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The Australian Museum was founded in 1827 when Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote, on 30 March, to Lieutenant-General Darling, Governor of New South Wales:
A museum had earlier been planned in 1821 by the newly formed Philosophical Society of Australasia, and some specimens collected, but the Society folded in 1822. A new impetus came with the arrival, in 1826, of Alexander Macleay, entomologist and Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, appointed as NSW Colonial Secretary. Macleay, along with other prominent Sydney figures, lobbied for a museum. The first custodian of the new Colonial Museum was William Holmes, a carpenter and joiner, appointed as Zoologist on 16 June 1829: Holmes' tenure was brief when he was 'shot by accidental discharge of gun while at Moreton Bay collecting Birds and other Curiosities' in August 1831.
The Museum was administered directly by the colonial government until June 1836 when a Committee of Superintendence of the Australian Museum and Botanical Garden was established, with Sub-Committees for each institution. Members of the Committee were the ruling members of Sydney's political and scientific elites, most notably the Macleay family. Alexander Macleay was Chairman from 1836 until 1848, followed by his eldest son, William Sharp Macleay from1849 to 1853, when the Committee was abolished. In 1853, the Museum was put on a more formal footing with the passing of the Australian Museum Act, 'an Act to incorporate and endow the Australian Museum' (Victoria No.2 of 1853), which established a Board of Trustees of 24 members- one Crown Trustee appointed by the Governor, 11 official trustees and 12 elective trustees. William Sharp Macleay was the first Chairman.
The first secretary and curator was the distinguished naturalist Dr George Bennett, appointed as curator in 1835: Bennett published the first catalogue of the Museum's collections. After his resignation in 1841, he was followed by Rev. W.B Clarke until 1843, then by William Sheridan Wall (collector and preserver since 1840) from 1844. The curator's duties were to superintend the staff, prepare reports for the Board of Trustees, and to carry out the scientific role of the Museum (including the public display of the collections). The Secretary's duties were to conduct correspondence, record the minutes, prepare requisitions, and take care of the library. At times both positions were filled by the same person. In 1918, the position of 'Curator' was redesignated 'Director and Curator', and from 1921, 'Director'. In 1940, the position of Secretary was abolished. In 1948, the Scientific Assistants (the scientific staff) were redesignated Curators and Assistant Curators.
Catalogues of the collections were the first scientific publications of the Museum, but with the increase in research output, in 1890 Ramsay started the Records of the Australian Museum, a scientific publication which continues to this day. Through the 19th century, galleries were full of display cases crammed with specimens and artefacts. Dioramas showing habitat groups were developed in the 1920s and 1930s, but the Museum was largely unchanged in the period from Robert Etheridge Jnr's curatorship (1895-1919) until the 1950s. Under John Evans' dynamic direction (1954-1966), new buildings were built, galleries overhauled and an Exhibitions department created, education staff increased from one to ten, and the professionalisation of the curatorial staff implemented. From the late 1950s, all the major galleries were overhauled. The growth in the scientific research work of the Museum continued under Frank Talbot (1966-1976), and a new department of Environmental Studies established in 1968. In 1972 the friends group TAMS, (The Australian Museum Society), was formed. In 1973, the Lizard Island Research Station (LIRS), situated off Cairns in Queensland, was established. In 1975, a new Australian Museum Trust Act was passed (no.95 1975). The 1853 Act was repealed by a 1902 Act (to reconstitute the Museum following Federation), amended in 1931 (in order that museum staff came under the control of the Public Service Board), and again in 1936. The 1975 Act, which came into effect from April 1976, established an Australian Museum Trust of 10 members - 8 appointed by the Governor on the nomination of the Minister and 2 elected. Under the directorship of Dr Des Griffin (1976-1998), changes occurred in many areas of the Museum. A new extension to the main Museum building was completed in 1988. Public Program planning was developed and exhibitions created out by project teams. A dynamic program of temporary public programs augmented the longer term galleries. Changing relationships between museums and indigenous peoples brought new exhibitions, repatriation of artefacts, and new policies. In 1983, the scientific departments were reorganised, with the new positions of Collection Managers created, and research work carried out by Research Scientists: the title 'Curator' was no longer to be used.
The Museum moves into the new century under the directorship of Professor Michael Archer, appointed October 1998. |
The Australian Museum is Australia's oldest museum: a museum of natural history and anthropology, its collections cover invertebrate and vertebrate zoology, mineralogy and palaeontology, and anthropology.
The Museum's first premises were possibly a room in the Colonial Secretary's Office. It then moved to various temporary locations in government offices around the city - in 1830 a shed attached to the Judge-Advocate's office in Bent Street; in 1831 the Legislative Council building in Macquarie Street; in 1836 the Chief Justice's house in Macquarie Place, in 1840 the Surveyor-General's old house in Macquarie Street, and in 1842 in the new Court House at Woolloomooloo, its last temporary home. It moved to its present home at College and William streets in 1849, and opened to the public in May 1857.
Originally known as the Colonial Museum or Sydney Museum, the Museum acquired its name in June 1836: at the meeting of the Sub-Committee of the Australian Museum, it was resolved 'That the Museum should be named the Australian Museum'.
Collecting was the main activity of the early years, with specimens sent back to England and exchanges made with European institutions. The scientific stature of the Museum was established under the curatorship of Gerard Krefft (1861-1874), through his own scientific research and writings. It was under the curatorship of Edward Pierson Ramsay (1874-1894) that the recruitment of scientific staff occurred, with numbers rising from one to eight in the decade from 1878.
In 1995, new directions for the Museum's scientific research were implemented with the establishment of Research Centres in Biodiversity and Conservation Research, Evolutionary Research, Geodiversity, and People and Places. In 1998, the djamu gallery opened at Customs House, Circular Quay, a first major new venue for the Museum beyond College Street site. A series of exhibitions of Indigenous cultures were displayed until the gallery closed at the end of 2000.
