Dr John Shepherd reviews the history of a major anthropological expedition one hundred years ago. On 10 March 1898 The Times reported that Cambridge Anthropological Expedition led by Alfred Cort Haddon had sailed from London, bound for the Torres Strait region between Australia and New Guinea. In Imperial Britain, the departure of a seven-man expedition on an anthropological mission to a distant part the globe was not a remarkable event in itself. In June 1897 Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was celebrated throughout the British Empire. “Primitive” peoples of distant and exotic lands held a widespread fascination for the Victorian public, accustomed to national exhibitions, lectures and museum collections of ethnographic material gathered by scholars, travellers and missionaries.