|
|
|
|
  |
||||
|
|
|
On 30 March 1827 Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote to Governor Ralph Darling authorising the sum of £200 per annum to assist in the establishment of a 'Publick Museum' and the appointment of a Zoologist. This Despatch travelled on HMS Manlius, arriving in Sydney in August, and was acknowledged by Darling on 1 December 1827. View the Earl Bathurst letter in full here Alexander Macleay, New South Wales Colonial Secretary, had outlined an idea for a museum in correspondence with Bathurst's Under-Secretary, Richard Hay, in response to Bathurst's request early in 1826 for specimens and the possible employment of a collector. Bathurst, at the prompting of British naturalists, had made a request for the 'many objects of curiosity to be obtained in New South Wales'. [R.W Hay to A McLeay 18 Feb 1826; A McLeay to R.W Hay 16 Sept 1826, received London 1 March 1827] Macleay had just arrived in NSW at this time (January 1826). He had been Secretary of the Linnean Society in London, and reputedly had one of the finest private collections of insects in the world. Macleay felt 'like most other British Naturalists, that it is a disgrace to our Country, which has more in its power than all the rest of the world together, that which other Countries are doing so much, our Government does nothing for Natural History': he was well aware of the French interest in the Pacific and the visits of French scientists to Australian shores. Macleay recommended 'a Museum of Natural Productions of the Colony' run by a scientific society. Bathurst ignored the latter, establishing the new institution with public funds. It was to be nearly two years before anything further happened - when William Holmes was appointed as Zoologist in 1829. It is not known if the collections from the earlier museum established by the Philosophical Society of Australasia [1821-1822] became the basis of the new museum, or where its first actual home was, but by 1830, the Museum, known initially as the Sydney or Colonial Museum, was located in a shed (the Old Post Office), next to the Judge Advocate's Old Office at Macquarie Place. The Sydney Gazette on 13 August 1830 reported: "The public are not generally aware that a beautiful Collection of Australian curiosities, the property of the Government, is deposited in the Old Post Office. This Museum is under the Superintendence of Mr Holmes, who, between the hours of ten and three, politely shows the same to any respectable individuals who may think fit to call." For further on the establishment of the Museum, see Michael Van Leeuwen, '"this plan of a museum" The Linnean Society and the Founding of the Australian Museum', The Linnean 12 (4) Jan 1997 and Ronald Strahan et al, Rare and Curious Specimens. An Illustrated History of the Australian Museum 1827-1979 (1979) |
|
 |
