Oxford University Museum of Natural History facts for kids
Front view of Oxford University Museum
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| Established | 1850 |
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| Location | Parks Road, Oxford, England |
| Type | University museum of natural history |
| Collections | Natural history |
| Collection size | approx. 7 million objects |
| Visitors | 792,282 (2019) |
| Founder | Sir Henry Acland |
| Architect | Thomas Newenham Deane, Benjamin Woodward |
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History (often called OUMNH) is a museum in Oxford, England. It shows off many of the University of Oxford's amazing natural history items. You can find it on Parks Road.
The museum also has a big lecture hall. This hall is used by university departments like chemistry, zoology, and mathematics. It's also the only way for the public to get into the Pitt Rivers Museum, which is right next door.
Contents
Museum History
In 1850, Oxford University started teaching natural science. But the classrooms and collections were spread out all over the city. Sir Henry Acland, a professor of medicine, wanted to fix this. He started building the museum between 1855 and 1860. His goal was to bring all the science studies and collections into one central place.
In 1858, Acland explained why the museum was so important. He felt the university focused too much on subjects like theology (the study of religion), philosophy, and history. He believed students should also learn about the natural world. He thought understanding nature helped people learn about "the great material design" of the world. This idea, that nature was like a "Second Book of God," was popular in the 1800s.
Most of the museum's first collections came from the Ashmolean Museum. These included items gathered by John Tradescant the elder and his son, William Burchell, and geologist William Buckland. The Christ Church Museum gave its bone and body collections, many of which Acland himself had collected. The museum building was even paid for with money from selling Bibles.
Many science departments moved into the new building. These included astronomy, geology, zoology, and chemistry. As these departments grew, they moved to new buildings nearby. This area is now known as the university's Science Area.
The last department to leave the museum building was entomology (the study of insects) in 1978. But there's still an insect lab working on the first floor! Between 1885 and 1886, a new building was built next to the museum. This was for the ethnological (human culture) collections of General Augustus Pitt Rivers. In the 1800s, people thought it was very important to keep natural items (made by God) separate from human-made items (anthropology).
The museum is currently being updated and changed between 2023 and 2024.
The Museum Building
The museum's neo-Gothic style building was designed by Irish architects Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward. Woodward did most of the design. The famous writer John Ruskin even gave ideas during the building process. Construction started in 1855, and the museum was ready in 1860.
The building next door, which holds the Pitt Rivers Museum, was designed by Thomas Manly Deane, Thomas Newenham Deane's son. It was built between 1885 and 1886.
The museum has a large square main area with a glass roof. This roof is held up by cast iron pillars. These pillars divide the main area into three sections. Covered walkways run around the ground and first floors. These walkways have stone columns, and each column is made from a different type of British stone. Geologist John Phillips chose these stones. The decorations on the stone and iron pillars show natural shapes like leaves and branches. This style mixes art with the building's scientific purpose.
Statues of famous scientists stand around the ground floor. You can see figures like Aristotle, Bacon, Darwin, and Linnaeus. The university paid for the building itself. But the decorations were paid for by public donations, and some are still not finished. Two Irish stone carvers, O'Shea and Whelan, were hired to create lively carvings. When money ran out, they offered to work for free. But some university members accused them of "ruining" the building by adding carvings without permission. It's said that the O'Shea brothers carved funny faces of these university members as parrots and owls above the entrance! Sir Henry Acland said he made them remove these heads.
On January 12, 1954, both the Natural History and Pitt Rivers museums were given a special "Grade I listed" status. This means they are very important historic buildings.
Important Events
The 1860 Evolution Debate
A very important debate about evolutionary biology happened at the museum in 1860. It was part of a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. People from the Church and science talked about evolution. Many people see this event as a turning point, showing that a very strict reading of the Genesis creation narrative (the Bible's story of creation) was being challenged. But there aren't many direct reports from people who were there. Most stories were written by scientists.
The biologist Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce, who was the Bishop of Oxford, are usually seen as the main people in this debate. Huxley was a strong scientist and a big supporter of Darwin's ideas. Wilberforce had actually supported building the museum as a place for science. He believed it would help people study the wonders of God's creations.
On Wednesday, June 27, 1860, a botanist named Charles Daubeny gave a talk about plant sexuality. He mentioned Darwin's idea of natural selection. Richard Owen, a zoologist who thought evolution was guided by God, criticized Darwin's theory. He said that a gorilla's brain was more different from a man's brain than from other primates. Huxley said he would answer this in writing and didn't want to debate then. But rumors spread that the Bishop of Oxford would be at the meeting on Saturday.
Huxley first planned to skip the bishop's speech. But another evolutionist, Robert Chambers, convinced him to stay.
Wilberforce's speech on June 30, 1860, was funny and clever. But it was also an unfair attack on Darwinism. He ended with a famous question to Huxley: "was it through his grandfather or grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey?" Some people think Owen wrote this question for the bishop. (Owen and Wilberforce had known each other since they were kids.)
Wilberforce is said to have turned to a chemist named Professor Brodie and said, "The Lord has delivered him into mine hands." When Huxley spoke, he replied that Wilberforce hadn't said anything to disprove Darwin's ideas. He said Darwin's theory was still the best explanation for how species came to be. He ended with his own famous reply to Wilberforce's question. He said he was "not ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather." But he would be ashamed of having an ancestor who tried to distract people from the real topic with fancy words and religious feelings.
However, it seems the debate might not have been as dramatic as people often say. Newspaper reports from that time don't mention these exact famous quotes. Also, some reports suggest that it was Sir Joseph Hooker, not Huxley, who defended Darwinism most strongly.
While most stories say that Darwin's supporters were more convincing, it's likely that the exact details of the debate were made more exciting by Huxley's supporters. This helped to get more people to support Darwin's theories.
First Wireless Telegraphy Demonstration
The very first public showing of wireless telegraphy (sending messages without wires) happened in the museum's lecture hall. This was on August 14, 1894. Professor Oliver Lodge did the demonstration. A radio signal was sent from the nearby Clarendon Laboratory building and received in the lecture hall.
Charles Dodgson and the Dodo
The museum has a painting from 1651 of a dodo bird. It was painted by a Flemish artist named Jan Savery. Charles Dodgson, who you might know better as Lewis Carroll, often visited the museum. Savery's painting probably inspired the Dodo character in Carroll's famous book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Museum Collections
The museum's collections are split into three main parts:
- Earth Collections: These include Palaeontological (fossils) collections and collections of minerals and rocks.
- Life Collections: These have zoological (animals) and entomological (insects) collections.
- Archive Collections: These are historical records and documents.
The Hope Entomological Collections are huge, with over five million insect specimens! Frederick William Hope started the Hope Department. The first person in charge of these collections was John Obadiah Westwood. Many important insect and spider specimens from different collectors are part of the museum's holdings. These include items from Octavius Pickard-Cambridge, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Charles Darwin, among others.
The Museum Today
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Today, the museum is led by a director. As of 2023, this is Professor Paul Smith. The museum also has staff who work with visitors, education, outreach, IT, the library, conservation, and technical support.
Since 1997, the museum has received money from outside sources, like the government and private donors. This has helped them update their displays. Besides the main exhibits like the dodo and dinosaurs, there are new displays inside restored old cabinets. These cover topics like Evolution, Primates, the History of Life, Vertebrates, Invertebrates, and Rocks and Minerals.
There are also many popular items that visitors can touch. These include two bears, a fox, and other stuffed animals. You can also see a meteorite and large fossils and minerals. Plus, there are big dinosaur models and a display of mammal skeletons.
A famous group of ichnites (fossilized footprints) was found in a limestone quarry near Ardley, about 20 kilometers northeast of Oxford, in 1997. People think these footprints were made by Megalosaurus and possibly Cetiosaurus. You can see copies of some of these footprints on the front lawn of the museum.
The museum's tower is a popular place for migrating swifts (a type of bird) to nest. Cameras have been put in the tower, and you can watch a live video stream of the swifts on a screen near the main entrance.
On March 17, 2020, the museum closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened with some rules on September 22, 2020.
See also
In Spanish: Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad de Oxford para niños
- The Abbot's Kitchen, an early chemistry lab 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, which tells the history of the city of Oxford
