Department of Palaeontology , Natural History Museum

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.