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 Frontfaçade of the museum in September 2011 | |
  Location within Central London | |
| Established | 1881; 144 years ago (1881) |
|---|---|
| Location | Kensington & Chelsea, London,SW7 United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 51°29′46″N00°10′35″W / 51.49611°N 0.17639°W /51.49611; -0.17639 |
| Type | Natural history museum |
| Visitors | 5,688,786 in 2023[1] |
| Founder | Richard Owen |
| Director | Doug Gurr |
| Public transit access |
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| Website | www |
TheNatural History Museum inLondon is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments ofnatural history. It is one of three major museums onExhibition Road inSouth Kensington, the others being theScience Museum and theVictoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is onCromwell Road.
The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections:botany,entomology,mineralogy,palaeontology andzoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising intaxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected byCharles Darwin. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition ofdinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed acathedral of nature—both exemplified by the largeDiplodocuscast that dominated the vaulted central hall before it was replaced in 2017 with the skeleton of a blue whale hanging fromthe ceiling. The Natural History Museum Library contains an extensive collection of books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork linked to the work and research of the scientific departments; access to the library is by appointment only. The museum is recognised as the pre-eminent centre of natural history and research of related fields in the world.
Although commonly referred to as the Natural History Museum, it was officially known asBritish Museum (Natural History) until 1992, despite legal separation from theBritish Museum itself in 1963. Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmarkAlfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881 and later incorporated theGeological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections.
Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History Museum does not charge an admission fee.[2]The museum is anexempt charity and anon-departmental public body sponsored by theDepartment for Culture, Media and Sport.[3][4]The Princess of Wales is a patron of the museum.[5] There are approximately 850 staff at the museum. The two largest strategic groups are the Public Engagement Group and the Science Group.[6]
The foundation of the collection was that of the Ulster doctor SirHans Sloane (1660–1753), who allowed his significant collections to be purchased by the British Government at a price well below their market value at the time. This purchase was funded by a lottery.[7] Sloane's collection, which included dried plants, and animal and human skeletons, was initially housed inMontagu House, Bloomsbury, in 1756, which was the home of theBritish Museum.[8]
Most of the Sloane collection had disappeared by the early decades of the nineteenth century. DrGeorge Shaw (Keeper of Natural History 1806–1813) sold many specimens to theRoyal College of Surgeons and had periodiccremations of material in the grounds of the museum. His successors also applied to the trustees for permission to destroy decayed specimens.[9] In 1833, the Annual Report states that, of the 5,500 insects listed in the Sloane catalogue, none remained. The inability of the natural history departments to conserve their specimens became notorious: the Treasury refused to entrust them with specimens collected at the government's expense. Appointments of staff were bedevilled by gentlemanly favouritism; in 1862, a nephew of the mistress of a Trustee was appointed Entomological Assistant despite not knowing the difference between a butterfly and a moth.[10][11][12]
J. E. Gray (Keeper of Zoology 1840–1874) complained of the incidence of mental illness amongst staff: George Shaw threatened to put his foot on any shell not in the12th edition ofLinnaeus'Systema Naturae; another had removedall the labels and registration numbers fromentomological cases arranged by a rival. The huge collection of theconchologistHugh Cuming was acquired by the museum, and Gray's wife had carried the open trays across the courtyard in a gale: all the labels blew away.[11] That collection is said never to have recovered.
The Principal Librarian at the time wasAntonio Panizzi; his contempt for the natural history departments and for science in general was total.[11] The general public was not encouraged to visit the museum's natural history exhibits. In 1835 to a Select Committee of Parliament, SirHenry Ellis said this policy was fully approved by the Principal Librarian and his senior colleagues.[11]
Many of these faults were corrected by thepalaeontologistRichard Owen, appointed Superintendent of the natural history departments of the British Museum in 1856. His changes ledBill Bryson to write that "by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for".[13]
Owen saw that the natural history departments needed more space, and that implied a separate building, as the British Museum site was limited. Land in South Kensington was purchased, and in 1864 a competition was held to design the new museum. Only thirty-three submissions were made, many of which contained elements of the Renaissance style.[14] The winning entry was submitted by the civil engineer CaptainFrancis Fowke, who died shortly afterwards in December 1865.[15] To give the project to the second-place winner would have been viewed as disrespectful to Fowke's memory, and instead the decision was made to expand on his original plans.[14] The scheme was taken over byAlfred Waterhouse, who was hired in February 1866,[16] and who substantially revised the agreed plans, and designed the façades in his own idiosyncraticRomanesque style, which was inspired by his frequent visits to the Continent.[17] The original plans included wings on either side of the main building, but these plans were soon abandoned for budgetary reasons. Initially, Waterhouse's approximate cost was £495,000, but after further discussion was revised to £330,000.[15] The space these would have occupied are now taken by the Earth Galleries and Darwin Centre. Waterhouse spent time with those in charge of each department of the museum to learn more about their needs, which helped him clarify his plans before construction began.[16]
Work began in 1873 and was completed in 1880. The new museum opened on 18 April 1881,[18] although the move from the old museum was not fully completed until 1883. The museum received both positive and negative reviews by the media upon its opening, but most viewed the museum as a positive contribution to society.[15] In addition to routine maintenance, the building has been altered over the years, especially after it sustained damage in World War II.[15]
Both the interiors and exteriors of the Waterhouse building make extensive use ofarchitectural terracotta tiles to resist the sooty atmosphere ofVictorian London, manufactured by the Tamworth-based company ofGibbs and Canning. The tiles and bricks feature many relief sculptures of flora and fauna, with living and extinct species featured within the west and east wings respectively. This explicit separation was at the request of Owen, and has been seen as a statement of his contemporary rebuttal ofDarwin's attempt to link present species with the past through the theory ofnatural selection.[19] Though Waterhouse slipped in a few anomalies, such as bats amongst the extinct animals and a fossil ammonite with the living species. The sculptures were produced from clay models by a French sculptor based in London, M Dujardin, working to drawings prepared by the architect.[20]
The central axis of the museum is aligned with the tower ofImperial College London (formerly the Imperial Institute) and theRoyal Albert Hall andAlbert Memorial further north. These all form part of the complex known colloquially asAlbertopolis.
Even after the opening, the Natural History Museum legally remained a department of the British Museum with the formal nameBritish Museum (Natural History), usually abbreviated in thescientific literature asB.M.(N.H.). A petition to theChancellor of the Exchequer was made in 1866, signed by the heads of theRoyal,Linnean andZoological societies as well as naturalists includingDarwin,Wallace andHuxley, asking that the museum gain independence from the board of the British Museum, and heated discussions on the matter continued for nearly one hundred years. Finally, with the passing of theBritish Museum Act 1963, the British Museum (Natural History) became an independent museum with its own board of trustees, although – despite a proposed amendment to the act in theHouse of Lords – the former name was retained. In 1989 the museum publicly re-branded itself as the Natural History Museum and stopped using the title British Museum (Natural History) on its advertising and its books for general readers. Only with theMuseums and Galleries Act 1992 did the museum's formal title finally change to theNatural History Museum.
In 1985, the museum merged with the adjacentGeological Museum of theBritish Geological Survey,[21][22] which had long competed for the limited space available in the area. The Geological Museum became world-famous for exhibitions including an active volcano model and an earthquake machine (designed by James Gardner), and housed the world's first computer-enhanced exhibition (Treasures of the Earth). The museum's galleries were completely rebuilt and relaunched in 1996 asThe Earth Galleries, with the other exhibitions in the Waterhouse building retitledThe Life Galleries. The Natural History Museum's own mineralogy displays remain largely unchanged as an example of the 19th-century display techniques of the Waterhouse building.
The central atrium design by Neal Potter overcame visitors' reluctance to visit the upper galleries by "pulling" them through a model of the Earth made up of random plates on an escalator. The new design covered the walls in recycled slate and sandblasted the major stars and planets onto the wall. The museum's 'star' geological exhibits are displayed within the walls. Six iconic figures were the backdrop to discussing how previous generations have viewed Earth. These were later removed to make place for aStegosaurus skeleton that was put on display in late 2015.
The Darwin Centre (named afterCharles Darwin) was designed as a new home for the museum's collection of tens of millions of preserved specimens, as well as new work spaces for the museum's scientific staff and new educational visitor experiences. Built in two distinct phases, with two new buildings adjacent to the main Waterhouse building, it is the most significant new development project in the museum's history.
Phase one of the Darwin Centre opened to the public in 2002, and it houses thezoological department's 'spirit collections'—organisms preserved inalcohol. Phase Two was unveiled in September 2008 and opened to the general public in September 2009. It was designed by the Danish architecture practiceC. F. Møller Architects in the shape of a giant, eight-storycocoon and houses theentomology andbotanical collections—the 'dry collections'.[23] It is possible for members of the public to visit and view non-exhibited items for a fee by booking onto one of the several Spirit Collection Tours offered daily.[24]
Arguably the most famous creature in the centre is the 8.62-metre-longgiant squid, affectionately named Archie.[25]
As part of the museum's remit to communicate science education and conservation work, a new multimedia studio forms an important part of Darwin Centre Phase 2. In collaboration with theBBC's Natural History Unit (holder of the largest archive of natural history footage) the Attenborough Studio—named after the broadcaster SirDavid Attenborough—provides a multimedia environment for educational events. The studio holds regular lectures and demonstrations, including freeNature Live talks on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
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One of the most famous and certainly most prominent of the exhibits—nicknamed "Dippy"—is a 105-foot (32 m)-long replica of aDiplodocus carnegii skeleton which was on display for many years within the central hall. The cast was given as a gift by the Scottish-American industrialistAndrew Carnegie, after a discussion with KingEdward VII, then a keen trustee of the British Museum. Carnegie paid £2,000 (equivalent to £272,185 in 2023) for the casting, copyingthe original held at theCarnegie Museum of Natural History. The pieces were sent to London in 36 crates, and on 12 May 1905, the exhibit was unveiled to great public and media interest. The real fossil had yet to be mounted, as the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh was still being constructed to house it. As word of Dippy spread, Mr Carnegie paid to have additional copies made for display in most major European capitals and in Central and South America, making Dippy the most-viewed dinosaur skeleton in the world. The dinosaur quickly became an iconic representation of the museum, and has featured in many cartoons and other media, including the 1975 Disney comedyOne of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing. After 112 years on display at the museum, the dinosaur replica was removed in early 2017 to be replaced by the actual skeleton of a youngblue whale, a 128-year-old skeleton nicknamed "Hope".[26] Dippy went on a tour of various British museums starting in 2018 and concluding in 2020 atNorwich Cathedral.[27][28][29]
The blue whale skeleton, Hope, that has replaced Dippy, is another prominent display in the museum. The display of the skeleton, some 82 feet (25 m) long and weighing 4.5 tonnes, was only made possible in 1934 with the building of theNew Whale Hall (now theMammals (blue whale model) gallery). The whale had been in storage for 42 years since its stranding on sandbanks at the mouth ofWexford Harbour, Ireland in March 1891 after being injured by whalers.[28] At this time, it was first displayed in the Mammals (blue whale model) gallery, but now takes pride of place in the museum's Hintze Hall. Discussion of the idea of a life-sized model also began around 1934, and work was undertaken within the Whale Hall itself. Since taking a cast of such a large animal was deemed prohibitively expensive, scale models were used to meticulously piece the structure together. During construction, workmen left a trapdoor within the whale's stomach, which they would use for surreptitious cigarette breaks. Before the door was closed and sealed forever, some coins and a telephone directory were placed inside—this soon grew to anurban myth that atime capsule was left inside. The work was completed—entirely within the hall and in view of the public—in 1938. At the time it was the largest such model in the world, at 92 feet (28 m) in length. The construction details were later borrowed by several American museums, who scaled the plans further. The work involved in removing Dippy and replacing it with Hope was documented in aBBC Television special,Horizon: Dippy and the Whale, narrated byDavid Attenborough, which was first broadcast onBBC Two on 13 July 2017, the day before Hope was unveiled for public display.[30]
The Darwin Centre is host toArchie, an 8.62-metre-longgiant squid taken alive in a fishing net near theFalkland Islands in 2004. The squid is not on general display, but stored in the large tank room in the basement of the Phase 1 building. It is possible for members of the public to visit and view non-exhibited items behind the scenes for a fee by booking onto one of the several Spirit Collection Tours offered daily.[24] On arrival at the museum, the specimen was immediately frozen while preparations commenced for its permanent storage. Since few complete and reasonably fresh examples of the species exist, "wet storage" was chosen, leaving the squid undissected. A 9.45-metre acrylic tank was constructed (by the same team that provide tanks toDamien Hirst), and the body preserved using a mixture offormalin andsaline solution.
The museum holds the remains and bones of the "River Thames whale", anorthern bottlenose whale that lost its way on 20 January 2006 and swam into the Thames. Although primarily used for research purposes, and held at the museum's storage site atWandsworth.
Dinocochlea, one of the longer-standing mysteries of paleontology (originally thought to be a giantgastropod shell, then acoprolite, and now aconcretion of a worm's tunnel), has been part of the collection since its discovery in 1921.
The museum keeps a wildlife garden on its west lawn, on which a potentially new species of insect resemblingArocatus roeselii was discovered in 2007.[31]
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The museum is divided into four sets of galleries, or zones, each colour coded to follow a broad theme[32].
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This is the zone that can be entered from Exhibition Road, on the East side of the building. It is a gallery themed around the changing history of the Earth.
Earth's Treasury shows specimens of rocks, minerals and gemstones behind glass in a dimly lit gallery.Lasting Impressions is a small gallery containing specimens of rocks, plants and minerals, of which most can be touched.
This zone is accessed from the Cromwell Road entrance via the Hintze Hall and follows the theme of the evolution of the planet.
To the left of the Hintze Hall, this zone explores the diversity of life on the planet.
Enables the public to see science at work and also provides spaces for relaxation and contemplation. Accessible from Queens Gate.
The museum runs a series ofeducational and public engagement programmes. These include for example a highly praised "How Science Works" hands on workshop for school students demonstrating the use of microfossils in geological research. The museum also played a major role in securing designation of theJurassic Coast ofDevon andDorset as aUNESCOWorld Heritage Site and has subsequently been a lead partner in theLyme Regis Fossil Festivals.
In 2005, the museum launched a project to develop notable gallery characters to patrol display cases, including 'facsimiles' ofCarl Linnaeus,Mary Anning,Dorothea Bate andWilliam Smith. They tell stories and anecdotes of their lives and discoveries and aim to surprise visitors.[54]
In 2010, a six-partBBC documentary series was filmed at the museum entitledMuseum of Life exploring the history and behind the scenes aspects of the museum.[55]
Since May 2001, the Natural History Museum admission has been free for some events and permanent exhibitions. However, there are certain temporary exhibits and shows that require a fee.
The Natural History museum combines the museum's life and earth science collections with specialist expertise in "taxonomy, systematics, biodiversity, natural resources, planetary science, evolution and informatics" to tackle scientific questions.[56]In 2011, the museum led the setting up of anInternational Union for Conservation of Nature Bumblebee Specialist Group, chaired by Dr. Paul H. Williams,[57] to assess the threat status ofbumblebee species worldwide usingRed List criteria.[58][59]
| Service | Station/Stop | Lines/Routes served |
|---|---|---|
London Buses | Kensington Museums | 360 |
| Victoria & Albert Museum | 14,74,C1 | |
London Underground | South Kensington |    |
The closestLondon Underground station isSouth Kensington — there is a tunnel from the station that emerges close to the entrances of all three museums. Admission to the museum is free, though there are donation boxes in the foyer.
Museum Lane immediately to the north providesdisabled access to the museum.[60]
A connecting bridge between the Natural History and Science museums closed to the public in the late 1990s.
The museum plays an important role in the 1975 London-basedDisney live-action featureOne of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing; the eponymous skeleton is stolen from the museum, and a group of intrepidnannies hide inside the mouth of the museum's blue whale model (in fact a specially created prop – the nannies peer out from behind the whale's teeth, but a blue whale is abaleen whale and has no teeth). Additionally, the film is set in the 1920s, before the blue whale model was built.[61]
The museum was featured in the 2006 music video for the song, "Friday Night" byMcFly, from the soundtrack to the movie,Night at the Museum. The video, shot with various handheld cameras, features the band members as security guards at the museum, and then running around London.
The museum features as a base for Prodigium, asecret society which studies and fights monsters, first appearing onThe Mummy.[61][62]
In the 2014 filmPaddington, Millicent Clyde (played byNicole Kidman) is a devious and treacherous taxidermist at the museum. She kidnaps Paddington, intending to kill and stuff him, but is thwarted by the Brown family after scenes involving chases inside and on the roof of the building.[61][63]
The museum was prominently featured in theSky One 2014 documentaryDavid Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive where several extinct creatures exhibited at the museum includingDippy theDiplodocus were brought to life usingCGI.
The museum features prominently in the level Lud's Gate fromTomb Raider III, withCore Design launching the game withJonathan Ross at the museum on 15 October 1998.[64]
Andy Day'sCBeebies shows,Andy's Dinosaur Adventures andAndy's Prehistoric Adventures are filmed in the Natural History Museum.[61]
The museum was site of the firstPit Stop onThe Amazing Race 33.[65]
The museum is featured in the fifth episode of theApple TV+ period dramaThe Essex Serpent.[66]
The museum is featured in the music video for the song "Hordes of Khan", by the Swedish metal band,Sabaton. The song is aboutGenghis Khan. The video was inspired byNight at the Museum.[67]
The NHM also has an outpost inTring,Hertfordshire, built by local eccentricLionel Walter Rothschild. The NHM took ownership in 1938. In 2007, the museum announced that the name would be changed to theNatural History Museum at Tring, though the older name, the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, is still in widespread use.
There has been some discussion of plans to move major parts of the collections to sites inHarwell (which was abandoned) and then toShinfield,Berkshire. These plans have been heavily criticized, together with the overall departure of the strategic direction of the museum.[68]
ButMoth ID (P3060) (seeuses)
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