National Trust of Guyana

Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology

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Location: North Cummingsburg, Georgetown

Classification: Governmental

Period/ Year Built: Late 19th -early 20th century

Historical Background / Description:

The Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology is located on Main Street, Cummingsburg, Georgetown. The museum is housed in a late 19th – early 20th century, three-storey colonial timber structure designed by British Guiana architect, Mr. John Bradshaw Sharples. The building was home to many pre-eminent figures before the British Government acquired it in 1942. 

The structure continued to house public offices until it was transferred to the state agency called the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, named after Walter Roth, a famous English Anthropologist, who settled in British Guiana in the early 1900s. Features of the structure include its enclosed gallery, Demerara windows and tower. The museum showcase aspects of Guyana’s Indigenous people’s heritage.