Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Established | 1850 |
---|---|
Location | Parks Road, Oxford, England |
Coordinates | 51°45′31″N 1°15′21″W / 51.7586°N 1.2557°W |
Type | University museum of natural history |
Collections | Natural history |
Collection size | approx. 7 million objects[1] |
Visitors | 792,282 (2019)[2] |
Founder | Sir Henry Acland |
Director | Paul Smith |
Architect | Thomas Newenham Deane, Benjamin Woodward |
Website | oumnh.ox.ac.uk |
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH) is a
History
The university's Honour School of Natural Science started in 1850, but the facilities for teaching were scattered around the city of
The largest portion of the museum's collections consist of the natural history specimens from the
The last department to leave the building was the entomology department, which moved into the zoology building in 1978. However, there is still a working entomology laboratory on the first floor of the museum building. Between 1885 and 1886 a new building to the east of the museum was constructed to house the ethnological collections of General Augustus Pitt Rivers—the Pitt Rivers Museum. In 19th-century thinking, it was very important to separate objects made by the hand of God (natural history) from objects made by the hand of man (anthropology).[7]
The museum is being renovated and the layout being changed between 2023 and 2024.
The building
The
The adjoining building that houses the Pitt Rivers Museum was the work of Thomas Manly Deane, son of Thomas Newenham Deane. It was built between 1885 and 1886.[citation needed]
The museum consists of a large square court with a
Statues of eminent men of science stand around the ground floor of the court—from Aristotle and Bacon through to Darwin and Linnaeus. Although the university paid for the construction of the building, the ornamentation was funded by public subscription, and much of it remains incomplete. The Irish stone carvers O'Shea and Whelan had been employed to create lively freehand carvings in the Gothic manner. When funding dried up, they offered to work unpaid, but they were accused by members of the University Convocation of "defacing" the building by adding unauthorised work. According to Acland, the O'Shea brothers responded by caricaturing the members of Convocation as parrots and owls in the carving over the building's entrance. Acland insists that he forced them to remove the heads from these carvings.[9]
On 12 January 1954 both the Natural History and Pitt Rivers museums were Grade I listed as being "one of the most significant and carefully detailed museum complexes of the mid-late C19, as well as being a seminal monument to Oxford's scientific awakening."[10]
Significant events
The 1860 evolution debate
A significant debate in the history of
The biologist
On the Wednesday of the meeting, 27 June 1860,
Initially, Huxley was planning to avoid the bishop's speech. However, evolutionist
Wilberforce's speech on 30 June 1860 was good-humoured and witty, but was an unfair attack on Darwinism, ending in the now infamous question to Huxley of whether "it was through his grandfather or grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey." Some commentators suggested that this question was written by Owen, and others suggested that the bishop was taught by Owen. (Owen and Wilberforce had known each other since childhood.)[citation needed]
Wilberforce is purported to have turned to his neighbour, chemist Professor Brodie and exclaiming, "The Lord has delivered him into mine hands." When Huxley spoke, he responded that he had heard nothing from Wilberforce to prejudice Darwin's arguments, which still provided the best explanation of the origin of species yet advanced. He ended with the equally famous response to Wilberforce's question, that he had "no need to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather, but that he would be ashamed of having for an ancestor a man of restless and versatile interest who distracts the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digression and skilled appeals to religious prejudice."[citation needed]
However it seems unlikely that the debate was as spectacular as traditionally suggested – contemporary accounts by journalists do not make mention of the words that have become such notable quotations. Additionally, contemporary accounts suggest that it was not Huxley, but Sir Joseph Hooker who most vocally defended Darwinism at the meeting.[citation needed]
While all the accounts of the event suggest that the supporters of Darwinism were the most persuasive, it seems likely that the exact nature of the debate was made more sensational in the reports of Huxley's supporters to encourage further support for Darwin's theories.[14]
The 1894 demonstration of wireless telegraphy
The first public demonstration of wireless telegraphy took place in the lecture theatre of the museum on 14 August 1894, carried out by Professor Oliver Lodge. A radio signal was sent from the neighbouring Clarendon Laboratory building, and received by apparatus in the lecture theatre.[citation needed]
Charles Dodgson and the dodo
The museum displays a 1651 painting of a dodo by Flemish artist, Jan Savery.[citation needed] Charles Dodgson, better known by his pen-name Lewis Carroll, was a regular visitor to the museum, and Savery's painting is likely to have influenced the character of the Dodo in Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[citation needed]
Collections
The museum collections are divided into three sections: Earth Collections covering the
The Hope Entomological Collections, numbering over five million specimens are held by the museum. The Hope Department was founded by
The museum today
The museum is led by a director (as of 2023[update] Professor Paul Smith, formerly Head of the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham),[15] who succeeded Professor Jim Kennedy[16] in 2011, and there are front of house, education, outreach, IT, library, conservation, and technical staff.
Since 1997 the museum has benefited from external funding, from government and private sources, and undertaken a renewal of its displays. As well as central exhibits featuring the dodo and dinosaurs, there are sets of displays with contemporary designs but within restored Victorian cabinets, on a variety of themes: Evolution, Primates, the History of Life, Vertebrates, Invertebrates and Rocks and Minerals. There are also a number of popular touchable items, which include two bears, a fox, and other taxidermy. Additionally, there is a meteorite and large fossils and minerals. Visitors can also see large dinosaur reconstructions and a parade of mammal skeletons.[citation needed]
A famous group of
The tower of the museum is a popular nesting area for migrating swifts. Cameras have been installed which broadcast a live stream to a display near the main entrance.[17]
On March 17, 2020, the museum shut indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[18] It reopened with some restrictions on September 22, 2020.[19]
The Sequoiadendron giganteum tree in front of the museum was 35.7m tall in 2006.[20]
Keepers, secretaries and directors
Name | from | To |
---|---|---|
John Phillips | 1857 | 1874 |
Henry Smith | 1874 | 1883 |
Edward Burnett Tylor | 1883 | 1902 |
Name | from | To |
---|---|---|
Sir Henry Alexander Miers | 1902 | 1908 |
Gilbert Charles Bourne (acting secretary) | 1908 | 1909 |
Henry Balfour | 1909 | 1911 |
Herbert Lister Bowman | 1911 | 1925 |
Thomas Vipond Barker | 1925 | 1928 |
Sydney G. P. Plant | 1928 | 1955 |
Geoffrey E. S. Turner | 1956 | 1964 |
Name | from | To |
---|---|---|
Keith Thomson | 1998 | 2003 |
Jim Kennedy | 2003 | 2011 |
Paul Smith | 2011 |
In popular culture
The Museum has been featured in several movies, television shows and documentaries.
Several scenes for the 2004 Animal Planet Docufiction film The Last Dragon (known in the United States as Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real) were filmed at the Oxford museum[citation needed].
Various scenes were filmed around Oxford for the 2017 blockbuster science fiction Action sequel Transformers: The Last Knight, one scene where Viviane Wembly is giving a tour to a group of students featuring Laura Haddock and Anthony Hopkins was shot in the university and museum.[21]
Scenes were shot at the museum for the
A deleted scene for the Marvel Superhero film Eternals featuring Kit Harington and Lia McHugh was filmed at the museum.[23]
See also
- The Abbot's Kitchen, an early chemistry laboratory next to the museum, built at the same time
- Radcliffe Science Library, the science library of Oxford University, close to the museum
- Museum of Oxford, dedicated to the history of the city of Oxford
References
- ^ "Collections". Museum of Natural History. Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- ^ "ALVA – Association of Leading Visitor Attractions". alva.org.uk. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ "O.U.M.N.H. About the Museum". oum.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
- ^ "O.U.M.N.H. Visiting Us". oum.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
- ^ Yanni, Carla. Nature's Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display, Chapter two, passim.
- ^ Taunton, Larry (26 December 2012). "The atheist who tried to steal Christmas". USA Today. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
- ^ Yanni, chapter two, passim
- ^ "Oxford University Museum of Natural History: Introduction". Oxford University. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Acland, Henry W., M.D. The Oxford Museum. London: George Allen, 1893.
- ^ "the University Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum, Non Civil Parish - 1081534 | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- ^ Account of the 1860 debate, American Scientist.
- ISBN 978-0-8020-9284-7. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
- ISBN 978-1-60501-636-8. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
- ^ J. R. Lucas, "Wilberforce and Huxley: A Legendary Encounter" http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/legend.html retrieved 5 October 2007
- ^ "Professor Paul Smith". Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
- ^ "jimk - Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University". 8 December 2008. Archived from the original on 8 December 2008. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
- ^ "Swifts in the tower". Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
- ^ Hughes, Tim (17 March 2020). "Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers and other museums SHUT over coronavirus". Oxford Mail.
- ^ "Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum to reopen on 22 September 2020". Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Press release). 7 September 2020.
- ^ http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/picturepages/oxford2.htm
- ^ "Transformers: The Last Knight at Oxford University Museum of Natural History - filming location". Retrieved 19 November 2023.
- ^ "His Dark Materials exhibition opens in Oxford". Retrieved 19 November 2023.
- The Oxford Mail. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
External links
- History of the Insect collections
- Virtual Tour of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History 2014