Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums during the Late Nineteenth Century

Exceptions to this general rule are the interesting study by Limoges Camille , “The development of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle of Paris, c. 1800–1914”, in Fox Robert and Weisz George (eds), The organisation of science and technology in France 1808–1914 (Paris and Cambridge, 1980), 211–40, and the “Papers presented at the international conference on the history of museums and collections in natural history”, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, ix (1980), 365–670. S. Bedini traces the development of museums devoted to physical sciences and technology in “The evolution of science museums”, Technology and culture, vi (1965), 1–29. Also see the recent study by Kohlstedt Sally Gregory , “Australian museums of natural history: Public priorities and scientific initiatives in the 19th century”, Historical records of Australian science, vi (1983), 1–29.

For a discussion of these issues see Cameron Duncan F. , “The museum: A temple or a forum” in the special issue of UNESCO's Journal of world history , xiv (1972), 189–202, esp. p. 194, and Hudson Kenneth , A social history of museums: What the visitors thought (London, 1975), esp. p. 13 and ch. 2.

Suggested by Gunther A. E. , who also introduces the category of colonial museums; see his Century of zoology at the British Museum through the lives of two keepers, 1815–1914 (London, 1975), 152–3, 320–2, and his Founders of science at the British Museum, 1753–1900 (Halesworth, Suffolk, 1980), 125.

Armstrong Warwick , “Land, class, colonialism: The origins of Dominion capitalism”, in Willmot W. E. (ed.), New Zealand and the world: Essays in honour of Wolfgang Rosenberg (Canterbury, 1980), 28–44, esp. pp. 28, 31. Ferns H. S. , Britain and Argentina in the nineteenth century (Oxford, 1960), 487. Piatt D. C. M. , “Canada and Argentina: The first preference of the British investor, 1904–14”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth history, xiii, no. 3 (May 1985), 77–92, esp. p. 78.

Dyster Barrie , “Argentine and Australian development compared”, Past and present, no. 84 (Aug. 1979), 91–110, esp. p. 91. Armstrong Warwick and Bradbury John , “Industrialisation and class structure in Australia, Canada and Argentina: 1870 to 1980”, Political economy of Australia, v, ed. by Wheelwright E. L. and Buckley K. (Sydney, 1983), 43–74. Also see Wheelwright E. L. , “Australia and Argentina: A comparative study”, in his Radical political economy (Sydney, 1974), 270–96, esp. pp. 270–1.

A recent comparative study of science funding suggests that the extraordinarily high level of British support for museums during this period reveals a “passion for museums” in that country: See Reingold Nathan and Bodansky Joel N. , “The sciences, 1850–1900, a North Atlantic perspective”, Biological bulletin, clxviii (1985), 44–61, p. 48.

Howorth H. H. , “Some casual thoughts on museums”, Natural science, vii (1895), 97–100, p. 98.

Bather F.A. , “Some colonial museums”, Museums Association, Report of proceedings …1894…in Dublin (London, 1895), 193–239, pp. 231–3.

Swainson Williams , Taxidermy, bibliography, and biography (London, 1840), 77–78.

Markham S. F. and Richards H. C. , A report on the museums and art galleries of Australia (London, 1933), 23. According to Coleman L. V. , Directory of museums in South America (Washington, D. C., 1929), 26, the Buenos Aires museum possessed around 90% of all known species of tertiary mollusca.

Goode George Brown , “The principles of museum administration”, Museums Association, Report of proceedings…1895…in Newcastle (London, 1895), 69–148, pp. 88–89.

Pevsner Nikolaus , A history of building types (London, 1976), devotes a section (ch. 8) to the architecture of nineteenth century museums.

Fletcher Banister , A history of architecture on the comparative method, 17th edn (London, 1961), 1057, 1126.

“Museum architecture”, Encyclopedia Britannica (edn published in Chicago, 1970), xv, 1033.

See Forgan Sophie , “Context, image and function: A preliminary enquiry into the architecture of scientific societies”, The British journal for the history of science, xix (1986), 89–113; on p. 91 and elsewhere she discusses the social symbolism of various nineteenth century architectural conventions.

Girouard Mark , Alfred Waterhouse and the Natural History Museum (London, 1981), 25–26.

Fergusson James , History of the modem styles of architecture, 3rd edn (London, 1891), ii, 170.

Forgan , op. cit. (ref. 15), 112.

For a fuller discussion of the appearance and early physical development of colonial museums see my article on “Henry Augustus Ward and museum development in the hinterland”, University of Rochester library bulletin, xxxiii (1985), 38–59.

Goode G. B. , (ed.), The Smithsonian Institution, 1846–1896: The history of its first half century (Washington, D.C., 1897), 328–30.

Meyer A. B. , Studies of the museums and kindred institutions of New York City, Albany, Buffalo, and Chicago, with notes on some European institutions (Washington, D.C., 1905), 526, 590. Bolton H. , “Provincial museums and the Museums Association”, Museums Association, Report of proceedings…1898…in Sheffield (London, 1899), 89–93, p. 91.

Goode , op. cit. (ref. 11), 78, 86.

On McCoy's reluctance to hire other scientific officers, see Kohlstedt , op. cit. (ref. 1), n. 167.

As Francisco Moreno claimed to have done at the La Plata Museum. See Moreno , “Museo la Plata: Informe prehminar”, Boletin del Museo la Plata, (1888), 3–35, p. 4.

McCoy's biographer, for example, speaks of a lack of professional employment that discouraged students from pursuing scientific training at this time. Fendley G. C. , “Sir Frederick McCoy”, Australian dictionary of biography, v, 134–6. Also see Houssay B. A. , “La personalidad de German Burmeister”, Physis, xxix (1942), 279–83, p. 281.

As Burmeister complained publicly in the Anales. According to his biographer, McCoy's energies and curiosity were totally absorbed in classifying the museum's flood of acquisitions, since he was the sole scientific officer. See Fendley , op. cit. (ref. 25).

de Ciencias Naturales Museo Argentino , “Bernardino Rivadavia” archives: Correspondencia de oficio del director del Museo Publico de Buenos Aires (BAM): 26 Nov. 1866.

Torcelli Alfredo J. , (ed.), Obras completas y correspondencia cientifica de Florentino Ameghino, xxi (La Plata, 1935), 599–600.

Ward Roswell , H. A. Ward: Museum builder to America (Rochester Historical Society publications, xxiv (Rochester, N.Y., 1948)), 172, 211; Kohlstedt Sally Gregory , “Henry A. Ward: The merchant naturalist and American museum development”, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, ix (1980), 647–61, p. 658, n. 30.

Pescott R. T. M. , Collections of a century: The history of the first hundred years of the National Museum of Victoria (Melbourne, 1954), 41. The same pattern prevailed in other colonial museums. A fireman, Rau F. J. , became a collector for the South Australian Museum in Adelaide: See Hale Herbert M. , The first hundred years of the museum, 1856–1956 (Records of the South Australian Museum, xii (Adelaide, 1956)), 66–67.

Goode , op. cit. (ref. 11), 85.

For a description of how curators employed these various strategies, see my forthcoming article in the Archives of natural history, “How to ‘grow’ a natural history museum: The building of colonial collections, 1850–1900”.

Von Haast papers (MS37), Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand (henceforth, TL): F. 63, William Henry Flower to Haast, 20 Oct. 1873; Ward Henry A. papers, University of Rochester Library, Special Collections (Rochester, N.Y.) (henceforth, HAW): Haast to Ward , 7 July 1881.

For example, see Hale , op. cit. (ref. 30), 23.

Lydekker R. , “The La Plata Museum”, Natural science, iv (1894), 27–35, 117–28.

On increased exchanges of specimens and advice see TL: Haast correspondence with Cheeseman T. F. (f. 44), McCoy (f. 117), and Trimen Ronald (f. 142). Kohlstedt also notes that intercolonial exchanges became more extensive in the 1880s. See Kohlstedt , op. cit. (ref. 1), n. 104.

For example, HAW: Cheeseman to Ward, 1 March 1886.

For example, Hale , op. cit. (ref. 30), 23. TL: F. 108, Haast correspondence with Hutton F. W. Kohlstedt Sally Gregory , “Natural heritage: Securing Australian materials in 19th century museums”, Museums Australia, (July 1984), 15–32, and “Historical records in Australian museums of natural history”, Australian historical bibliography, x (1984), 61–82 (esp. pp. 73–74).

TL: F.283, newspaper clipping dated 1884.

Meyer , op. cit. (ref. 21), 521, 330. Fritsch Anton , “The natural history departments of the Bohemian Museum”, Natural science, viii (1896), 168–72, p. 171.

Around this time the British Museum's zoology department alone counted about a million and a half specimens: See Gunther A. E. , op. cit. (ref. 3), 148. This view is supported by the 1930s survey of S. F. Markham and W. R. B. Oliver which sees moderately-sized colonial cities and towns as better endowed than analogues in England: A report on the museums and art galleries of New Zealand (London, 1933), 69.

Report of the Peter Redpath Museum for the year 1897, 24.

Gardner W. J. , (ed.), A history of Canterbury, ii (Christchurch, 1971), 235–6.

Basalla George , “The spread of western science”, Science, clvi (1967), 611–22, p. 617.

On the Redpath Museum, see my “‘Stones and bones and skeletons’: The origins and early development of the Peter Redpath Museum”, McGill journal of education, xvii (1982), 45–64, esp. pp. 51–52. The La Plata Museum was created, along with other provincial institutions, when a new provincial capital was established there in 1880.

Fox Cyril , A survey of McGill University museums (Montreal, 1932), 4. McLintock A. H. (ed.), An encyclopedia of New Zealand (Wellington, 1966), i, 893.

Sophie Forgan makes this point about the “functional adaptation” of different types of science buildings, op. cit. (ref. 15), 91.

Anton Fritsch concurs with this view in “The museum question in Europe and America”, Museums journal, iii (1903–4), 247–56. Dawkins W. Boyd , “On museum organisation and arrangement”, Museums Association, Report of proceedings…1890…at Liverpool (London, 1890), 38–45, p. 38.

Hudson Kenneth , A social history of museums: What the visitors thought (London, 1975), 13, 69.

Parr A.E. , “On the functions of the natural history museum”, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, ser. 2, i (1939), 44–58, p. 45.

Coleman L. V. , The museum in America (Washington, D.C., 1939), iii, 225, 226. For interesting insights into why museums were ‘on the defensive’ by the twentieth century, see Parr , op. cit. (ref. 50).