Minerals were among the earliest specimens acquired by the Australian Museum during the first years of its operation around the early 1830s. Geologists and mineralogists such as Rev. W. B. Clarke, Prof. A. Liversidge and Prof. A. Thomson were early Trustees who guided the early acquisitions. These included specimens from classic English, European and American localities, purchased from dealers in the UK, France, Germany and the USA in 1860, 1878 and in the 1880s. Many of these specimens are of superb quality and are still on display today.
The first employee with any mineral knowledge was Mr. R. Gygax, appointed in 1859, but the first Mineralogist and Curator was Felix Ratte, appointed in 1881.
Specimens from Broken Hill were donated in 1895 and 1933, and Antarctic collections were acquired in 1922 and 1939 (mainly from Sir Douglas Mawson).
Large collections of very high quality specimens were purchased from:
Under successive Curators F. Ratte and T. Cooksey the collections grew rapidly, with 15 000 minerals, rocks and meteorites catalogued between 1887 and 1901.
Successive Curators C. Anderson (from 1901), T. Hodge-Smith (from 1921), R.O. Chalmers (from 1945 to 1971), and F.L. Sutherland (from 1973, assisted by J.E. Hingley who started in 1972), concentrated on:
When research and curatorial duties were separated, a position of Collection Manager was created, occupied by Joan Hingley (from 1983), then by Ross Pogson (from 1989) assisted by Gemmologist Gayle Webb (appointed 1985), with continuing studies on, and acquisitions of:
The Albert Chapman collection of 820 superb specimens, transferred from the Geological and Mining Museum in 1995 was the most outstanding acquisition during the last 65 years, and a collection of 300 superbly crystallised minerals was donated by Ian Hall in 2002.
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