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Leeds Museums and Galleries has a fantastic natural science collection. We have material (including type, figured and cited specimens) from around the world and we are fortunate to look after the third largest mollusc collection in the country. Leeds has interactive natural science displays at Leeds City Museum, our specimens are used for educational workshops in Leeds and across the UK and we loan material to researchers and institutions globally. Curatorial staff at Leeds spend their time working to improve access to this amazing and useful collection.
Contacts: Clare.brown@leeds.gov.uk rebecca.machin@leeds.gov.uk @CuratorClare @Curator_Rebecca |
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The Grant Museum of Zoology is the only remaining university zoological museum in London. It houses around 67,000 specimens, covering the whole Animal Kingdom. Founded in 1828 as a teaching collection, the Museum is packed full of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid. Many of the species are now endangered or extinct including the Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine, the Quagga, and the Dodo. The Grant Museum is a heavily used museum collection. It is actively used in teaching, research and public engagement bringing together UCL’s academic and research excellence with museum visitors and world-leading object based learning.
Image: (C) UCL, Grant Museum of Zoology and Matt Clayton. |
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The Horniman Natural History collection contains over 250,000 specimens of local, national and worldwide origin. The collection is varied and contains a range of biological and geological material and associated data, including: taxidermy cases and mounts, study skins, whole skeletons and bones, dried pressed plants, fungi, mollusc shells, bird eggs, pinned insects, histological slides, models, fluid preserved material, fossils, minerals and rocks. Image: Horniman Museum and Gardens © Joel Knight
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The Hunterian Museum holds significant natural science collections in addition to its displays of the history of surgery. The importance of natural science at the Hunterian began early on with the museum’s founder, anatomist and surgeon John Hunter (1728 ̶ 1793), who had a strong interest in the natural world. His Museum brought together human and animal specimens to examine anatomy and pathology across the natural world. These faunal collections were built on by the Royal College of Surgeons after Museum’s opening in 1813 due to the importance placed on comparative anatomy in surgical education. A number of esteemed naturalists including Sir Richard Owen (1804 ̶ 1892), Sir William Flower (1831 ̶ 1899) and Professor A.J.E. Cave (1900 ̶ 2001) have served as Conservators of the museum, including preparing specimens from their own research for the collection. While the importance of comparative anatomy has diminished in surgical training over the last century, the animal material at the Hunterian remains an important natural science resource. The Museum contains both wet and dry preparations of animal remains from common to very rare and extinct species. The Museum’s collections are complemented by a significant Archive which contains the papers of the natural scientists who have been associated with the College over the last two centuries. Contact: Museum Department on museums@rcseng.ac.uk
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Founded in 1860 as the centre for scientific study at the University of Oxford, the Museum of Natural History now holds the University’s internationally significant collections of geological and zoological specimens. Housed in a stunning example of neo-Gothic architecture, the Museum’s growing collections underpin a broad programme of natural environment research, teaching and public engagement. Contacts: Image: Bath white, oldest pinned insect in the world |