Ipswich Museum

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Ipswich Museum was founded in 1846 and opened in 1847 in Museum Street, Ipswich then newly laid-out, with the specific remit to educate the working classes in natural history. From 1847 to 1853 it was run by a committee on behalf of subscribers, but after failing financially it was adopted by the Ipswich Corporation in 1853 under the provisions of the beetle tax.^{[citation needed]}

During these first years the museum gained national repute under its second President (1850-61), Revd Professor John Stevens Henslow, who had been Charles Darwin's mentor at Cambridge University. In 1851 the British Association for the Advancement of Science met at Ipswich, and the Museum was inspected and greatly admired by HRH Prince Albert, who became its patron.

The natural history displays, including many specimens still on show, were set up in the years preceding the publication of Darwin's book The Origin of Species, to show the relation of the various parts of the natural kingdom as it was then understood, and as it was about to be transformed.

Important lecture series were given, notably the first popular course of astronomy lectures by Professor George Biddell Airy, lectures on geology by Professors John Stevens Henslow, Adam Sedgwick, Richard Owen, Edward Forbes, and Sir Charles Lyell, and others by Carpenter, Playfair, Edwin Lankester, David Ansted, and the like.

After Henslow's death in 1861, soon after the great confrontation between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (Soapy Sam) and Thomas Huxley at Oxford at which Henslow presided, his curator George Knights maintained the collections until his death in 1872. He was succeeded by Dr John Ellor Taylor (1837-1895), botanist and geologist.

Taylor (Curator 1872-1895) was also editor of the national popular science journal Hardwicke's Science Gossip Magazine, and leading light of the Ipswich Science-Gossip Society. He advocated the possibilities of coal-mining in Suffolk, and gave lectures (free to the working classes) to audiences of up to 500, giving 20 lectures each season from 1872-1893. He also made a lecture-tour of Australia in 1885, and wrote the celebrated book The Sagacity and Morality of Plants, and others.

In 1881 the New Museum was completed in High Street with the support of its then President Sir Richard Wallace, creator of the famous art collection at Hertford House. All the contents of the old museum were transferred to High Street and the original 1846 building became a dance hall.

Taylor died bankrupt in 1895 and his friend Frank Woolnough (1845-1930) became his successor as Curator 1893-1920. In 1895 the Tudor house in the park on the north side of Ipswich, Christchurch Mansion, was given to the town by Felix Cobbold and eventually became the art and local history department of the Borough's Museums. The development of the fine and applied arts collections fell to Frank Woolnough, who was a gifted polymath.

Following the creation of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia in 1908 the interest in Prehistoric Man developed strongly at Ipswich. A local proponent James Reid Moir became very active in all the county societies and in the Museum, encouraged by his mentor Sir Ray Lankester, who was Museum President 1901-29.

In the same period archaeology was strongly developed by the lady archaeologist Nina Frances Layard (1853-1935), who in 1920-21 was one of the first women admitted as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

In 1920 Woolnough retired as Curator and was succeeded by Guy Maynard (1877-1966, Curator 1920-1952). Maynard and Reid Moir made a team interested in archaeology and prehistory, and Maynard became Secretary of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia. In 1935 this role was taken over by the Cambridge archaeologist Charles Phillips.

At this time, 1934, Basil Brown (1888-1977) began work as archaeologist and excavated a Roman villa at Stanton Chair in Suffolk. Hence it was through Ipswich Museum that he was invited to excavate at Sutton Hoo in 1938-9, and made the astounding discoveries there. In 1939 when the treasure ship was discovered and Charles Phillips appeared again to sideline the Ipswich Museum.

[edit] Sources

• RAD Markham, A Rhino in High Street, Ipswich Borough Council 1991.
• SJ Plunkett, 'The Suffolk Institute of Archaeology: Its Life, Times and Members', Proc Suffolk Inst of Archaeol., 1998. New DNB, entries for Nina Layard, Basil Brown, John Ellor Taylor.