Anatole von Hügel

Who was Anatole von Hügel?

Anatole von Hügel was the second son of the Austrian nobleman Charles von Hügel and his Scottish wife Elizabeth Farquharson. His elder brother was Friedrich von Hügel and his sister was Pauline von Hugel.

His family moved to England in 1867 after his father's retirement, and he was educated at Stonyhurst College. From 1874 to 1878 he collected natural history specimens in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, and Java. He became an authority of Fiji, after his lengthy travels in the practically unknown interior of Viti Levu to record the original Fijian culture before the British colonization.

In 1880 he married Eliza Margaret Froude, daughter of William Froude and in 1883 he became the first curator of the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He remained curator until 1921, raising funds for the new building. In 1889 he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge and received an MA. Hügel was founder and first president of the Cambridge University Catholic Association, and would go on to co-found St Edmund's College, Cambridge with Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk.