Shine On

The Library and Archive has been developing its unparalleled collection since before the Museum opened in 1860. It contains everything from natural history literature, artworks, sculpture, photographs, maps, manuscripts, original furniture, objects and more. Alongside documenting the life and work of some of Britain’s most notable naturalists, these collections complement and enrich the Museum’s specimen holdings. Although the collections are housed throughout the Museum, only a small portion is on display for visitors to view in the main court.

The Library and Archive is primarily aimed at supporting the research that happens within the Museum and Oxford University, but it is open to anyone with an interest in natural history and our collections. Objects in the Archive include everything from old scientific apparatus - like microscopes that were used for teaching or entomological tools once used to catch and transport insects - to unexpected objects, like the death mask of a Swiss naturalist, a Nobel Prize medal, and even the shoes of the Museum’s first Hope Professor of Zoology, John Obadiah Westwood.

The objects brought together in this case have little in common beyond one simple characteristic: they shine. Each has its own unique story yet are rarely seen by the public. Enjoy this display of Shine On: Treasures from the Archive, a rare opportunity to discover some of the hidden gems of the Museum’s Library and Archive.

Trowel carried in procession by William and Sarah Acland, the eldest children of Dr Henry Acland, Regius Professor of Medicine and one of the Museum’s principal founders.

The foundation stone of the Museum was laid on 20 June 1855 in a ceremony attended by many of the leading figures of the University and the city of Oxford. The Chancellor, Lord Derby, set the stone using the specially commissioned trowel displayed here. It was made by Francis Skidmore of Coventry, who was also responsible for the Museum’s celebrated iron and glass roof.

The trowel was carried in procession by William and Sarah Acland, the eldest children of Dr Henry Acland, Regius Professor of Medicine and one of the Museum’s principal founders. The ceremony included the Benedicite, Omnia Opera, and a special prayer composed by Acland for the occasion.

 

Bible presented, “in love to his young friend”, Sarah Acland, by one of the Museum’s architects, Sir Thomas Deane, on the day of the foundation ceremony in 1855.

The Bible displayed alongside the trowel was presented, “in love to his young friend”, Sarah Acland by one of the Museum’s architects, Sir Thomas Deane, on the day of the ceremony. On the Museum’s jubilee, following a Convocation ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre on 8 October 1908, Sarah Acland donated the Bible to the Museum’s Archive, where it has remained ever since.

 

Brass microscope which once belonged to English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911)

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his creative partnership with composer Arthur Sullivan. Together they produced fourteen comic operas including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado, one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre.

Gilbert was a close friend of Henry Rowland-Brown, an English entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera, the study of butterflies and moths. Although trained in law and employed as a journalist, Rowland-Brown remained a dedicated entomologist and a regular visitor to the Museum’s entomological department. It was through Rowland-Brown, who was gifted the microscope in 1911, that Gilbert’s microscope was eventually donated to the Museum for use in the department. However as scientific technology advanced, the microscope was gradually replaced by more modern equipment.

Today, Gilbert’s beautiful brass microscope is displayed in the Museum’s Library and Archive, where it serves as a reminder of both its distinguished owner and the close connections between science, collecting and culture. Appropriately the label acknowledges its original owner Sir W. S. Gilbert, the “Very Model of a Modern Microscopist.”

 

Original copper plate used to print the illustrations for Henry Denny's 1842 book on sucking lice, which were then individually hand-painted by Denny himself.

Henry Denny (1803-1871) was an English entomologist and the first curator of the Leeds Philosophical Society Museum. A passionate collector of all types of animal specimens, he developed a particular fascination with lice and became one of the world’s leading authorities on the order Phthiraptera.

The Denny Collection comprises more than 3,000 lice specimens gathered from researchers across the globe, including his good friend Charles Darwin, who collected lice for Denny during the HMS Beagle voyage. Alongside the specimens, the collection contains Denny’s archive of research papers and notes, as well as an incomplete and unpublished monograph on exotic lice species, intended as a follow up to his 1842 book on the sucking lice of the British Isles. Among the archive’s highlight is the original copper plates used to print the illustrations, which were then individually hand-painted by Denny himself.

The Denny Collection was purchased for the Museum after Denny’s death and remains an important resource for the study of parasitic insects. And while lice may not seem like the most glamorous of entomological specimens, in copper plate form they have never looked better!

 

Nobel prize medal awarded to Nikolass ‘Niko’ Tinbergen (1907-1988)

Nikolass ‘Niko’ Tinbergen (1907-1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who moved to England after the Second World War and taught at Oxford University. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the scientific study of animal behaviour and his influential 1949 book, The Study of Instinct, remains a foundational text in the field.

In 1973, Tinbergen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch for their discoveries concerning the organisation and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals. Tinbergen’s Nobel Prize medal, along with his other prize medals, were donated to the Museum by the Tinbergen family in 1990. His research and discoveries continue to shape the biological sciences today, and the Museum is proud to care for this remarkable and historically significant object.