THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

See Also: ANIMALS; THE BRITISH MUSEUM; HOAXES The Natural History Museum; KEW GARDENS The Royal Botanic Gardens; MUSEUMS; THE VANQUISHER VANQUISHED; ZOOS

The nucleus of the British Museum's natural history collection was amassed by Sir Hans Sloane. In 1781 the institution was given the Royal Society's repository, and in 1820 it received the botanical collection of Sir Joseph Banks.

The anatomist and palaeontologist Richard Owen¹ was appointed as the first superintendent of the Museum's natural history department in 1856. He established five sections within it - botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology, and zoology. Three years later he proposed to the government that the institution should divest itself of the collection, which should become the core of a new natural history museum. In 1860 the Museum's trustees voted to hive off the department into a separate institution.

A site in South Kensington was purchased in 1863. It had been the Horticultural Society's gardens. The following year a competition was held to determine who would the design of a museum building. Captain Francis Fowke of the Royal Engineers won this with a Renaissance style plan. However, he died. During his early career, Owen had advanced himself by identifying with reactionary political elements. Times had changed and society was again more progressively inclined. The importance of the museum prompted him to work with anyone who would forward the project. He proved to be fortunate in obtaining support for the scheme from the Liberal prime minister William Gladstone. Alfred Waterhouse - a very charming architect² who had developed his own early career by working for a nexus of wealthy northern Liberals - was commissioned to oversee the construction of Fowke's plans. However, the man went on to redesign the project, declaring that a building in the South German Romanesque manner should be constructed. Owen supported this choice. The opposition of Queen Victoria to this change had to be overcome. It was. However, the scheme then became the subject of a degree of a politicking. During the early 1870s construction of the edifice began.

The Natural History Museum finally admitted the public in 1881.³ Three years later Owen retired.

The museum's Darwin Centre opened in 2009. There is a theory that the Natural History Museum was extended in order to keep some of the more embedded curators on their toes. A view had emerged that they had been beginning to believe that they knew their way around the building.

Some members of the staff of the Natural History Museum provide forensic services to help the police with serious crimes.

In 2019 about 3% of the Natural History Museum's collection was on display.

The blue whale skeleton suspended in the entry hall is called Hope.

Location: Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD (blue, red)

Website: www.nhm.ac.uk

¹. Sir Richard Owen coined the word dinosaur . (See Also: SMALL ITEMS Dinosaur Poo)

². It was said that Waterhouse's smile earned him an extra 1000 a year.

³. In taxi slang the Natural History Museum is known as the Dead Zoo .

Artificial Protuberance

Richard Owen realised that rhinoceroses, horses, and tapirs belong to the same taxonomic order. He devised the name Perissodactyla for it. The name derives from the Greek perissos odd and daktylos toe.

Rosie is a stuffed, one-horned Indian rhinoceros. In 2012 it was reported that the Museum had replaced her horn with an artificial one. This was because recently there had been a trans-European wave of thefts of the protuberances. Over fifty had been sawn away from exhibits. This fashion derived from the misapprehension that keratin, the protein of which the outgrowth is composed, is an aphrodisiac. (Should the protuberance-chompers still be desperate for an alternative source of the substance they can always try chewing their own fingernails.)

Website: https://cites.org (The Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species)

Ornamentations

Over the years 1875-8 Waterhouse drew designs for over 300 animal sculptures. Members of the Museum's staff checked them for their anatomical accuracy. Along the western wing's front were placed sculpted figures of extant creatures and along its eastern one representations of extinct ones. The arches of the Central Hall have 78 monkeys climbing on them.

The mouldings were made by a Monsieur Dujardin. Terracotta was used because of the large scale of production. However, the use of this material was contentious. The art critic John Ruskin held that craftsmanship was essential to social responsibility and beauty. He had played a leading role in the design of the University of Oxford's Museum of Natural History.¹ Its stone ornamentation had been carved in situ. However, the Ruskinians chose to approve of Waterhouse's semi-industrial approach.

¹. Website: www.oumnh.ox.ac.uk

String

In 1932 the Museum recruited Leslie Bairstow, a specialist on the fossils of the North-East English coast. He stayed with the institution until he reached retiring age. His career was spectacularly unproductive - with the exception of a letter that appeared in the cycling magazine Happy Days. After he had left, it was discovered that in his office he had had a collection of boxes in which he had stored string. One of these contained very short pieces. It was labelled Too small to be of use .

Vaulting

Leech s storm petrel was named after the ornithologist William Leach (1791-1836). He lived in a couple of rooms within the British Museum. He used to keep fit by vaulting over a stuffed zebra.

David Backhouse 2024