Born in Tokyo in 1967, Mariko Mori graduated from Chelsea College of Art, London in 1992, before moving to New York to participate in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Her multimedia art comprises photographs, videos and video installations. She has had solo shows at Art and Public (Geneva, 1993), Shiseido Gallery (Tokyo, 1995), American Fine Arts (New York, 1995), the Centre National d'Art Contemporain (Grenoble, 1996) and the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg, 1999).
Born Hanover, 1887; attended the Akademie der Künste, Dresden, 1909-1914; began military service, 1914; studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule, Hanover; influened by Kandinsky and the Dadaists began to experiment with abstract pictures in 1918 using collages, one piece had the letters MERZ and he subsequently described his assemblages as Merz; first exhibition, 1918; began his first Merzbau, a huge construction nearly filling a house (destroyed 1943); participated in the Weimar Dada Congress, 1922; edited Merz magazine, 1923-1932; first performance of Ur-Sonata, non-semantic sound collage, 1924; worked as a commercial designer and typographer for several companies, 1920s; a founder of 'circle of new commercial designers', 1927; member of Abstraction-Création, 1932; emigrated to Norway, 1937; made his second Merzbau (destroyed 1951); escaped Norway to Britain, 1940; began a third Merzbau at Ambleside, Cumbria (unfinished and moved to Newcastle University, 1965); died, 1948.
Publications include: Die Blume Anna. Die neue Anna Blume. Eine Gedichtsammlung aus den Jahren 1918-1922 (Berlin, [1923]); Merz FOLIO poems translated by Jerome Rothenburg and Pierre Joris (Morning Star Publications, Edinburgh, 1991); Die Scheuche. Märchen. typographisch gestaltet with Käte Steinitz (1975) facsimile reprint of Hannover, Aposs-Verlag, 1925.
Born, 1942; educated bath Academy of Art, Corsham, 1960-1963; member of 'Systems' group of artists, 1968-1975; taught, Department of Art, Bulmersche College, Reading, 1969-1988, head of department, 1980-1988; member of 'arbeitskreis' international workshop for systematic constructive art, 1977-1998; member, Southern Arts Regional Arts Association Art Panel, 1981-1983; Tutor and Secretary, Slade School of Fine Art, 1988-; one-person exhibitions 1965-, including at London, Paris and Amsterdam; died 1998.
The Women's International Art Club was founded in Paris in 1900, as the Paris International Art Club. At this time there was very little opportunity for women to exhibit their art work, and as an exhibiting society the Club was instrumental in bringing the work of women sculptors and painters to the notice of the general public. The first exhibition under its new name was held at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1900. The Club had an annual exhibition of paintings and sculptures in London until it closed in 1976, and smaller exhibitions were also shown outside London and abroad. The foreign sections of the Club also contributed work to the exhibition, including the Italian, Scottish, Dutch, American, French and Greek sections.
Members' works were submitted for selection by a selection committee, comprising officials of the club and two outsiders chosen from the artistic community, usually art critics, gallery owners etc. In the 1950s and 1960s the club continued to flourish, encouraging young experimental artists and organising exhibitions from abroad. In the 1970s the waning of interest in large exhibitions and rising costs of gallery space led to the closure of the club in 1976. Exhibitors included Gwen Barnard, Eileen Agar, Elizabeth Frink, Lee Krasner and Gwen John.
Born, London, 1943; worked at Ealing School of Art, 1962-1963; taught at Chelsea School of Art, 1960s; editor and publisher of Control Magazine, 1965-2002; Director, The Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1972-1973; D.A.A.D. Fellowship, West Berlin, 1979-1980; Convenor of the Symposium, 'Art Creating Society', Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1990; solo and group exhibitions, 1964-2000, in the UK and Europe. Publications include: Art and social function. three projects (Latimer New Dimensions, London, 1976).
The Colonial Office of the UK government set up the Anti-Locust Research Centre as an independent research institute in 1945 because of the threat from locusts to overseas agriculture. Sir Boris Uvarov (1889-1970) was appointed as its first director. Uvarov pioneered modern locust studies and proposed the phase theory of locusts to explain the origin and disappearance of locust plagues. Formerly, Uvarov was head of a small locust research unit at the Imperial Institute of Entomology in London. International collaborations were successfully achieved through this unit's work and were then formalised at a series of international anti-locust conferences organised during the 1930's. It was these conferences that ultimately led to the formation of the Anti-Locust Research Centre (ALRC).
The ALRC's primary aims were the coordination on international research in acridology and international cooperation in locust control. From 1945 to 1970 the scientists at ALRC made great advances in operational tactics, application methods, survey techniques and locust biology, within the objectives of improved forecasting of locust activity and the effective control of this important migrant pest. Originally the ALRC was based at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington , before subsequent moves elsewhere in London.
The ALRC's remit was broadened to include more general aspects of both plant and animal protection, and pest management. With this expanded remit it became the Centre for Overseas Pest Research (COPR) in 1971. In 1983 COPR was amalgamated with the Tropical Products Institute (TPI, founded in 1958) to form the Tropical Development and Research Institute (TDRI), which was managed by the Overseas Development Administration of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 1988 TDRI was relocated to Chatham, where it merged with the Land Resources Development Centre (LDRC, founded in 1964) to form the Overseas Development Natural Resources Institute (ODNRI). The ODNRI became simply the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) in 1990. The NRI was transferred to the Univeristy of Greenwich in 1996.
Acridology is no longer a central focus of the NRI's work and now primary operational and survey responsibilities for coordinating locust forecasting and control have been transferred to the Locusts and Other Migratory Pests Group (which includes the Desert Locust Information Service, DLIS) of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), based in Rome.
A British Museum expedition to collect dinosaur bones from Tendaguru in Tanganyika was first proposed in 1918 as a result of information received from the geologist C W Hobley. The site had been discovered by a German palaeontologist in 1907 and systematically excavated from 1909 until 1912. A S Woodward, Keeper of Geology, pressed the case, suggesting that the German work had been poor, and that important material must remain to be discovered. Final approval for the expedition was given by Trustees in October 1923. The costs were paid by the Trustees, the Treasury and by a public subscription, which raised enough to buy one motor lorry. William Edmund Cutler, a Canadian with experience of collecting dinosaurs, was appointed leader, and he travelled to Africa in February 1924, accompanied by an undergraduate from Cambridge, L S B Leakey. Leakey returned at the end of the year, and Cutler worked largely on his own until his sudden death from malaria in August 1925.
Frederick William Hugh Migeod, 'an intrepid and experienced traveller', replaced Cutler as leader of the expedition, with Major T Deacon as his assistant. Neither of these two men had any geological or palaeontological training, and some alarm was expressed in London at the lack of proper scientific control over the collecting. A team of forty labourers worked on the site and 431 boxes or packages of bones were sent back to the Museum during 1926 alone. Migeod and Deacon returned to England at the end of 1926, leaving G W Parrett and W Kershaw, two big game hunters, in charge of the site.
A geologist, Dr John Parkinson, replaced Migeod in May 1927, but results during 1928 were disappointing, partly due to illness. Migeod resumed his place as Leader for the years 1929 and 1930, assisted by F R Parrington, and financed by the governments of Tanganyika, Nyasaland and Kenya. The expedition finally closed in January 1931.
Overall the results of the expedition were disappointing. Although a large number of bones had been discovered and returned to London, few appeared to belong to new genera or species, and it was many years before they were all even unpacked. No scientific report of the expedition was ever published.
Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story-Maskelyne was born at Basset Down House, near Wroughton, Wiltshire, on 3 September 1823. He was educated at Bruton and graduated in mathematics from Oxford in 1845. He studied law, but abandoned this for science in 1847, attending lectures at the Royal Institution given by Michael Faraday (item 16). He lectured on mineralogy at Oxford from 1850, and was appointed Professor of Mineralogy in 1856. Story-Maskelyne became Keeper of Mineralogy at the Museum in 1857, and although he moved to London, he retained his Oxford professorship until 1895. At the Museum he worked with Thomas Davies on the proper documentation of mineral specimens in the collection, and in 1875 he started work on a 'Scientific Catalogue of the Whole Collection ...', containing both crystallographic and chemical data. He pressed for the establishment of a chemical laboratory, and studied and published papers on meteorites.
Outside his Museum work, Story-Maskelyne was a man of wide antiquarian and classical interests. He published papers on ancient mineralogy and, as papers in the class show, made detailed study of the history of the Koh-i-noor diamond. He was also a popular lecturer, and gave a notable series to the Chemical Society in 1874 (item 13). He inherited the family estate of Basset Down in 1879 and resigned from the keepership in 1880 to devote himself to its management. However, he continued to work and publish in mineralogy, and was elected Member of Parliament for Cricklade.
Charles William Andrews (1866-1924), a 2nd class assistant in the Department of Geology, was given special leave by the Museum Trustees to visit Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The Island had been annexed by the Crown in 1888, the year after a visit by Captain Pelham Aldrich in HMS Egeria, and it was leased to the Christmas Island Phosphate Company for commercial development in 1897. Sir John Murray, one of the directors of the Company, proposed and financed an expedition to study the island in advance of its commercial exploitation. Andrews left England in May 1897, and arrived on Christmas Island on 29 July. He remained on the island for ten months, studying the geology and collecting rocks and minerals, plants and animals. He spent one month on the Cocos-Keeling atoll on his way home, and finally returned to duty at the Museum in August 1898. Andrews' collections were worked on by a number of scientists at the Museum, including R Bowdler Sharpe (birds), G A Boulenger (reptiles), A G Butler, G F Hampson and Lord Walsingham (butterflies and moths) and W F Kirby (other insect groups). The results of their work was published in 1900, along with a geological report by Andrews himself, as a Museum monograph.
Richard Meinertzhagen was born in London and educated at Harrow School and the University of Göttingen. He spent much of his childhood at Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire, and became a keen ornithologist. He joined the army in 1899, serving in India and East Africa, and as Intelligence Officer with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and in Allenby's Palestine Campaign. Meinertzhagen was in the intelligence branch of GHQ in France, an
He attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He held military posts at the Foreign Office until 1925, when he retired to devote himself to ornithology. For the rest of his long life, Meinertzhagen travelled in north Africa and the Middle East, studying and collecting birds, although he retained an involvement with military intelligence and the secret service. He published a series of autobiographical diaries, as well as papers in The Ibis and books on the birds of Arabia and elsewhere. He was Vice-President and medallist of the British Ornithologists' Union and President of the British Ornithologists' Club. He was made a CBE for his services to ornithology.
Meinertzhagen was associated with the Museum throughout his life, and was a regular visitor to the Bird Room for nearly sixty years. It was not an easy relationship: he was often fiercely critical of the Museum, and his own conduct gave cause for concern on several occasions. In spite of this he was made an Honorary Associate, and presented his library and collections of birds, insects and plants in 1950 and 1954. Since his death evidence has emerged that many of his birdskins were stolen or had been given false localities.
Thomas Henry Huxley died in Eastbourne on 29 June 1895 at the age of 70. A Memorial Committee was set up in August the same year with the object of collecting money to provide a fitting tribute to this great scientist. The first Provisional Committee was replaced by a large and distinguished General Committee, which met in November under the chairmanship of the Duke of Devonshire, and decided to seek funds for a statue, a medal and a studentship. An Executive Committee of twenty was set up at this meeting, and a number of local committees took charge of fund-raising in their areas. Statue and medal sub-committees were constituted soon afterwards. Of the £3378 which was collected over the next four years, £1813 was spent on a marble statue by Edward Onslow Ford which was unveiled in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum by the Prince of Wales in April 1900. Dies for a portrait medal were commissioned from the sculptor Frank Bowcher, and the remaining money was passed to the Royal College of Science as an endowment. A student in zoology, botany or palaeontology would be awarded the Huxley Gold Medal, with the option of receiving a silver medal and a sum of money instead. The committees were wound up in 1900 once the unveiling had taken place.
Miss Jacqueline Palmer was born in London in 1918. Having trained at the Froebel Educational Institute, Roehampton, she gained her diploma in 1939 and taught throughout the war. Later she went up to Cambridge University to read geography at Newnham College, graduating with honours in 1948.
Having joined the Museum on a part-time basis in the Autumn of 1948, Miss Palmer proposed the development of a Children's Centre as an attempt to encourage and direct the interest of children in the natural world and the Museum. Inaugurated on an experimental basis during the school holidays, the Centre was located on the west side of Central Hall, near to the main entrance. It was an area where children could draw, make models and receive instruction. Miss Palmer was seconded to the Museum by the London County Council who paid her salary.
In 1948 she inaugurated the Junior Naturalists' Club for children aged 10 to 15 who were regular visitors to the Centre and who proved their commitment by producing a piece of fieldwork. The Club had its own committee and met once a week with occasional extra activities. The Club had a small library and programmes of activities were devised by the Committee, under Miss Palmer's guidance. In 1950 a Country Club was started at the suggestion of Sir Norman Kinnear for children aged 13 to 16 living outside London who wanted help with their studies of the natural world.
This generated considerable correspondence and subsequently the work of the Country Club was incorporated within that of the Field Observer's Club. This was formed in 1953 as a senior group for young people over the age of 15 so that more appropriate work could be provided for older Centre members. It too had its own committee, programme and selection procedure. An Argus Club for scientific illustration, intended for children aged between 13 and 17, was also formed but was later incorporated into the Field Observer's Club. Close ties were always maintained between these two clubs and both continued their work after Miss Palmer left the Museum in 1956. The Junior Naturalists' Club was linked to the Chelsea Physic Garden while the Field Observer's Club became independent of any other organization. The latter was affiliated to the International Youth Federation for the Study and Protection of Nature and the former to the Council for Nature, an alliance resulting in productive exchanges. Miss Palmer left the Museum in 1956 and died from cancer on 3 January 1961.
Hugh Pattison Macmillan (1873-1952), Baron Macmillan, trained in law, and practiced as an advocate in Edinburgh from 1897, taking silk in 1912. He was appointed Lord Advocate to the Labour Government in 1924, and was made a lord of appeal in ordinary with a life peerage in 1930. Lord Macmillan sat in the House of Lords as a lord of appeal until his resignation in 1947. He sat on numerous committees and commissions throughout his career, and was chairman of, for example, the Royal Commission on Lunacy (1924-1926), the Political Honours Committee (1935), the Pilgrim Trust (1935-1952), and the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children (1928-1934).
Lord Macmillan was an Elected Trustee of the British Museum and member of the Standing Committee of Trustees from 1933 until 1949.
A K Totton was born in Surrey on 6 January 1892, and educated at Berkhamsted School. He studied at the Royal College of Science, London, attending lectures by Adam Sedgwick and E W MacBride, among others, and joined the staff of the British Museum (Natural History) in 1914. Totton served with distinction in the 1914-1918 war, being commissioned in 1915 and awarded the Military Cross the following year. He was severely wounded in 1916 and was invalided out of the army in 1918.
On his return to the Museum, Totton was given charge of the Coelenterate Section. Although he published on a number of coelenterate groups, it was the siphonophores which became his speciality. His first major work on the group was his Barrier Reef Expedition report (1932), to be followed by his Discovery Report on the siphonophores of the Indian Ocean (1954), and, the culmination of his work, the Synopsis of the Siphonophora (1965). Totton visited the West Indies on HMS Rodney in 1932, travelled to the Canary Islands with G O Mackie in 1955, and worked at the Villefranche Marine Station for a number of summers from 1949. Totton retired from the Museum in 1953, and was employed as an Associate until 1963. He continued his coelenterate researches until just before his death on 12 January 1973.
The Godman Exploration Fund was set up in 1920 following the gift of £5000 by Dame Alice Godman, widow of Frederick Ducane Godman (1834-1919), the zoologist. In a letter dated 24 May 1919 she directed that the money should become the nucleus of a fund 'for the acquirement of specimens, chiefly by exploration', and that it should be vested in the hands of five trustees, one of whom should be the Director of the Natural History Museum and another the Speaker of the House of Commons. A deed to bring her wishes into effect was drawn up on 26 May 1920, and the first grant was made to F V Sherrin to support his zoological collecting in Queensland. From 1920 to 1932 all the grants went to zoological collecting, but from 1933 botanical, entomological and geological projects were also supported.
The Fund was augmented in 1929 when Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (1858-1929), the Curator of Mammals, died, leaving the residue of his estate to the Godman Trustees. This amounted in the end to just over £6000 together with the lease of a house in Carlyle Square, which was sold in 1959.
The Natural History Museum Staff Association was inaugurated at a general meeting on 18 October 1918, with Mr Fagan, the Museum Secretary, as the first Chairman.The Association was open to all officers and assistants in the Museum, and was a grade group of the Society of Civil Servants. It was concerned with pay and conditions of its members, the status of the Museum, and organised regular scientific reunions and less formal tea parties. The Association was affiliated to the First Division Association in 1945, transferring its affiliation to the Institute of Professional Civil Servants in 1950, at which point it was renamed the British Museum (Natural History) Scientific Officers Association, following the name change of the assistant class.
The Museum's attendants set up the Natural History Museum Clerks Association in 1919, and became affiliated to the Civil Service Federation in 1920. In 1921 they became the Natural History Museum Branch of the Civil Service Clerical Association, and transferred to the Institute of Professional Civil Servants in 1946. In 1950 it was renamed the British Museum (Natural History) Experimental Officers Association, following the name change of the attendant class. The attendants had had a number of disputes with management before the formation of the branch, documented in the petitions and other papers in items 14-21.
Douglas John Clark was born on 4 Dec 1929 in Devonport, Plymouth although he spent much of his childhood in Portsmouth, Hampshire. He studied at the Technical School of Building, Portsmouth, Hampshire, 1943-1946; Fulham Men's Institute, Jan-Jun 1951 and University Correspondence College, Burlington House, Cambridge, Feb-Jun 1953.
He was first employed by the BM(NH) in 1947 as an Scientific Assistant in the Diptera Section (flies, mosquitoes, gnats and midges) of Entomology. However, he had to leave the next year to complete two compulsory years of National Service. Therefore, from 1948-1950 he served as a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1953 he began studying spider systematics. He was transferred to Zoology Department in 1958 as the Arachnida officer and the next year was promoted to assistant experimental officer at the BM(NH). In 1963 he was made British correspondent for the Centre Internationale de Documentation Arachnologique. In 1964 he was promoted from assistant to the position of experimental officer.
Doug Clark's career was cut short by his sudden death on 29 Sep 1971.
Doug married Jean Boyer on 24 Oct 1953 and they lived in Wimbledon, London.
When the natural history departments of the British Museum moved to South Kensington between 1880 and 1882, they brought with them little in the way of a central administration. Thomas Nichols, the first Assistant Secretary, and Charles Edward Fagan (1855-1921) who succeeded him in 1889, had only a small clerical staff to help them and had to deal with financial as well as personnel and establishments matters. Administratively they were placed in the 'Director's Office'. The prolonged ill health of Sir William Flower during 1896-1898 and E Ray Lankester's emphasis of scientific research at the expense of administration greatly added to the Assistant Secretary's work load. Following Lankester's enforced retirement at the end of 1907, Fagan virtually ran the Museum until Fletcher's appointment as Director nineteen months later.
Fagan was succeeded by George Frederick Herbert Smith (1872-1953) from the Department of Mineralogy in 1921, at which time he was assisted by a Staff Officer, five clerks and a shorthand typist. The British Museum Act, 1930, formally gave care and custody of the natural history departments to the Director of the British Museum (Natural History) and considerably increased the responsibilities of the head of the Museum's administration. In recognition of this the post was renamed Secretary and given a salary only slightly inferior to that of the Secretary of the British Museum. An Accountant, Thomas Wooddisse (b 1893), was appointed to take charge of financial matters, and he succeeded Smith in 1935. An Assistant Secretary was added to the staff in 1954.
By the time Arthur Percy Coleman (b 1922) was appointed Secretary in 1965 administrative staff numbered fifteen, and in 1976 the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) was set up with Raymond Saunders (b 1933) at its head as Museum Secretary and Establishment Officer and a staff of thirty five, including an Accountant and a Personnel Officer.
In 1994 the Front of House section was separated out to become the Department of Visitor Services, and DAS became the Department of Corporate Services (DCS). In 1997 it was decided that the Museum would be better served if the administration was not run by a single generalist administrator, but rather by senior professionals in the three main areas of Finance, Personnel (taking over the formal responsibilities of the Establishment Officer) and Estates, who would report to the Director. As a result, the following year DCS was replaced by three separate administrative departments: Finance, Human Resources and Estates.
The Department of Botany has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions, which was set up at the founding of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Charles Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). The botanical collection at this period consisted almost entirely of the Sloane herbarium.
In 1827 the Museum acquired the herbarium of Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), and with it, the services of Robert Brown (1773-1858), as 'Keeper of the Banksian Botanical Collection'. In 1835 the Sloane and Banksian collections were amalgamated to form a Botanical Branch of the Department of Natural History, and in 1856 the branch was given the status of a department, with Robert Brown as the first Keeper, and a staff of four.
Under succeeding keepers the collections held by the Department increased in size and scope, and by the time George Murray (1858-1911) retired in 1905 there was a staff of 13. A major reorganisation took place in the mid 1930s when the complement increased to 23, and the department was divided into six cryptogamic sections and five sections devoted to flowering plants, together with the library and the Keeper's Office. The Department was severely damaged during the war, and did not fully recover until the early 1960s.
Over the years the relationship of the Department with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has been scrutinised many times, on both financial and scientific grounds. Government enquiries were held in 1860, 1871, 1900 and 1960, and all recommended that the two institutions should remain independent, with the last leading to the 'Morton Agreement', which set out a division of accession and research activities.
By 1965 the Department was responsible for huge herbaria collections, and was active in research on the floras of tropical Africa, Europe, the West Indies and the Far East. The research was supported by the departmental library, which was rich in historic treasures as well as contemporary literature. The Department was also responsible, in conjunction with the exhibition staff, for displays in the botany gallery. Staff numbered 23, who between them saw to nearly 3,000 visitors, accessioned nearly 40,000 specimens, and published 30 or more papers each year.
In the 1880s the Director's Office consisted of the Director himself, the Assistant Secretary, the Assistant in charge of the General Library, clerks and attendants. To this were added an attendant for the Index Museum (1885), a staff officer (1922), a photographer (1923), a guide lecturer (1927), an accountant (1931), superintendents and publications sales staff (1940), and an exhibitions officer (1946). In 1970 the Director's Office numbered 77, and was responsible for administration, finance, establishments and security, as well as the Exhibition, Education, Photographic and Publications sections and the General Library. A Department of Central Services was set up in 1971 under the Deputy Director, initially consisting of the biometrics, electronic data processing and electron microscopy units, but incorporating the General Library in 1973, the Photographic Section in 1974, and Publications in 1976. The Department of Public Service was set up in 1975, taking over the old Exhibition and Education sections, and finally, the Department of Administrative Services was set up under the Museum Secretary in 1976. This left a Directorate of only six members. The archives of the Director's Office are divided into four parts: The Director, Central Administration, the General Library, Exhibitions and Education sections, and Publications Section.
The position and duties of the Director of the Museum were laid down in the different editions of the Statutes and rules for the British Museum published by the Trustees over the years. From 1856 to 1883 the natural history departments were under the general control of a Superintendent, who was himself one of the subordinate officers who assisted the Principal Librarian. The 1886 edition of the Statutes, drawn up after the move to South Kensington, gave the 'Director of the Museum (Natural History)' equality with the Principal Librarian in most respects. The 1898 edition removed the power of summoning Trustees meetings from the Director of the Natural History Departments, but otherwise left matters unchanged. In 1908 however, following the stormy directorship of E Ray Lankester (1847-1929), the rules were revised to make the Director of the Natural History Departments subject to the general authority of the Principal Librarian. This clause was retained in the 1922 revision, and only disappeared in 1932 when the Director of The Natural History Museum was once again accorded equal status to the Principal Librarian.
Following the passing of the British Museum Act, 1963, the Director became responsible for the newly independent Natural History Museum to the new Board of Trustees. A Deputy Director post was created in 1971 to improve surveillance of the Museum's scientific work, and Ronald Henderson Hedley appointed.
The Department of Entomology was set up on 1st April 1913. Before that date insects had been studied alongside the other arthropods within the Zoology Department. In 1895 Zoology was divided into three sections, with Arthur Gardiner Butler (1844-1925) becoming Assistant Keeper responsible for the insects. Formation of a separate department of entomology was recommended in 1906, but not implemented for seven years. In 1913 the staff consisted of the Keeper, Charles Joseph Gahan (1862-1939), nine Assistants, and ten Attendants. Most of the work of the Department was in classical taxonomy and curation, although some research on tropical diseases and other economic and applied topics was initiated. Staff numbers were increased in 1930 only to be cut back during the economic crisis of 1931. However, by 1937 there were 17 scientists distributed among seven sections, backed up by 20 technical staff and 22 specialists, who regularly worked in the Department as unofficial researchers. Economic research was restricted to 'domestic' areas during the 1930s, to avoid overlapping with other research institutes, and the economic collection was disbanded in 1933. By 1965 staff numbered 68, who between them were responsible for a collection of more than 15 million specimens, a fine library, a large exhibition gallery, an extensive taxonomic research programme and an information service.
Since 1909 the Department has worked closely with the Bureau of Entomological Research (later the Imperial, and finally the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology), which was set up by the Colonial Office under Sir Guy Marshall, and housed in the Museum. In 1953 the Colonial Office set up The Termite Research Unit under W V Harris, which is housed in the Museum under a similar arrangement.
From 1882 the insect collections were housed in four, and later ten, rooms in the southwest basement of the Museum. The Department moved into an extension of the New Spirit Building in 1930, pending construction of a new Entomology Block. This building, which was under construction from 1934 to 1952, was shared with the Bird Section of Zoology Department until 1972. There was an outpost of the Department at Tring from 1937, when Lord Rothschild bequeathed his huge insect collection to the Museum, until 1972, when the transfer of the Bird Section finally made space for it to move to London.
In 2005, in preparation for the construction of a new building to be opened in 2008, the Entomology staff and collections were dispersed through the South Kensington site (into the former British Natural History gallery, Origin of Species exhibition and the Spencer Gallery) and the Wandsworth outstore. The Entomology block was demolished 2005-2006.
The exhibition galleries were, from the time of their first development, the responsibility of the Keeper of the respective science departments, with the Director having control of the Central and North halls through the staff of the Index Museum. John Priestman Doncaster (1907-1981) was appointed in 1937 to assist the Director in this area, and undertook some work in the departmental galleries as well as in Central Hall. Creation of a centralised Exhibition Section was proposed in 1938, and realised once Doncaster returned from war service in 1946. By the end of 1947 the Section comprised the Exhibitions Officer, two modellers, two guide lecturers, two printers and two assistants. Its aim was to relieve the departments of the burden of producing exhibitions, and to ensure harmony of style and treatment throughout the Museum. A procedure for preparation of exhibitions was agreed in 1950 which left planning and design in the hands of the departments, and most of the production with the Exhibition Section.
Doncaster moved to Entomology in 1951 and was succeeded by Mary (Mona) Rosalie Jane Edwards (1902-1994), who had been Guide Lecturer since 1932. The Museum photographers were attached to the Section in 1955, and by 1960 staff numbered twenty five, all in scientific grades. In 1963 the productivity of the Section was criticised by the Director, and contrast unfavourably with the contract work carried out for the new Botany Gallery, and Miss Edwards was retired the following year. The Section was split in 1970 into an Exhibition Section with seventeen posts led by Michael George Belcher (1942-1993), an Education Section with five posts headed by Frank Hatton Brightman (1921-1996), and a Photographic Section with eight posts under Peter John Green (b 1932). The Photographic Section was transferred to the Department of Central Services in 1974, and Exhibitions and Education were incorporated into the new Department of Public Services in 1975.
Operating within the Director's Office was the General Library, set up by resolution of the Trustees in March 1880 to house books and periodicals which were not appropriate for one of the four departmental libraries. Bernard Barham Woodward (1853-1930) was transferred from Bloomsbury to take charge of the new Library, which was located in a corridor to the east of Central Hall. Responsibility for the General Library was initially in the hands of a committee of keepers, but was transferred to the Director in 1884. Woodward had the services of an attendant from 1884, and was given much help with acquisitions by both Charles Davies Sherborn (1861-1940), a natural history bibliographer, and Frederick Justen (1832-1906) of Dulau and Co. Although Woodward's authority was limited to the General Library, he did devise a classification scheme for books which was used in both the General and Geological libraries, and was responsible for cataloguing books across the Museum. He built up a card catalogue of books in all the libraries, which was published as 'Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Drawings ...', 5 volumes 1903-1915, with supplement, 3 volumes 1922-1940. By the time that Woodward retired in 1920 the Museum libraries had an international reputation.
Woodward was followed by Basil Harrington Soulsby (1864-1933), who had worked in Printed Books at Bloomsbury, and then in the Natural History Museum Director's Office. Soulsby devoted much time to building up the Linnaeus collection, and published 'Catalogue of the Works of Linnaeus in the British Museum ...' in 1929. Soulsby had a staff of two, with George William Frederick Claxton as Clerk.
Alexander Cockburn Townsend (1905-1964), who succeeded Soulsby, presided over the wartime evacuation of the most valuable books and manuscripts, and the move of the General Library into the North Building in 1959. He tried unsuccessfully to wrest control of the departmental libraries from the keepers, but did succeed in centralising cataloguing, purchasing, bookbinding and accounts within the General Library in 1949. Townsend also started a subject catalogue and the publication of lists of accessions. He gained the services of a cataloguer in 1938, and had a staff of nine by 1964, when he was killed in a railway accident.
Maldwyn Jones Rowlands (1918-1995), who had worked in the Science Museum and the Patents Office as well as at the Museum, succeeded Townsend as Librarian in 1965. He oversaw the expansion of the General Library into the Northeast Building in 1973, and the formation of a unified library service for the Museum in the Department of Library Services in October 1975. At the end of 1975 the new department had a staff of forty two, who operated six reading rooms and received nearly 8,500 visitors a year. The Department was acquiring 25,000 items of stock each year, and operated an extensive advisory service.
The Department was renamed the Department of Library and Information Services in 1994 to reflect its wider remit.
The Department of Mineralogy has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions which was set up at the foundation of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Charles Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). In 1837 the Department was divided into three branches, of which Mineralogy and Geology was one, and in 1856 the branch became a Department in its own right, almost immediately being divided into the two departments of Geology and Mineralogy. The first Keeper of Mineralogy was M H N Story-Maskelyne (1823-1911), a lecturer and later Professor at Oxford, a Member of Parliament, and an agriculturalist and country gentleman. Thomas Davies (1837-1932) joined the Department as an attendant in 1858 and took charge of the rock collection. A chemical laboratory was provided in Great Russell Street in 1867, and Walter Flight (1841-1885) was appointed analyst.
By the time the Department moved to South Kensington in 1881, it had a staff of ten, and was responsible for a huge collection of rocks, minerals and meteorites. In South Kensington the Department initially developed around the collections of minerals, meteorites and rocks. Cataloguing and curation of the mineral collection, with the development of crystallographic and chemical techniques involved a large number of staff, including Lazarus Fletcher (1854-1921), Leonard J Spencer (1870-1959) and Jessie M Sweet (1901-1979). The meteorite collection was looked after by successive keepers, including Fletcher, George T Prior (1862-1936) and W Campbell Smith (1887-1988), while the rocks were worked on by Prior, Campbell Smith and Stanley E Ellis (1904-1986). The chemical laboratory, staffed by Prior, Max H Hey (1904-19..) and Alan A Moss (1912-1990), was involved in work on all these three collections. Many staff worked in more than one of these areas, and the Department was not formally divided into sections until the 1950s.
Two important developments came with the appointment of Frederick A Bannister (1901-1970) in 1927 to develop X-ray crystallography, and the formation of an Oceanography Section under John D Wiseman in 1935, following the transfer of the John Murray Collection from the Department of Zoology. New methods of rapid mineral analysis were developed in the 1950s, and the department's first electron microprobe was delivered in 1964.
By 1975 the Department had a staff of 37 and was divided into nine sections, including General Mineralogy, Petrology, Meteorites, Oceanography, Chemistry and the Departmental Library.
The Department of Palaeontology has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions which was set up at the foundation of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Carl Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). In 1837 the Department was divided into three branches, of which Mineralogy and Geology was one, and in 1856 the branch became a Department in its own right, almost immediately being divided into the two departments of Geology and Mineralogy. The first Keeper of Geology was George Robert Waterhouse (1810-1888), an entomologist, who had joined the Museum in 1843 from the Zoological Society. He was succeeded in 1880 by Henry Woodward (1832-1921), who thus had the task of supervising the move from Bloomsbury to South Kensington. By the time Woodward retired in 1901 the Department had a staff of 15.
Through the 1920s and 1930s the collections were divided into 15 units, each presided over by an Assistant Keeper or an Unofficial Worker. Subdivision of the Department into sections developed during this period, and was firmly established when the Museum got back to normal after the Second World War. An Anthropology Section, which spanned the departments of Geology and Zoology was set up in 1954. It was given the status of a Sub-Department in 1959, and was made part of Palaeontology the following year.
In 1956 the title of the Department was changed from Geology to Palaeontology.
By 1956 the Department was responsible for one of the largest and most important collections of palaeontological material in the world, and was an international centre for research in both stratigraphic and taxonomic palaeontology. Research work was supported by a rich departmental library. Staff numbered 63.
The Museum has been a publisher throughout its history, producing scholarly monographs and catalogues, expedition reports, periodicals, study guides, popular guidebooks, notes for collectors, posters, wallcharts and postcards. A bookshop opened for the sale of guidebooks and postcards in 1921, and was opened on Sundays after consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Principal Trustee. From the 1930s editing was the responsibility of the Keepers, permission to publish was recommended by the Trustees' Publications Sub-Committee, and arrangements for printing and the preparation of illustrations was in the hands of the Museum Accountant. When Richard J Drumm (1889-1965) retired as Accountant in 1954 he was retained as a part-time Publications Officer.
At the same time a review of publications policy led to preparation of a series of popular handbooks in addition to the Museum's scholarly output. Arthur E Baker (b 1910) was appointed the first full-time Publications Officer in 1962, and was responsible for liaison between the science departments and the Director on one hand, and printers and illustrators on the other. By 1967 there was a publications staff of ten, who included clerical officers, printers and retail sales staff. The Section was incorporated into the newly formed Department of Public Services in 1975.
The British Museum was founded in 1753 by Act of Parliament (26 George II c.22), and a Board of Trustees established. The Board consisted of Crown and Government nominees as well as elected members and representatives of the families of the founders and benefactors of the Museum. The Board met fortnightly at first, and then from 1761 four times a year at what were called 'General Meetings', which became purely formal. The Board delegated the day-to-day business of the Museum to a Standing Committee, which was established in 1755. Sub-Committees were set up by the Standing Committee from time to time as the need arose. The Chairman of the Board was always one of the three 'Principal Trustees': the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons.
From 1871 extracts from the Standing Committee minutes relating to the natural history departments were copied for the use of the departments (DF902), and from 1884, once the departments had moved, the Standing Committee met at South Kensington to transact business connected with the British Museum (Natural History) (DF900). General Meetings of the Board were likewise held at this Museum from time to time, and their minutes are held here, together with the minutes of the sub-committees concerned with natural history (DF901).
In 1963 the British Museum (Natural History) was separated from the British Museum by Act of Parliament, and a newly constituted Board of Trustees met for the first time on 11 October 1963.
Collections held in the Unofficial Archives are all closely related to the Museum and its work, but are not strictly speaking part of its official archive.
The Department of Zoology has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions which was set up at the founding of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Charles Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). In 1836 the Department was divided into three branches, of which zoology was one, and in 1856 the branch was given the status of a department, with John Edward Gray (1800-1875) as the first Keeper, and a staff of 15. Gray made great progress in registering, cataloguing and exhibiting the growing collections, and was the first zoologist to gain and deserve scientific eminence through his work at the Museum. Although Gray pressed long and hard for a move to larger premises, he had been succeeded by Dr A Gunther (1830-1914) by the time the move to South Kensington took place in 1883. When Gunther retired in 1895 the department had a staff of 35, divided into the Vertebrate, Invertebrate and Insect Sections.
In 1913 the Insect Section became the separate Department of Entomology. In 1922 the department was divided into nine sections, including Mammals, Birds, Fishes, Mollusca and Crustacea. The number and precise designation of the sections has changed over the years, and by 1965 there were 17, each with its own head, and keeping its own records. By 1965 the department was responsible for one of the largest and most important collections of zoological material in the world, and was an international centre for research in animal taxonomy and systematics. The research was supported by a fine departmental library, rich in manuscripts and rare books. The department was also responsible, in conjunction with the exhibition staff, for displays in the zoological galleries. Staff numbered 98, who between them saw to nearly 5,000 visitors a year, coped with the acquisition of over 35,000 specimens a year, and were responsible for over 100 monographs, papers and reports.
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The Ray Society was founded in 1844 by a group of British Naturalists which included Thomas Bell, George Johnston and Richard Owen, and it commemorates the great English naturalist John Ray (1627-1705).
The purpose of the society as then stated, was 'the promotion of Natural History by the printing of original works in Zoology and Botany; of new editions of works of established merit; of rare tracts and manuscripts; and of translations and reprints of foreign works; which are generally inaccessible.' The main object of the society remains the publication of learned books on natural history, with special emphasis on the British fauna and flora.
In its earlier days, the society was heavily reliant upon foreign, and in particular German research and material, which was regarded as the leading authority in the fields of Zoology and Botany. In an age when the advancement of science was very much in vogue, the society became an instant success, and within a year it had enrolled some 650 members. It reached a peak of 868 in 1847.
The officers of the society consist of a President, six Vice-Presidents, four Honorary Vice-Presidents, with a Treasurer, Foreign Secretary, Secretary and Assistant Secretary. Council meets twice a year.
The Society for the Bibliography of Natural History was founded in 1936 by a small number of naturalists and bibliographers based at the Natural History Museum and Royal Entomological Society, led by C Davies Sherborn, Francis Griffin and Francis Hemming. Sherborn was elected the first President, and Griffin the Honorary Secretary. The prime concern of the Society in its early years was to establish the accurate dates of publication of works of taxonomic significance as a contribution to zoological and botanical nomenclature. The purpose of the Society, as stated, was 'the study of the bibliography of all branches of natural history, and the promotion of the study by the issue of publications and the maintenance of a correspondence bureau'. Although no correspondence bureau was to materialise, the first number of the 'Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History' appeared in October 1936.
Originally concerned strictly with bibliography, the society rapidly became a focal point for those interested in the wider history of natural history. It was renamed the Society for the History of Natural History (SHNH) in 1981. The Society's journal, now entitled 'Archives of Natural History', is published in 3 parts every year, and a Newsletter, occasional facsimiles and conference proceeding are also published. The Society has always held an Annual General Meeting, and in the late 1960s evening meetings were held at University College London each winter.
A more ambitious series of conferences and other meetings began in 1974, and continues. Officers of the Society include a President, Honorary Secretary, Honorary Treasurer, Honorary Editor and (from 1979) a Meetings Secretary. There is also a Committee (Council from 1986) consisting of nine members, with coopted Representatives in North America, Australasia, Central Europe and other areas.. In 1996 membership of the society numbered 650.
Tring Museum originated as the private museum of the wealthy aristocrat and banker, Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937), 2nd Baron Rothschild of Tring, in Hertfordshire. Walter began collecting natural history specimens at the age of seven, and converted a garden shed into his first museum a few years later. He visited the natural history galleries at the British Museum as a boy, and started a thirty-year correspondence with Albert Gunther, the Keeper of Zoology. Rothschild studied at Bonn University and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he came under the influence of the Professor of Zoology, Alfred Newton.
As a 21st birthday present his father built him a splendid museum on the edge of Tring Park for Walter's ever-growing zoological collections and library. Alfred Minall acted as caretaker and taxidermist, and the museum was opened to the public for the first time in 1892.
Rothschild made use of a great number of professional collectors to build up his museum, including A F R Wollaston in North Africa, William Doherty in what is now Malaysia and Indonesia, and A S Meek in New Guinea. He also undertook one major expedition himself, spending nearly six months collecting in Algeria in 1908. He kept live animals in Tring Park, including emus, kangaroos, zebra and giant tortoises. Rothschild appointed two curators in 1892 and 1893: Ernst Hartert (1859-1933) as ornithologist and Karl Jordan (1861-1959) as entomologist. Hartert retired as Director of the Museum in 1930, and was succeeded by Jordan until his own retirement in 1938. By 1908, when Rothschild retired from banking, the museum had an establishment of eight, including Arthur Goodson who assisted Hartert, and Fred Young who had succeeded Minall as taxidermist. The museum also published its own journal, Novitates Zoologicae, which eventually ran to 42 quarto volumes rich in hand-coloured lithographs. Rothschild added two wings to the museum to house the collections of birds and insects in 1910 and 1912.
In spite of his family's great wealth, Rothschild was often short of money. He sold most of his beetles to raise funds for the Museum, and in 1931 a crisis forced him to sell his collection of birds to the American Museum of Natural History. The remainder of his museum remained intact until his death in 1937, when it was bequeathed in its entirety to the Trustees of the British Museum. This, the largest bequest ever received by The Natural History Museum, consisted of 3,000 mounted mammals, reptiles and amphibians, 2,000 mounted birds and about 4,000 skins, a vast collection of butterflies and other insects, a library of 30,000 volumes, the buildings and the land on which they stood. An Act of Parliament in 1938 allowed the Trustees to accept the bequest.
A succession of Natural History Museum staff acted as Officer-in-charge of Tring including T C S Morrison-Scott (1938-1939), J R Norman (1939-1944) and J E Dandy. Collections were evacuated to Tring from South Kensington during the war, but it wasn't until the end of the 1960s that major changes took place. The display galleries were modernised in 1969-1971, though they still retain a Victorian flavour, and the Bird Section moved into a new building on the site in 1971, providing space in South Kensington for Rothschild's insects to join the other entomological collections there. The Zoological Museum, Tring, now comprises a public display of stuffed animals with associated educational programmes, the Rothschild Library, and the staff and collections of the Bird Section.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) traveller and naturalist, independently of but at the same time as, Charles Darwin, identified Natural Selection as the key to evolutionary change.
Alfred Russel Wallace was born on January 8th, 1823, near the town of Usk in Monmouthshire, to Thomas Vere Wallace (died May 1843) and Mary Anne Wallace (née Greenell; died 15 November 1868). The family moved to Hertford, Essex, in about 1826. Their father, originally a gentleman of independent means and a non-practicing solicitor, lost money in unsuccessful financial speculation and took up a series of low-paid jobs, and the family moved several times for economic reasons.
When Mrs Greenell, Mary Wallace's stepmother, died in 1826, the family moved to her home-town, Hertford, in Essex. Here ARW met another child, George Silk, who became a lifelong friend and correspondent. The Wallaces lived first in a house in Andrews Street, next at an address in Old Cross, a short distance away.
Other members of the family included Aunt Wilson, Mary Anne Wallace's sister, wife of Thomas Wilson, lawyer, who in 1826 lived in Dulwich. Thomas Wilson was controlling trustee of a Greenell family legacy which paid for, among other things, John Wallace's board, and held money in trust for the other Wallace children. When Thomas Wilson was declared bankrupt in 1834, the legacy became involved and the Wallace's income was drastically reduced.
ARW was educated at Hertford Grammar School and then Hertford School where in his final year he was a pupil-teacher. In 1837, aged 14, he went to London where he stayed with his brother John (an apprentice builder) and became an apprentice surveyor as pupil to his brother William. His parents moved to Rawdon Cottage, Hoddesdon, in the same year.
ARW began collecting insect specimens found during his surveying trips, and became increasingly interested in natural history. In 1848 he went with fellow enthusiast H W Bates to the Amazon on a collecting expedition, hoping to make a living as a collector of natural history specimens. His brother Herbert (usually known by his second name, Edward) subsequently joined him, but died of Yellow Fever in 1851. ARW returned to England in 1851, losing his journals and collection of specimens when the ship in which he was sailing caught fire and sank.
Still hoping to make a living as a collector and naturalist, ARW sailed for Malaysia in 1854 with a young assistant, Charles Allen. He spent eight years in the Malay Archipelago, collecting birds and insects and studying and writing on the local flora, fauna and people. It was here that he began writing scientific papers, formed his ideas on the natural selection and geographical distribution of species, and began corresponding with Charles Darwin.
At a meeting of the Linnean Society on July 1st, 1858, Wallace's paper "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type", written in early 1858 while he was at Ternate in the Moluccas, was presented jointly with an unpublished essay of 1844 on the subject by Darwin.
ARW returned to England in 1862, and subsequently published widely on a variety of scientific and other subjects, and gave public lectures. He travelled to America and Canada for a lecture tour in 1886-1887. He was member of a number of scientific societies, was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1892 and was awarded the Order of Merit by the King in 1908.
ARW married Annie Mitten, the daughter of pharmacist and bryologist William Mitten, in about 1866. They had three children, Herbert Spencer, (1867-1874), William Greenell (born 1871) and Violet, (born 1869).
ARW died at home in Broadstone, Dorset, on 8 November, 1913.
The company was incorporated as a limited company on 22/12/1875. The company was formed to run the existing business of shipping frieght between Kings Lynn and Hull. This had previously been jointly operated by two separate organisations, one run by Captain Robert Wise of Kings Lynn and the other by Furley and Co of Hull who were leading waterway carriers. Furley and Cohad a controlling interest gaining their shares by by provision of the steam ship Sea Nymph of Gainsborough. Robert Wise supplied the other vessel the steam schooner Fanny of Kings Lynn also in return for shares.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century a Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Pipon, founded an import-export business in Mauritius. In 1817 Joachim Henri Adam (1793-1856) arrived in Mauritius from Rouen to take up work on a sugar estate; in 1825 he married Jean-Baptiste's daughter and joined the Pipon business thereafter. Henri Adam played a prominent part in the island campaign for an indemnity to owners of slaves emancipated under the Abolition Act of 1832. The firm, which for more than a century was one of the island's three most important firms of merchants and commission agents, traded successively under the names of F Barbe and Adam (1829-1837); Henry Adam and Co (1837-1848); Pipon Bell and Co (1848-1863); Pipon Adam and Co (1863-1897); Adam and Co (1897-1945); and Adam and Co Ltd (1945-1969). The Adam family was important in local administration. Charles Felix Henri (fl 1830-1900) was a member of the Council of Government in the 1880s. His brother Louis Gustave (d 1894) established himself in Paris to watch over the European side of the business. In 1969 the business was sold to the Blyth, Greene, Jourdain and Company Group; a condition of the sale was that the Adam name should be kept. Both the Pipon and Adam families were involved in the production as well as in the marketing of sugar, the main export industry of Mauritius. Through a network of correspondents and agents the firm sold sugar, mostly on consignment, to Britain, France, India, Australia, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Indo-China and South Africa: it imported rice and jute (gunny sacks) from Calcutta; chemical fertilizers and machinery from Europe and guano from Peru; mules from Montevideo, and a great diversity of consumer goods. An important part of the company's operations from the late 1830s onwards was connected with the transport and allocation of Indian immigrant workers under contract to the sugar plantations. It was also active in the chartering market, acting as agent both for chartered vessels and for regular liners, notably the Clan Line. There was also an insurance business, the Mauritius Marine Insurance Company, which looked after the affairs of a number of overseas insurance companies as agent and claims assessor, besides representing the Bureau Veritas classification society in Mauritius.
The Admiralty Compass Observatory (ACO) was formed in March 1842 to improve the Mariners compass, following the recommendations of the Compass Committee, set up in July 1837. This committee comprised Captain (later Rear- Admiral Sir) Francis Beaufort (1774-1857), Captain (later Rear- Admiral Sir) James Clark Ross (1800-1862), Major (later General Sir) Edward Sabine (1788-1883), Samuel Hunter Christie (1784-1865), Captain Thomas Best Jarvis and Commander Edward John Johnson (1794-1853). All bar Jarvis were fellows of the Royal Society. The committee examined specimens and conducted experiments and in April 1838 it stressed the need for accurate information on VARIATION. The committee perfected what became the Pattern 1 Admiralty Standard Compass (in service from 1840-1944), being adopted by foreign navies. In March 1842 the committee submitted a set of 'Practical Rules', which went through eleven editions up to 1889. Captain Johnson was appointed to implement the findings of the committee. Johnson initially was the sole member of the new branch and was responsible for instructing officers of the fleet in the operation of swinging ship, assisting the Master Shipwrights in determining the most advantageous position for the pillar, examining and testing the new Standard Compasses and implementing the Practical Rules.
In 1845, a set of 'safe distance rules' was published also known to many as CD pamphlet 11. In 1855, Commander Frederick Evans was appointed to the ACO when iron was being more widely used in ship construction and deviations of the compass where increasing. The status of the Compass Department rose rapidly after the publication of Evans and Archibald Smith produced a number of papers for the Royal Society, British Association and other learned bodies, including the publication of a number of manuals at advanced and popular levels. The papers dealt with the theory of the causes of magnetic deviation, its analysis and practical application. Evans won the department at the International Exhibition of 1862 for his effort in designing a binnacle to correct quadrantal deviation. In the five years up to 1860, the Liverpool Compass Committee produced three excellent reports on the subject of ships magnetism and the management of their compasses, tackling the problem of heeling error and the adoption of a 'Flinders bar'. In 1869, the Compass Department was moved to Deptford and an office created in London. In 1869 Rear Admiral Ryder proposed that every ship should have the compass fitted on her bridge. Sir William Thompson's patents of 1876-1879 greatly improved the azimuth device, which he invented. In 1868, Lieutenant E. W. Creak was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Compasses and Superintendent in 1887. In the 1870's the binnacle for the first time provides a simple means of adjustment to meet the inevitable changes in deviation. Electricity when introduced, posed a threat to the stability of compass readings. In 1881, the navy installed a two-wire system into HM ships leaving the dynamo as a remaining principal cause of disturbance. Mayes subsequently conducted test in 1884, in the troopship EUPHRATES. ACO moved to Ditton Park, Slough in 1917, costing the Admiralty £20,000. In 1971 the ACO was absorbed into the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment (ASWE) as its navigation division. For further information about the history of the ACO refer to: Fanning, A. E. Steady As She Goes: A History of the Compass Department of the Admiralty, 1986, HMSO.
The administration of the Navy 1688-1832 was controlled by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and the Navy Board. With occasional exceptions, the number of Lords Commissioners varied between five and seven. According to the Admiralty patent, orders had to be signed by at least 3 members of the board, that number having authority "to be everything which belongs to the office of our Lord High Admiral". Sometimes for greater speed, an order was signed and dispatched by the secretary, but it was followed by an order in due form as soon as the board met, back dated to cover action which had taken place on the secretary's order.
The Navy Board, which was set up by Henry VIII in 1546, was responsible for the building and repair of ships and the maintenance of the dockyards, as well as the appointment of warrant and junior officers. Its responsibilities were divided between four principal officers, resident in London. These were the Comptroller, the Surveyor and the Treasurer and the Clerk of the Acts, and the three dockyard commissioners at Portsmouth, Chatham and Plymouth. Extra commissioners were sometimes appointed. Within the organisation of the Navy Office, there were several departments, such as the Ticket Office, the Slop Office, the Office for Stores and the Marine Office, some of them being housed in separate buildings. In 1788 the staff of the Navy Office was five times as large as that of the Admiralty.
The pressure of business caused by war was responsible for the creation of further departments, some of which were retained in the eighteenth century even in times of peace. A Board of Commissioners for Victualling was set up in 1683 and this body which usually consisted of seven commissioners remained responsible for the victualling of the navy until the reforms of 1832. The Commissioners for taking care of the sick and wounded seamen continued to function after the peace of 1714, though their number was reduced from four to two, and in the subsequent wars of the eighteenth century were also responsible for prisoners of war. In 1788 the latter function was transferred to the Transport Board, which had operated from 1690-1724 and was revived in 1794. This board took over the remaining duties of the commissioners for sick and wounded seaman in 1806, the number of its commissioners being increased then from four to six.
The administration of public offices were made the subject of an inquiry in 1786 but the reports were not published until 1806. Some alterations were made at the end of the century and for a time the Navy Board was organised on the committee system, but this was found to be unsuccessful. In 1817 the number of boards was reduced to three, by the absorption of the Transport Board into the Victualling Board. The Admiralty Act of 1832 abolished the three boards, the Admiralty Boards, the Navy Board and the Victualling Board, and concentrated all authority in the Board of Admiralty. The dockyard commissioners were replaced by superintendents.
In the eighteenth century the office of the Clerk of the Acts was responsible for drawing up Navy Board contracts, although it was noted in 1786 that it was the duty of the two assistants to the Surveyor of the Navy 'to examine and correct all contracts for building and repairing in the merchant yards'. In 1796 the Secretary's Office continued to draw up the contracts, but in 1803 an Order-in-Council created a Contract Office with two clerks from the Secretary's office. This office continued after the abolition of the Navy Board in 1832. See Bernard Pool, Navy Board contracts 1660-1832 (London, 1966).
The Navy Office occupied various sites in the vicinity of Tower Hill prior to 1654. At this time the office moved to a building at the junction of Crutched Friars and Seething Lane. This building was burnt down in 1673 but a new office on the same site was completed in 1682. The Navy Office remained at Tower Hill until 1786 when it was moved to more spacious accommodation at Somerset House. The Navy Board was composed of sea officers and civilians known as the 'Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy'. The Comptroller of the Navy presided over the Board, generally superintended the business of the Navy Office, and was responsible for the offices dealing with bills, accounts and wages; though theoretically of equal standing, the Comptroller tended to exercise seniority over his colleagues owing to the variety of business which he conducted. The Clerk of the Acts arranged the business of the Board and conducted its correspondence. The Surveyor, appointed from among the Master Shipwrights at the dock-yards, examined all survey reports on ships at the yards, considered what to repair, was responsible for the design and construction of ships and ensured the yards had sufficient stores and equipment. The Comptrollers of Victualling Accounts, of Storekeepers' Accounts and of Treasurers' Accounts respectively examined the accounts of bills made out by the Victualling Hoard, of the stores received in the dockyards and of the money received and paid by the Treasurer of the Navy. In 1796 the offices of Clerk of the Acts and the three Comptrollers of Accounts were abolished and the Board reconstituted, the business of the Navy Office being placed under the supervision of three Committees, of Correspondence, Accounts and Stores. Sir Charles Middleton and Sir Thomas Byam Martin (1773-1854) each held the office of Comptroller. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) and Charles Sergison (1654-1732) each held the position of Clerk of the Acts whilst notable Surveyors included Sir Thomas Slade (d 1771) and Sir Robert Seppings (1767-1840). The number of clerks in the Navy Office fluctuated according to the pressure of business and especially to whether the country was at war. The clerical establishment nevertheless grew steadily from the time of the Restoration until the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Until 1796 the great majority of clerks were employed in one of eight Offices: the Offices for Bills and Accounts and for Seamen's Wages, the Ticket Office, the Surveyor's Office, the Clerk of the Acts Office, the Offices for Examining Treasurer's Accounts, for Examining Victualling Accounts and for Examining Storekeepers' Accounts. The reorganization after 1796 involved the formation of several new offices: a Secretary's Office in 1796, an Office for Stores in 1796, an Allotment Office in 1797, a Contract Office in 1803 and an Office for Foreign Accounts in 1807. In 1808 the Naval Works Department was transferred to the Navy Office to become until 1812 the Office of the Architect and Engineer. A Ticket and Wages Branch was formed in 1829.
The Admiralty Office obtained both a permanent site and a stable organisational structure at the end of the seventeenth century. In Pepys' time the office had been in his own home in York Buildings and from 1689 the clerks occupied temporary accommodation of various kinds, but from 1695 the Office occupied a building in Whitehall which was rebuilt between 1723 and 1725. This is the present Old Admiralty Building. It was from here that the Board of Admiralty directed naval affairs. Three members of the Board were required to sign all Board orders according to the Admiralty patent, although this was reduced to two in the nineteenth century. The Secretary was an important administrative figure from the early seventeenth century. For greater speed he often signed and dispatched orders on his own authority; sometimes these were followed, as soon as the Board met, by back-dated orders signed by the Lords Commissioners. Later the Secretary signed all routine orders, while the Commissioners' signatures were required only for important matters. Secretaries of the Admiralty included Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Josiah Burchett ([1666]-1746), Thomas Corbett (d 1751), Sir Philip Stephens (1725-1809) and John Wilson Croker (1780-1857). The Secretary was assisted by a clerical staff which grew steadily from the mid-seventeenth century. At the time of the Commonwealth there were only two salaried clerks; in 1702 there were nine and by 1800 there were twenty-four on the establishment. The judicial offices of the Court of Admiralty were of considerable antiquity and remained separate. A Marine department and Marine Pay department were founded in 1755 and a Naval Works department existed between 1796 and 1807.
In 1665 a Surveyor General and local surveyors had been appointed to check the standard of provisions provided by contractors, but in 1684 dissatisfaction with supplies led to the appointment of four Commissioners who were to organise and control each stage of victualling operations. From the Victualling Board at Tower Hill contracts were made for the supply of provisions, most of which were prepared and packed in the yard there. Transports were hired by the Board, except between 1690 and 1724 and again between 1794 and 1817 when this responsibility was taken over by the Transport Board. Victuals were delivered to depots at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham and Dover, to yards abroad and to ships at sea. Soon after 1742 the Board purchased land at Deptford to found a victualling yard there. In 1787 the Victualling Office was moved to Somerset House. The Board was abolished in 1832 and its duties assigned to the Controller of Victualling.
Commissioners for the care of sick and hurt seamen were first appointed during the Dutch wars. Between 1692 and 1702 and between 1713 and 1715 their duties were performed by the Commissioners of the Register Office and from 1715 until 1717 by two Commissioners of the Navy Board. One Commissioner each from the Sick and Hurt Board and the Navy Board then conducted the business from the Navy Office until 1740, when at least two Commissioners of the Sick and Hurt Board were appointed during peace and up to five in wartime. This Board appointed ships' surgeons and their assistants, ensured that they were equipped and supplied with medicines, superintended the dispensers who issued medicines, supervised the furnishing and equipment of hospitals and hospital ships, examined and cleared accounts and made returns of the sick and wounded to the Admiralty and Navy Boards. In 1743 the Board was also made responsible for the care of prisoners of war. In 1796 this duty was transferred to the Transport Board which in 1806 also became responsible for caring for the sick and wounded seamen.
The Ticket Office, a department in the Navy Office, was established in 1674. Its principal responsibilities were redemption of 'tickets' which were often issued to seamen instead of pay, the maintenance of lists of seamen on ships' books, the adjustment of pay-books according to the muster books, and the registering of the pay and allowances of seamen, naval officers and dockyard officers and artificers. Usually there was a clerk from the office at each port who attended the payment of ships' crews and dockyard workers. The office staff grew from three established clerks in 1689 to eighteen in 1758 and remained thereafter around that size until 1829 when the office was abolished and sixteen of the clerks were transferred to a new Ticket and Wages branch of the Navy Office.
The lieutenants' logs were kept by the lieutenants of a ship in commission, recording details of weather, navigation and the routine of the ship, as well as incidents that occurred during the commission. Printed formats appeared from about 1799, different printed forms being sold by various printers in Portsea and in Plymouth. A standard form was laid down by the Admiralty in October 1805 when the practice of starting the day's log at noon was altered to coincide with the civil calendar, by beginning the log at midnight. At the completion of each year a lieutenant's log was required to be deposited in the Admiralty Office, accompanied by a certificate stating that the officer had complied with the printed instructions and not been absent from his ship. At the Admiralty the chief clerk abstracted details of the voyage and, in return for a fee, sent the log to the Navy Office where a clerk in the office of the Clerk of the Acts made out a certificate entitling the lieutenant to be paid. At the Navy Office individual logs were bound into volumes. It was the practice to bind them according to the name of the ship, not that of their keeper, but during a period in the mid-eighteenth century logs were collected by year, as well as by name of ship, and logs for four or five ships, beginning with the same letter, were bound in one volume.
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