MMNHS Meeting --- April 2006.
The Manchester Museum has been part of Manchester University since the 1870s. Prior to that it was a private club for gentlemen, founded in 1825. The Manchester Society for the promotion of Natural History was situated near the site now occupied by the G-Mex centre and there is still a street in that area called Museum Street. The collection was enormous and was the private plaything of wealthy industrialists and mill owners. They all had a little ivory ticket, which allowed
them
access to the museum. The society became bankrupt in 1868. Manchester had a
high number of non-conformists, such as
Quakers and Methodists, who were excluded from attending the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge and so it started its own university in Richard Cobden’s
house in Quay Street. This is same Richard Cobden who took up the leadership of
Manchester’s campaign against the Corn Laws. The university moved to Oxford
Road in 1850 and started awarding its own degrees and developed into the
university we know today.
The
collections of the Manchester Natural History Society were transferred to Owens
college – now the Victoria University of Manchester – between 1868 and 1873.
The new Manchester Museum opened in 1888. The museum was taken over by the
university on the advice of Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley was a great believer in
the education of the working person and in liberal education and he was not
interested in the aristocracy. He was interested in Manchester as a city, as it
had grown as a result of industrial activity. There are sketches in the museum
drawn by Huxley showing how the museum should be laid out. These show the
splitting of research materials and displays, as is used in museums today,
rather than the old idea of having a large room full of a jumble of all kinds
of material. Huxley influenced the Manchester museum for many years.
One
exhibit in the museum was the mummified body of a Manchester woman. She didn’t
want her family to inherit her money and so couldn’t be buried in the ground.
The mummy was kept in a grandfather clock in the museum. It also had two
stuffed dogs from Lyme Park in Cheshire. This was a Mastiff style dog that
originated at Lyme Park, in the 1500s, known as the Lyme Mastiff. The breed was
probably one of the ancestors of the modern Great Dane. There is a stuffed cow
of the British white cattle type, from these early days of the museum, which is
still on display. Most large museums have a large whale skeleton on display and
the Manchester Museum is no different in this respect. The skeleton is of a sperm
whale and has been in the museum since 1898. It had been washed up in America
and was purchased by one of the curators of the museum whilst he was on holiday
there.
William
Hoyle who was the first director of the museum was an expert on cephalopods ---
octopuses and squid. He worked on the Challenger collection. In 1909 he moved
to Cardiff and took all his cephalopod specimens with him. A fair number of
other staff were associated with the Challenger Expedition of 1872 – 1876. This
expedition discovered the mid-Atlantic ridge and discovered that the ocean
floor was a very dynamic system and not a lifeless desert as previously
thought. The museum has about five hundred microscope slides from the
expedition. Unfortunately, slide collections are not easy to display in public
galleries. Mention was made of Marie Stopes who was a brilliant student at
Manchester University. The museum has some of her microscope slides that she
used whilst studying at the university.
Apparently,
Victorians and Edwardians used to use museums and societies as a way of
introducing their daughters into society. Their daughters were used to help
them with their scientific work. Typically they would have their daughters
labelling specimens for them. The more daughters you had, the more work you
could get through.
The
natural history collections of the museum are enormous. In the botany section
there are about two million herbarium sheets. The entomology section has about
two million specimens. Zoology and Palaeontology probably have about a quarter
of a million specimens each. Only a small portion is on display at any one time
with most of the material being kept in the back rooms of the museum. The
museum is aiming for a more dynamic approach to the display of specimens with exhibits
being changed more often. Unfortunately, some of the displays in the museum are
rather too high to be easily accessed by young children but cannot be changed
as they are listed.
I
have to admit that I have never visited the Manchester Museum myself but after
hearing this interesting talk I am going to have to make the effort to remedy
this. As I live within less than an hour of travelling time, and visit
Manchester fairly frequently, I really don’t have an excuse not to do so.
Derek Haworth
Click on a link below to view a picture –
AT THE MEETING -
John viewing slides from the museum
EXHIBITS AT THE MUSEUM -
Abraham Flatters Slide of Sheep Liver Fluke
European Wild Cat - Felis Sylvestris
Skull of the World's Oldest Horse
