Established | 1912 |
---|---|
Location | Downing Street, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom CB2 3EQ |
Coordinates | 52°12′11″N0°07′19″E / 52.20295°N 0.12206°E |
Type | Science museum |
Collection size | 1.5 million specimens |
Visitors | 168,021 (2019) [1] |
Director | Dr. Liz Hide |
Website | sedgwickmuseum |
University of Cambridge Museums | |
The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, is the geology museum of the University of Cambridge. It is part of the Department of Earth Sciences and is located on the university's Downing Site in Downing Street, central Cambridge, England. The Sedgwick Museum is the oldest [2] of the eight museums which make up the University of Cambridge Museums consortium. [3]
Dr John Woodward collected and catalogued over 35 years nearly 10,000 specimens in five walnut cabinets, two of which he bequeathed to the university in his will. [4] The university later purchased another two, and the fifth was added in the 1840s. The cabinets are still in use today. [4] [5] He also left funds to establish the position of the Woodwardian Professor of Geology. [4]
Adam Sedgwick began the process of expanding the collection, and purchased several ichthyosaur skeletons from Mary Anning. [5] He persuaded the university to set aside space in the Cockerill Building, but by the time he died, the collection was too large for that space, so it was decided there should be a museum set up in his memory. [5]
Construction of the Sedgwick Museum was supervised by Thomas McKenny Hughes, an astute negotiator who persuaded the university to build the museum, and raised over £95,000 by a public appeal. [5] The museum was opened on 1 March 1904 in a ceremony attended by King Edward VII. [5]
The Sedgwick has a collection of around 2 million rocks, minerals and fossils, spanning a period of 4.5 billion years. [6] [7] They are an important international resource for research, learning and enjoyment. They are not yet all available to search online but information about the collections is available on a number of sites via the museum's website.
The Mineral Collections contain 40,000 - 55,000 mineral specimens from across the world, and more than 400 meteorite specimens. In most cases, a hand specimen of the rock is accompanied by a thin section. The strengths of the collection reflect current and historical research interests, and include Cornish and Cumbrian minerals and specimens from the Binntal of Switzerland. Examples from this collection are on display in the Mineral Gallery [8]
The 'Beagle' Collection comprises approximately 2000 rocks and a few fossils collected by Charles Darwin during his voyage around the world on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836.
The Harker Collection of igneous and metamorphic rocks is named after leading petrologist Alfred Harker who spent many years organising and cataloguing the collection.
The Maurice Black Sedimentary Petrology Collection consists of around 32,000 rock specimens and petrological thin sections.
The Sedgwick Museum Archive Collection includes papers charting the history and development of the museum, as well as the Sedgwick Club, the oldest student-run geological society in the world. [9] The Archive also includes Adam Sedgwick's field notebooks, sketchbooks and specimen catalogues. [10]
The A. G. Brighton Building is a purpose-built geological conservation laboratory and collections store in West Cambridge. [11] It was named for Albert George (known as Bertie or Peter) Brighton (1900-1988) who was the curator of the Sedgwick Museum from 1931, until his retirement in 1968. [12] The Palaeontological Collection contains over 1 million fossils from across the world.
In 2009 the museum curated a large exhibition on Darwin the Geologist to coincide with the Darwin bicentenary celebrations. The exhibition focused on Darwin's early geological research and displayed many of the specimens collected during the Beagle voyage. The launch of the exhibition also saw the unveiling of a large portrait bust of the young Darwin. [13] The sculpture was created by the sculptor Anthony Smith and unveiled by Darwin historian Janet Browne.
Admission is free to the Sedgwick Museum for all visitors. The museum is open 10am - 1pm, 2pm - 5pm Monday to Friday, and 10am - 4pm on Saturdays. It is currently open on some Bank Holidays but closed on Sundays. [14] The Sedgwick is an important venue for widening interest in Earth Sciences and regularly participates in Cambridge-wide events such as the Cambridge Science Festival and Twilight at the Museums. It puts on activities for families and individuals as well as temporary exhibitions, workshops and other events. [15]
The museum logo is based on the Iguanodon skeleton displayed by the entrance. A display board explains that the skeleton is incorrectly mounted in an upright posture rather than a horizontal one but as the upright posture is widely recognised on the logo it was decided to leave the specimen and logo as they are.
The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH) is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the university's chemistry, zoology and mathematics departments. The museum provides the only public access into the adjoining Pitt Rivers Museum.
The Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge is the University of Cambridge's Earth Sciences department. First formed around 1731, the department incorporates the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.
Naturalis Biodiversity Center is a national museum of natural history and a research center on biodiversity in Leiden, Netherlands. It was named the European Museum of the Year 2021. Although its current name and organization are relatively recent, the history of Naturalis can be traced back to the early 1800s. Its collection includes approximately 42 million specimens, making it one of the largest natural history collections in the world.
John Woodward was an English naturalist, antiquarian and geologist, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at the University of Cambridge. Though a leading supporter of observation and experiment in what we now call science, few of his theories have survived.
The UW–Madison Geology Museum (UWGM) is a geology and paleontology museum housed in Weeks Hall, in the southwest part of the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. The museum's main undertakings are exhibits, outreach to the public, and research. It has the second highest attendance of any museum at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, exceeded only by the Chazen Museum of Art. The museum charges no admission.
Alfred Harker FRS was an English geologist who specialised in petrology and interpretive petrography. He was lecturer in petrology at the University of Cambridge for many years, and carried out field mapping for the Geological Survey of Scotland and geological studies of western Scotland and the Isle of Skye. He and other British geologists pioneered the use of thin sections and the petrographic microscope in interpretive petrology.
The Lapworth Museum of Geology is a geological museum run by the University of Birmingham and located on the university's campus in Edgbaston, south Birmingham, England. The museum is named after the geologist Charles Lapworth, its origins dating back to 1880. It reopened in 2016 following a £2.7 million redevelopment project that created new galleries and displays, as well as modern visitor and educational facilities.
The Paleontological Research Institution, or PRI, is a paleontological organization in Ithaca, New York, with a mission including both research and education. PRI is affiliated with Cornell University, houses one of the largest fossil collections in North America, and publishes, among other things, the oldest journal of paleontology in the western hemisphere, Bulletins of American Paleontology.
The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, made under her newest commander, Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy had thought of the advantages of having someone onboard who could investigate geology, and sought a naturalist to accompany them as a supernumerary. At the age of 22, the graduate Charles Darwin hoped to see the tropics before becoming a parson, and accepted the opportunity. He was greatly influenced by reading Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology during the voyage. By the end of the expedition, Darwin had made his name as a geologist, and fossil collector, and the publication of his journal gave him wide renown as a writer.
The history of geology is concerned with the development of the natural science of geology. Geology is the scientific study of the origin, history, and structure of the Earth.
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The Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa, located in the city of Pisa in Tuscany, Italy, is a renowned institution dedicated to the study and display of natural history. The museum is home to one of the largest collections of cetacean skeletons in Europe, showcasing an impressive array of marine mammal specimens. In addition to its extensive cetacean holdings, the museum's oldest collections include seashells amassed by the Italian invertebrate scientist, Niccolò Gualtieri. Serving as both an educational and research institution, the museum invites visitors and scholars to explore the diversity and complexity of the natural world.
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Extracts from Letters to Henslow, taken from ten letters Charles Darwin wrote to John Stevens Henslow from South America during the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, were read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society on 16 November 1835 by Henslow and Adam Sedgwick, followed on 18 November by geological notes from the letters which Sedgwick read to the Geological Society of London. On 1 December 1835 they were printed as a pamphlet for private distribution.
Albert George Brighton (1900–1988) was a British museum curator and palaeontologist.