led forces from Benin City in February 1897.  Following this, staff at the museum prepared a list of 116 items which could be traced directly to the expedition, which was then put to the Museum’s Management Committee,  the University Council and the UK Charity Commission for approval. Once this was gained, the museum began drawing up plans for the change of ownership.

Prince Aghatise Erediauwa and Professor Nicholas Thomas, pictured at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in 2021 as part of The Benin Dialogue Group. University of Cambridge.

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Born on this day 1946, Richard Fortey, English palaeontologist, mycologist, and author.

Richard Fortey, 1946-2025. Anne Purkiss/The Royal Society.

Richard Alan Fortey was born on 15 February 1946 in Ealing, West London, the son of Frank Fortey, who ran two fishing tackle shops, and his wife Margaret (formerly Wilshin) the elder of two children. His father, who had moved to the city from rural Worcestershire, was recalled by Fortey as a font of knowledge on natural history, particularly fish, but a rather less successful businessman. At one point the family had a house in Ealing as well as two shops, as well as land by the River Lambourne in Berkshire, with a caravan where Fortey recalls spending much of his youth. However, Fortey senior apparently omitted to pay tax on his businesses, leading to the loss of both the family home and the land in Berkshire, and the family moving into a flat above one of the shops.

Richard Fortey recalled finding his first fossil, an Ammonite, while on a family holiday to Dorset when he was about ten. He attended Ealing Grammar School for Boys, which offered a geology O level, including a course which included a field trip to Wales, during which he discovered his first Trilobite, a discovery which foreshadowed his future career. Fortey displayed talent in many fields while at school, but was advised by his headmaster to pursue a career in science.

While preparing to sit exams for a scholarship to Cambridge University, Fortey's father was killed in a car crash. Despite this, Fortey won his scholarship, going on to study Natural Sciences, with a specialism in geology. At the end of his second year as an undergraduate, Fortey took part in an expedition to Spitsbergen Island, off the north coast of Norway, during which he and another, older student were left at a remote location with supplies, a riffle to fend of Polar Bears (Fortey never saw one), and no way to contact the outside world. During this expedition, Fortey collected several hundred fossil Trilobites, a collection which would later become the basis for his PhD (the project was originally intended to be the other student's but he performed less well academically). 

Richard Fortey graduated in 1968, having completed a dissertation on Trilobites under the supervision of Harry B Wittington, one of the world's leading experts on the group, and was awarded a first class degree in Natural Sciences. On 2 October 1968, he married his first wife, Bridget Thomas. In 1970 Fortey was awarded an MA by Cambridge University, and took on his first job, as a Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum, specialising in Trilobites, a role which he described as having become fortuitously available following the resignation of another palaeontologist.

In 1970, Fortey was awarded a PhD bu the University of Cambridge, for his thesis, Stratigraphy, Palaeoecology and Trilobite Faunas of the Valhallfonna Formation NY Friesland, Spitsbergen, again written under the supervision of Harry B Wittington. The same year, he took part in a second expedition to Spitsbergen, this time under the leadership of palaeontologist David Bruton.

In 1973, Richard Fortey became a Senior Science Officer at the Natural History Museum. In 1974 his first marriage ended in divorce. On 21 June 1978 he married his second wife, Jacqueline Francis (generally known as Jackie), a book editor and, later, an author. Also in 1978 he became a Senior Principle Science Officer at the Natural History Museum, and published his first book, Early Ordovician (Arenig) Stratigraphy and Faunas of the Carmarthen District, South-West Wales, co-authored with Robert Owens of the National Museum of Wales.

In 1980, Fortey published his first book as a solo author, The Ordovician Trilobites of Spitsbergen, then in 1981, a humorous book, The Roderick Masters Book of Money-Making Schemes, or How to Become Enormously Wealthy with Virtually No Effort, under the pen-name Roderick Masters. In 1982 co-authored a second humorous book, Bindweed's Bestseller, under the name WC Bindweed, which was in fact a collaboration with his wife Jackie and the literary agents Heather and David Godwin. In 1982 Fortey published the first of his popular science books, Fossils: The Key to the Past.

In 1986 Fortey was awarded a DSc by the University of Cambridge. In 1988 he became a Merit Researcher and Senior Palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum. In 1989, he made his first television appearance, in an episode of David Attenborough's  Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives, a four part series about fossils. In 1990 he published his only book specifically aimed at children, The Dinosaur's Alphabet, which illustrations by Josh Rogan.

In 1991, Richard Fortey was made Visiting Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Oxford. In 1993 he published his second popular science book, The Hidden Landscape, about the geology of Britain and how it has shaped the society built upon it, which was nominated for the Wildlife Trusts' Natural World Book of the Year. In 1996 he was awarded the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society of London, and in 1997 elected to the Royal Society. 

In 1997 Fortey published his third popular science book, Life an Unauthorised Biography, describing the first four billion years of life on Earth, which was nominated for the Rhône-Poulenc Prize, and listed as one of ten Books of the Year by The New York Times. The following year saw the publication of a more academic title, Arthropod Relationships, which Fortey co-edited with Richard Thomas, an aracologist at the Natural History Museum. 

In 2000 Richard Fortey was awarded the Frink Medal for British Zoologists by the Zoological Society of London. In 2001 he published a fourth popular science book, Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize (now the Baille Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction). In 2002 he was appointed Collier Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology at the University of Bristol (a single year appointment). In 2003 he won the Lewis Thomas Prize for writing about science, and co-edited the volume Trilobites and Their Relatives: Contributions from the Third International Conference, Oxford 2001 with Philip Lane and Derek Siveter. In 2004, Fotey published another popular science book, Earth: An Intimate History, which was again nominated for the Rhône-Poulenc Prize.

In 2006 Richard Fortey retired from the Natural History Museum. In the same year he was awarded the Michael Faraday Prize for the public communication of science by the Royal Society, and the Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London. In 2007 he was elected as president of both the Geological Society of London and the Palaeontographical Society (both single year positions). In 2008 he published Dry Store Room No 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum. The same year he was awarded the Raymond C Moore Medal for Paleontology by the Society for Sedimentary Geology.

In 2009 Fortey retired from his position at the University of Oxford. In the same year he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature for his works of popular science, making one of a very small number of people ever to have been made fellows of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. In 2010 Fortey appeared in the David Attenborough documentary First Life, with the two travelling to the Atlas Mountains to film a hunt for Trilobites.

In 2011 Fortey was appointed President of the Fungus Survey of Oxfordshire, in recognition of his long-term hobby, the study of Mushrooms. In the same year he published another book, Survivors: The Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind, on the subject of living fossils. In 2012 he presented a three-part TV program based upon this book, Survivors: Nature’s Incredible Creatures, the first of a series of collaborations with BBC Four.

In 2013, Fortey presented two further TV programs, The Secret Life of Rock Pools and The Magic of Mushrooms. In 2014 he was awarded the Lapworth Medal by the Palaeontological Association, the highest medal the society awards, given in recognition of a highly significant contribution to the science of palaeontology by somebody who has produced a substantial body of research and been of service to the scientific community.

In 2016 Fortey presented another program for BBC Four, Nature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution, on the subject of island biogeography. In the same year he published another book, The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood, concerning a patch of Beech woodland he had purchased with the proceeds of his television appearances. This year also saw him awarded the Paleontological Society Medal, which is given by the Paleontological Society in recognition of eminence in the field of palaeontology.

In 2021 Richard Fortey published his autobiography, under the title A Curious Boy. In 2023 he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours for services to palaeontology and geology. In 2024 he published his final book, Close encounters of the Fungal Kind: In Pursuit of Remarkable Mushrooms. In the same year he was awarded the Fungal Outreach Award by the British Mycological Society, in recognition to his contribution to that science.

Richard Fortey died on 7 March 2025, following a short battle with cancer. He was survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and children Dominic, Rebecca, Julia, and Leo.

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Born on this day 1906, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian, pastor, and political dissident.

A photograph of Dietrich Bonhoeffer taken in 1932 at Gland near Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Berlin State Library.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on 4 February 1906 in the city of Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland), the sixth child of a middle class, intellectual family. His father was the psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Bonhoeffer, while his mother, Paula Bonhoeffer was a teacher and the granddaughter of both the Protestant theologian Karl von Hase and the painter Stanislaus von Kalckreuth. As such he was always destined to gain an education and enter a profession, settling on theology following the death of his older brother, Walter Bonhoeffer, during the First World War.

Bonhoeffer studied theology at the universities of Tübingen and Berlin, before completing a doctorate at Humboldt University at the age of 21 in December 1927. He then travelled to Barcelona, where he served as assistant pastor to a German-speaking congregation for two years. In 1930 he travelled to New York to study at the Union Theological Seminary for a year. Bonhoeffer appears to have been somewhat unimpressed by the quality of academic study at the seminary, but during this time he did discover the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where he worked as a Sunday school teacher and became an advocate of ecumenical Christianity (co-operation between different Christian churches and traditions).

Upon returning to Germany in 1931, Bonhoeffer took up a lectureship at the University of Berlin, and was appointed as a youth secretary to the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches, a precursor to the World Council of Churches, and ordained as a pastor of the Prussian Union of Churches.

In  November 1932, a group calling themselves the Deutsche Christen (German Christians), who sought to align the church with the nationalist views of the rising Nazi Party, won a third of the elections for officials within the Prussian Union of Churches. One of the notable policies of the Deutsche Christen movement was that Jews (defined by the religion of their grandparents) could not become Christians through baptism, but remained a separate racial group, excluded from the church. This brought the organisation close to a schism, due to factional fighting with the Young Reformers, a group who sought to bring the church closer to the teachings of Christ. 

In January 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and shortly after ordered new elections at all German Protestant Churches. Bonhoeffer was involved in trying to organise opposition to the takeover of the church, campaigning for the election of non-Nazi aligned officials, but in the event Deutsche Christen were able to take over all churches except the Westphalian Union and the Baptist churches of  Bavaria, Hanover, and Württemberg.

Alarmed by this development, Bonhoeffer tried to organise a theological strike, advocating for pastors to refuse to conduct all ceremonial services, including baptisms, conformations, weddings, and funerals, although he was eventually persuaded against this. He then went on to co-author a document called the 'Bethel Confession' which asserted primacy of the scriptures in defining the Christian faith, in opposition the idea that church doctrine can be redefined to suit the political situation of any given period. In the event, this document underwent substantial revision by different authors before being published, with Bonhoeffer refusing to sign the final version, which he felt had been altered to avoid risking offending the Nazi regime. 

In September 1933 the church formally accepted the Deutsche Christen position on Jewish conversion to Christianity, and all church officials of Jewish descent were expelled. In response to this, Lutharian theologian and pastor Martin Niemöller founded the Pfarrernotbund (Emergency League of Pastors) to defend the principle of baptism as a means of conversion. The following month Deutsche Christen passed a resolution demanding that the Old Testament be removed from the Bible. deeming it a Jewish document, leading to thousands more pastors joining the Pfarrernotbund.

Around this time Bonhoeffer turned down the offer of a parish in Berlin, instead travelling to London for a two year appointment as a pastor to two German-speaking churches in Sydenham and Whitechapel. Although accused by some of running away from the battle in Germany, Bonhoeffer acted as an agent for the Pfarrernotbund, which in 1934 became the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), remaining in contact with Martin Niemöller, and using his contacts through the ecumenical movement to develop a network of allies among the Christian community in England.

In 1935 his stint in London came to an end, and although offered a chance to study at Mahatma Ghandi's ashram in India, Bonhoeffer chose to return to Germany where he he resumed teaching at the University of Berlin, as well as setting up an underground seminary for the Bekennende Kirche. In August 1936 Bonhoeffer lost his position at the university, having been denounced as a pacifist by Theodore Heckel, a newly appointed bishop and supporter of Deutsche Christen. 

Following this, Bonhoeffer dedicated all of his time to the Bekennende Kirche, operating largely from the estate of Ruth von Kleist-Retzow, Countess of Zedlitz-Trützschler, a German noblewoman, supporter of the Kirche, and opponent of the Nazi regime. In August 1937 the Bekennende Kirche was officially banned and a number of members were arrested. Bonhoeffer moved further underground, travelling from village-to-village to teach, and running an underground seminary at Groß Schlönwitz in what is now northern Poland. In 1938 Bonhoeffer was banned from entering Berlin, and moved his seminary to Tychow, also now in Poland. 

At this time Bonhoeffer's brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi, who was married to Bobhoeffer's older sister Christel, was working at the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence). Although essentially a civil servant, von Dohnayi was familiar with many senior members of the Nazi Party, and was convinced that a major war was about to break out. Along with other members of the Abwehr, von Dohnayi had been involved with the German resistance movement for several years, ensuring that the crimes of the Nazi Regime were carefully recorded so that they could one day be held to account, and helping a number of Jewish Berliners to escape to Switzerland. 

With war looming, von Dohnayi was concerned that Bonhoeffer would be conscripted into the army, and that the idealistic pastor would refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler or bear arms, both of which could earn him a death sentence. To avoid this von Dohnayi recruited Bonhoeffer into the Abwehr, arguing that his contacts through the ecumenical movement as evidence that Bobhoeffer would make an excellent agent.

In June 1939 Bonhoeffer was dispatched to the Union Theological Seminary in New York, although he returned to Germany two weeks later, despite pressure from his friends to remain, citing a need to be in Germany during the coming war if he was to have any part in rebuilding the country during its aftermath. 

Back in Germany, Bonhoeffer continued to be harassed by the authorities, despite being a member of the Abwehr. while the resistance movement within the Abwehr tried to use him to make contact with the governments of the Weston powers, in order to gain their support. In 1942 he flew to (neutral Sweden to meet with  George Bell, Bishop of Chichester and a friend of Bonhoeffer, hoping to gain the support of the British Government, for coup attempt and planned assassination of Adolf Hitler. However, by this time the British Government was only interested in an unconditional surrender from Germany, and was unwilling to enter into negotiations on any other matter. This was probably not helped by the fact that Bell was an outspoken opponent of the British policy of bombing civilian populations in Germany, which had made him suspect in the eyes of the Churchill government.

In January 1943, Bonhoeffer became engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer, the granddaughter of Ruth von Kleist-Retzow, although this does not been a love match so much as a way of assuring the continued support of the noblewoman. At the time of the engagement Bonhoeffer was 36-years-old, while von Wedemeyer was only 18, and they did not meet again after the celebration, with Bonhoffer citing the war as a reason not to marry soon. 

Bonhoeffer and von Dohnayi continued to be involved with efforts to smuggle Jews and other dissidents out of Germany, and von Dohnayi additionally became involved with Henning von Tresckow's failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in February 1943. In April 1943 the Gestapo uncovered evidence of von Dohnayi's involvement in the aiding of Jews to escape to Switzerland, and he, Christine, and Bonhoeffer were all arrested, although Christel was later released. 

While both men should in theory have been quickly brought to trial, proceedings were held up by military judge Karl Sack, another member of the resistance, and Bonhoeffer spent the next year-and-a-half in Tegel Prison, where he ministered to both prisoners and guards (one of whom is claimed to have offered to help him escape, though Bonhoeffer reputedly refused).

In February 1944, acting on the advice of Heinrich Himmler, Hitler disbanded the Abwehr, and placed its head, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, under house arrest. A subsequent investigation into the organisation revealed diaries kept by Canaris, linking the organisation to a number of plots. Confronted with this evidence Hitler is reported to have flown into a rage and ordered the execution of all Abwehr members.

Bonhoeffer was taken from Tegel Prison and brought before SS judge Otto Thorbeck, who convicted Bonhoeffer and sentenced him to death at a trial with no evidence, witnesses, or defence. He was taken to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he was executed on 9 April 1945 alongside Admiral Canaris, General Hans Oster, General Karl Sack, Theodor Strünck; and Ludwig Gehre. Von Donayi was executed the same day at the Sachsenhausen camp.

A doctor at the Flossenburg camp, Hermann Fischer-Hüllstrung, recorded that Bonhoeffer knelt before the gallows and prayed, before going calmly to his fate. However, later accounts by inmates of the camp contradicted that, suggesting that Bonhoeffer may have died in a more brutal and protracted fashion, with Bonhoeffer being repeatedly hung until nearly dead, then taken down, given time to recover, then hung again. His body was never recovered, and is presumed to have been either incinerated or thrown in one of the mass graves at the camp.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is today recognised as a martyr by the Methodist Church and some Anglican congregations. The anniversary of his death is marked by a number of protestant christian denominations. The German church in Sydenham was bombed during the war, but was rebuilt after and reconsecrated under the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer Kirche. Many of Bonhoeffer's writings are still considered important works of theology, particularly those on the importance of the church remaining separate from, and able to remain critical of, the state. A poem by Bonhoeffer, Von guten Mächten, was set to music by Siegfried Fietz in 1970, and voted Germany's most popular hymn in 2021.

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