Manchester Museum

Manchester Museum temporarily closed on 29 August 2021 for redevelopment. During this time the Museum is underwent the final phase of a £13.5 million reconstruction programme. The renovated museum includes a two-storey extension and new galleries including a large Exhibition Hall, Belonging Gallery, the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery and the South Asia Gallery. The South Asia Gallery is a partnership with the British Museum and will be the first ever permanent exhibition space in the UK dedicated to the stories, experiences and contributions of South Asian communities.[8] The museum reopened 18 February 2023 and managed to attract 52,000 visitors in its first week after reopening.[9]

The collection totals about 16,000 artefacts, nearly half of which are from Africa. Material from Oceania makes up a quarter and much of the remainder comes from Asia and the Americas. The first large donation came from Robert Dukinfield Darbishire (1826–1908), beginning in 1904/05. Darbishire gave about 700 items, including ceramics from Peru and Eskimo carvings. In 1922, Charles Heape donated his Oceanian and American collection, amounting to about 1500 items. It included a collection of weapons and paddles from the Pacific islands, collected by missionaries and others. Some items from Aboriginal Australians of Victoria, Australia were acquired while Heape was resident. The Lloyd collection of Japanese metalwork, carvings and ceramics were the bequest of R. W. Lloyd. There are two collections obtained in the field by professional anthropologists. Frank Willett collected pottery, masks and ritual regalia in Nigeria in 1956 and Peter Worsley collected basketry and other items from the Wanindiljaugwa people of Groote Eylandt, Australia in 1952.[18]

The Sebek-khu Stele, which records the earliest known Egyptian military campaign in Retjenu, including Sekmem (s-k-m-m, thought to be Shechem).

Relief of Pepi II from the temple of Menes and Isis in Qift, part of the museum's Egyptological collection

The major collecting areas in archaeology have been Western Europe, the Mediterranean, Egypt and Western Asia. Large accessions of material from Egypt and Western Asia came from the excavations of Sir Flinders Petrie and subsequently archaeologists from the university have been involved in expeditions to Western Asia and brought more finds. The Egyptological collections include finds from Kahun and Gurob, presented in 1890 by Jesse Haworth and Martyn Kennard. By 1912 the growth of this area had been so great that a new wing was added for the Egyptian material to which Jesse Haworth made a major donation of funds. Its first keeper was Winifred M. Crompton.[19]

The Egyptian Mummy Research Project, begun in 1973 under Rosalie David's direction, has yielded much information on health and social conditions in ancient Egypt and radiology and endoscopy have been used extensively. One of the mummies studied was the first mummy to be completely unwrapped in Britain since 1908.[20] This was mummy no. 1770 in 1975.[21] From 1979 the researchers developed non-destructive techniques by a combination of radiology and endoscopy. The results are held on the International Mummy Data Base, stored on the university computer.[22] A redesign of the galleries in 1984/85 resulted in improved displays.[23] The archaeology collections were redisplayed in 2011 in the Ancient Worlds galleries. A bog body, Worsley Man, is also in the care of the museum.[24] Lindow Man, another bog body had previously been displayed.[25]

Hieroglyphs on a funerary stela in Manchester Museum

The nucleus of the archery collection of about 2,000 exhibits was formed by Ingo Simon and donated in 1946. Simon was an accomplished archer who spent many years researching its history and the development of bows. From 1914 to 1933 he held the world record for a flight-shot at 462 yards; he died in 1964 and his widow Erna (lady world champion, 1937, died 1973) endowed a trust to conserve and develop the collection which includes artefacts from Great Britain, Brazil, Europe, India, Pakistan, Japan, Central Asia, Africa, and the Pacific islands.[26] Inger K. Frith, President of the Fédération Internationale de Tir à l'Arc from 1961 to 1977, was very involved in the curation and setting up of the collection.[27]

The Manchester Herbarium contains upwards of 950,000 specimens collected during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and most countries are represented. Accessions are still made and many specialist enquiries are received. Only a small part of the collection is exhibited. Important contributions came from Charles Bailey and James Cosmo Melvill and some specimens from Carolus Linnæus, the expeditions of Charles Darwin and Admiral Sir John Franklin are included. The small collection made by Leopold H. Grindon which includes many cultivated plants is also important.[28][29]

A tree root fossil from Yorkshire

The geological collections are of more than local importance and consist of more than 9,000 mineralogical specimens and several hundred thousand fossils. Approximately one twentieth of the collection is displayed and the remainder in storage but available for study by interested persons. Much of the collecting was done in the second half of the 19th century and among the collections are the David Homfray collection from the Cambrian and Ordovician strata of Wales and the collections of George H. Hickling and D. M. S. Watson from the Silurian of the Dudley district, West Midlands and from the Old Red Sandstone. Other specimens include the fossilised plants of the Coal Measures, the S. S. Buckman collection of ammonites, an ichthyosaur from Whitby and 40,000 mammalian bones from an excavation at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire and the David Forbes World Collection of minerals. Since the 1920s there has been a policy of complementary collecting by the museum and the university Department of Geology by which the museum specialises in hard rock petrology.[30] The museum's collection of zeolite group minerals originated from a donation by Caroline Birley in 1894.[31]

The museum's collection amounts to nearly three million specimens. It has 10,500 type specimens (of 2,300 species) and additions are frequently made to it. Coleoptera represent about half the total number of specimens. The British collections constitute about 1,250,000 specimens and only a small proportion of the known species are unrepresented. Harry Britten, assistant keeper 1918–1938, had a leading role in the development of the collection. Coleoptera, Diptera and Hymenoptera specimens amount to some 1,100,000 in total. Of the Manchester moth (Euclemensia woodiella) captured on Kersal Moor in 1829, one of only three specimens known to be in existence is here. The remainder of the collection is of foreign origin and W. D. Hincks and John R. Dibb contributed great quantities of specimens, particularly of Coleoptera. Coleoptera number some 900,000 out of an approximate total 1,750,000. The Chrysomedinae-Cassidinae collection of Franz Spaeth is among the finest collections of tortoise-beetles.[32]

The first coins were donated by the businessman Reuben Spencer in 1895 and the rest of his collection of European coins and commemorative medals in various metals was donated in instalments. Alfred Güterbock deposited, then bequeathed a collection of 380 Greek gold, silver and copper coins together with some Roman coins. In the next forty years four benefactions were made: in 1912 from William Smith Churchill (European coins of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries); in 1925 William Smith Ogden's collection of antiquities, including Greek and Roman coins; in 1939 Egbert Steinthal, honorary keeper of the coin room, presented his collection of English copper coins; and in 1958 Harold Raby's bequest of Greek and Roman coins. Harold Raby succeeded Steinthal as honorary keeper and they were responsible for work on the arrangement and identification of the coins.[33] The museum also holds the Great Jackson Street Hoard a hoard of 26 Roman coins found in Manchester near the junction of Chester Road and Great Jackson Street at some point in the 1890s.[34] The hoard is unusual for British hoards in that 19 of the coins were struckin third century Alexandria.[34]

The museum's collection of live amphibians, housed in the Vivarium, includes some of the most critically endangered neotropical species in the world. The Vivarium's displays offer an opportunity to observe the behaviour of a wide variety of species from Madagascar, South and Central America, and Australasia, in naturalistic exhibits. The maintenance of the museum's live animals operates under the highest Zoo Licence standards to ensure their health and care is optimised. A conservation research collection of rare neotropical frogs is maintained off display. These form part of non-invasive research projects and captive breeding programmes to support the in-situ and ex-situ conservation of the species concerned. These include the Lemur Leaf Frog, the Yellow-eyed Leaf Frog, and the Splendid Leaf Frog. The live collection at the museum is used as an important educational resource, and related engagement work extends to environmental education programmes developed in Costa Rica and Panama.

The collection includes several thousand mammal specimens. Many mounted specimens are from the original Manchester Natural History Society collection. Mounted mammals include a lowland gorilla, an aye aye, and a red panda collected by Brian Houghton Hodgson. Most mammal groups are represented. Mr Potter's cow is a member of the British White breed from the extinct Gisburne herd from the 1830s. The museum holds a number of examples of taxidermy by Rowland Ward for Maurice Egerton (Lord Egerton of Tatton Park). The collection includes bones and skulls of a wide range of mammals, covering most major groups. Many of the collections were transferred from the Anatomy Department in the 1980s. The museum holds the bone collection put together by Derek Yalden.

The collection includes approximately 15,000 bird study skins from more than 2,000 species mostly from 1850 to 1950. A collections of birds was transferred from the Natural History Museum in 1895, including a warbler finch collected by Charles Darwin on the Galapagos in 1835. The bird skin collection of Henry Eeles Dresser acquired in 1895 includes Palaearctic bird species, bee-eaters and rollers that formed the basis of Dresser's books. The bird skin collection of approximately 7,500 specimens includes specimens that John Gerrard Keulemans and Joseph Wolf used to prepare illustrations for 'A History of the Birds of Europe'. Dresser was a member of the British Ornithologists' Union and the Zoological Society of London. His collection includes specimens from Nikolai Prjevalsky, Robert Swinhoe, Henry Tristram, Alfred Wallace and Henry Seebohm. A collection of birds from the Hawaiian Islands was received from the Royal Society in the 1890s including species that are now extinct. The museum holds the collections of Thomas Coward, Richard Spiers Standen and Robert Coombes who specialised in Eurasian goose species; this collection was acquired in the 1990s. The collection of bones includes many bird skulls. The collection formed by Derek Yalden includes skeletons of thousands of birds that were sexed. The egg collection includes approximately 10,000 sets of eggs.

Notable specimens include a male and female huia, bones of the dodo, an elephant bird egg, the only known egg of the slender-billed curlew, two study skins, a mount and several eggs of the passenger pigeon, bones of the great auk, a male and female ivory-billed woodpecker, three specimens of the paradise parrot and a warbler finch collected by Charles Darwin.[35]

The museum has many specimens of coral that came from Sydney Hickson, a specialist on corals and one-time Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester. These include a number of type specimens of names published by Hickson and others, including Stanley Gardiner.

The museum holds the bryozoa collection of Arthur Waters, a naturalist who lived near Manchester. Waters described the bryozoa of the Challenger expedition. The collection includes approximately 10,000 specimens including hundreds of type specimens. The museum also holds the bryozoa collection of Eliza Jelly, another eminent 19th-century bryozoologist.

The museum has the fourth largest mollusc collection in Britain with 166,000 lots.[36] The collection grew around that of the Manchester Society for the Promotion of Natural History, which acquired one of William Swainson's shell collections in 1825 and which also included the collection of Captain Thomas Brown.[36] Catalogue of type specimens was published in 2008.[36]

Type material is found in the collections of Alexander Abercrombie (India), Robert Dukinfield Darbishire, Professor Alfred Cort Haddon (Torres Straits), Reverend James Hadfield (Lifu, Loyalty Islands), Lewis John Shackleford (especially Marginella), George Cooper Spence (especially African land snails and Urocoptis and many specimens from Matthew William Kemble Connolly and Hugh Berthon Preston), Frederick W. Townsend (Persian Gulf), syntype material from the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902–1904) and that received from the Smithsonian Institution in 1973 in an exchange.[36] Material from the collections of Alexander Abercrombie, Alfred Cort Haddon, Rev. James Hadfield, Lewis John Shackleford, Frederick W. Townsend and the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition was described by James Cosmo Melvill II who had close connections with the museum; many species were described with Robert Standen of the museum.[36]

The collection includes around 5,000 spirit specimens from the 19th and early 20th century, although more recent acquisitions include the alligator collection formed by Professor Mark Ferguson of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Renovo plc.

The collection includes the foraminifera collection of Frederick Pearcey, who served on the Challenger Expedition and worked at one time in the museum. Other collections of forams come from Joseph Sidebotham and E. Halkyard.