Richard Parkinson (explorer)

From there he undertook larger and smaller journeys to the Bismarck Archipelago, then the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, at that time all parts of the German colonial empire.

In the later 1890er years Parkinson began to sell parts of his collections to German museums, mainly in Dresden and Stuttgart.

[1] Although also the remaining collection might have brought him further government awards, Parkinson wanted to sell due to his deteriorating health.

[1] Although this was a reasonable sum for such a collection, the German museums expressed no interest, so that the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago was ultimately awarded the contract for almost 3,000 objects belonging to Richard and his wife Phebe Parkinson.

[1] His masterwork Dreißig Jahre in der Südsee, (Thirty Years in the South Seas), appeared in several editions first in 1907 and again in 1911.