Evolution on display: Promoting Irish natural history and Darwinism at the Dublin Science and Art Museum

British Journal for the History of Science

Volumn 38, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 411-436

  Adelman, Juliana ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND   (Ireland)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33244469700     PISSN: 00070874     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007087405007351     Document Type: Review

References (175)

1. 'The museum demonstrations', Irish Daily Independent, 4 December 1896, 5.
2. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, 1896, Dublin.
3. 'Museum demonstrations: the history of animals', Irish Daily Independent, 16 December 1896, 7.
4. George Herbert Carpenter, 'On collections to illustrate the evolution and geographical distribution of animals', Report of the Proceedings of the Museums Association (1894), 106-44.
5. Peter J. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades around 1900, Baltimore and London, 1983.
6. Although the museum lost its status as an independent institution when it was subsumed under the Dublin Science and Art Museum (a part of the British Department of Science and Art) in 1877, I will refer to it as the Dublin Natural History Museum for the sake of brevity for the remainder of the essay. The politics of this transfer will be discussed in the following section.
7. See for example, S. J. M. M. Alberti, 'Placing nature: natural history collections and their owners in nineteenth-century provincial England', BJHS (2002), 35, 291-311;
8. Tony Bennett, 'Speaking to the eyes: museums, legibility and the social order', in The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture (ed. Sharon MacDonald), London, 1998;
9. Sophie Forgan, 'The architecture of display: museums, universities and objects in nineteenth-century Britain', History of Science (1994), 32, 139-62;
10. A. Kraft and S.J. M. M. Alberti, '"Equal though different": laboratories, museums and the institutional development of biology in late Victorian Northern England', Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Science (2003), 34, 203-36;
11. Sharon MacDonald, 'Exhibitions of power and powers of exhibition: an introduction to the politics of display', in The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture (ed. Sharon MacDonald), London, 1998, 1-24;
12. G. McOuat, 'Cataloguing power: delineating "competent naturalists" and the meaning of species in the British Museum', BJHS (2001), 34, 1-28;
13. S. Naylor, 'The field, the museum and the lecture hall : the spaces of natural history in Victorian Cornwall', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (2002), 27, 494-513;
14. Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums during the Late Nineteenth Century, Montreal, 1988;
15. Mary P. Winsor, Reading the Shape of Nature: Comparative Zoology at the Agassiz Museum, Chicago, 1991;
16. Carla Yanni, Nature's Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display, London and Baltimore, 1999.
17. Forgan, Nature's Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display op. cit. (7);
18. Yanni, Nature's Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display op. cit. (7).
19. Kraft and Alberti, Nature's Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display op. cit. (7).
20. Henry Cole, The Functions of the Science and Art Department, London, 1857.
21. William Henry Flower, Essays on Museums and Other Subjects Connected with Natural History, London, 1898.
22. Flower, Essays on Museums and Other Subjects Connected with Natural History op. cit. (11).
23. Tony Bennett, 'Speaking to the eyes: museums, legibility and the social order', in The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture (ed. Sharon MacDonald), London, 1998, 25-35.
24. Sharon MacDonald (ed.), The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture, London, 1998.
25. Geoffrey Lewis, For Instruction and Recreation: A Centenary History of the Museums Association, London, 1989.
26. Carpenter, Instruction and Recreation: A Centenary History of the Museums Association op. cit. (4).
27. Charles Bethune Moffat, Life and Letters of Alexander Goodman More, Dublin, 1898;
28. David Moore and Alexander Goodman More, Cybele Hibernica, 1st edn, Dublin, 1866.
29. H. Bantry White, 'History of the Science and Art Institutions, Dublin", Museum Bulletin: National Museum of Science and Art, Dublin (1911), 1, 7-34.
30. White, Museum Bulletin: National Museum of Science and Art, Dublin op. cit. (18).
31. Henry F. Berry, A History of the Royal Dublin Society, London, 1915.
32. For a description of this process, with special focus on the fate of Irish antiquities, see Elizabeth Crooke, Politics, Archaeology and the Creation of a National Museum of Ireland: An Expression of National Life, Dublin, 2000, especially Chapter 5.
33. Richard Jarrell, 'The Department of Science and Art and control of Irish science, 1853-1905', Irish Historical Studies (1983), xxiii, 330-47.
34. 'The Royal Dublin Society', Freeman's Journal, 9 March 1877.
35. C. E. O'Riordan, The Dublin Natural History Museum, Dublin, c. 1983.
36. Edward Percival Wright, 'Valentine Ball', Irish Naturalist (1895), 4, 169-71.
37. Crooke, Irish Naturalist op. cit. (21);
38. Nicholas Whyte, Science, Colonialism and Ireland, Cork, 1998.
39. J. Bennett, 'Science and social policy in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century', in Science and Society in Ireland: The Social Context of Science and Technology in Ireland 1800-1950 (ed. P. J. Bowler and N. Whyte), Belfast, 1997;
40. John Wilson Foster, 'Natural history, science and Irish culture', Irish Review (1990), 9, 61-9;
41. John Wilson Foster Idem, 'Nature and nation in the nineteenth century', in Nature in Ireland (ed. John Wilson Foster), Dublin, 1997, 409-39;
42. Jarrell, Nature in Ireland op. cit. (22);
43. Roy Johnston, 'Science and technology in Irish national culture', Crane Bag (1983), 7, 58-65;
44. Greta Jones, 'Catholicism, nationalism and science', Irish Review (1997), 20, 47-61;
45. Greta Jones, idem, 'Contested territories: Alfred Cort Haddon, progressive evolutionism and Ireland', History of European Ideas (1998), 24, 195-211;
46. Sean Lysaght, 'Themes in the Irish history of science', Irish Review (1996), 19, 87-97;
47. Sean Lysaght, idem, Robert Lloyd Praeger: The Life of a Naturalist, Dublin, 1998;
48. Whyte, Robert Lloyd Praeger: The Life of a Naturalist op. cit. (26);
49. Stephen Yearley, 'Colonial science and dependent development: the case of the Irish experience', Sociological Review (1989), 37, 308-31.
50. Bennett, Sociological Review op. cit. (27).
51. Lysaght, Robert Lloyd Praeger, op. cit. (27).
52. Lysaght, Robert Lloyd Praeger, op. cit. (27).
53. For a map see Thom's Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Dublin, 1898.
54. White, Thom's Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland op. cit. (18);
55. Robert Lloyd Praeger, Some Irish Naturalists, Dundalk, 1949;
56. O'Riordan, Some Irish Naturalists, op. cit. (24). There were a confusing number of changes to official titles in the museum after its amalgamation with the Department of Science and Art. I have chosen to use 'curator' and 'assistant' for clarity. Scharff's title began as curator but was later changed to 'keeper'. Director will refer only to the director of the Dublin Science and Art Museum as a whole. At this time the Natural History Museum also had one other assistant (A. R. Nichols) and two technical assistants (taxidermists Robert Pride and J. N. Halbert). After Ball's death Colonel G. T. Plunkett became director. While interested, like Ball, in promoting public education, Plunkett arrived after most changes in the Natural History Museum were under way.
57. W. Valentine Ball, Reminisces and Letters of Sir Robert Stawell Ball, London, 1915;
58. Praeger, Reminisces and Letters of Sir Robert Stawell Ball op. cit. (32).
59. Wright, Reminisces and Letters of Sir Robert Stawell Ball op. cit. (25), 171.
60. Crooke, Reminisces and Letters of Sir Robert Stawell Ball op. cit. (21).
61. Valentine Ball, 'Report on the museums of America and Canada', in Report of the Science and Art Department, Dublin, Dublin, 1884.
62. Valentine Ball, journal of a trip to America in 1884, Ball Papers, National Library of Ireland, MS 19873.
63. Ball, journal of a trip to America in 1884, op. cit. (36), 324.
64. Ball, journal of a trip to America in 1884, op. cit. (36), 325. Interestingly it may have been Ball's travelling companion, the anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon, who pointed out the advantages of the Agassiz Museum's arrangement. Ball recorded only a cursory visit in his journal, after which he left Haddon to explore it more thoroughly.
65. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1884;
66. Report of the Board of Visitors of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1884;
67. Report of the Board of Visitors of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1888.
68. Valentine Ball to Robert Scharff, 1 March 1889, Natural History Archive, National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks (hereafter NHA), Box 1.
69. Valentine Ball, 'Presidential Address', Proceedings of the Museums Association (1894).
70. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1887, 249.
71. Praeger, Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, op. cit. (32).
72. Charles Bethune Moffat, 'Obituary: George Herbert Carpenter, B.Sc. (Lond.), D.Sc. (Q.U.B.)', Irish Naturalist's Journal (1939), 7, 138-41.
73. Carpenter was twenty-three years of age when he took up his position in Dublin, Scharff was twenty-nine.
74. Timothy Collins, 'Praeger in the west: naturalists and antiquarians in Connemara and the Islands, 1894-1914', Journal of the Galway Historical and Archaeological Society (1993), 45, 124-54;
75. Lysaght, Robert Lloyd Praeger, op. cit. (27).
76. Praeger, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (32).
77. Minutes of the Flora and Fauna Committee, 1893-1934, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, MS SR/16/B.
78. Moffat, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (45).
79. Robert Scharff to Colonel Plunkett, internal memo, 11 November 1896, NHA, Box 18.
80. Crooke, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (21).
81. Robert Scharff to Colonel Plunkett, 29 April 1896, NHA, Box 18.
82. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1896.
83. Robert Scharff to Colonel Plunkett, 24 June 1896, NHA, Box 18.
84. Scharff, Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, op. cit. (55).
85. Minutes of the Flora and Fauna Committee, 1893-1934.
86. Minutes of the Flora and Fauna Committee, 1893-1934, minute of 31 July 1893.
87. Minutes of the Flora and Fauna Committee, 1893-1934, minute of 31 October 1893.
88. R. Lloyd Praeger, 'Irish Field Club Union: report of the conference and excursion held at Galway', Irish Naturalist (1895), 4, 225-35.
89. Praeger, Irish Naturalist op. cit. (60).
90. See, for example, 'Belfast Naturalists' Field Club', Irish Naturalist (1896), 5, 52;
91. 'Dublin Naturalists' Field Club', Irish Naturalist (1895), 4, 345-6.
92. S. J. M. M. Alberti, 'Amateurs and professionals in one county: biology and natural history in late Victorian Yorkshire', Journal of the History of Biology (2001), 34, 115-47.
93. Ruth Bayles, 'Understanding local science: the Belfast Natural History Society in the mid-nineteenth century', in Science and Irish Culture: Why the History of Science Matters in Ireland (ed. David Attis and Charles Mollan), Dublin, 2004, 139-69.
94. Janet Browne, The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography, New Haven, 1983;
95. Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, 3rd edn, Berkeley, 2003.
96. Robert Francis Scharff, European Animals: Their Geological History and Geographical Distribution, London, 1907.
97. Carpenter, European Animals: Their Geological History and Geographical Distribution op. cit. (4);
98. George Herbert Carpenter, 'The re-arrangement of the natural history collections in the Science and Art Museum, Dublin', Report of the Proceedings of the Museums Association (1899), 37-44.
99. Carpenter, Report of the Proceedings of the Museums Association op. cit. (4), 110-11.
100. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, London, 1985 (Penguin Classics edn; first published 1859).
101. Carpenter, On the Origin of Species op. cit. (4), 129.
102. Carpenter, On the Origin of Species op. cit. (4), 129.
103. Peter J. Bowler, The Non-Darwinian Revolution, Baltimore, MD, 1992.
104. See, for example, A. Desmond, 'Artisan resistance and evolution in Britain, 1819-1848', Osiris (1987), 3, 77-110;
105. Jones, 'Contested Territories', Osiris op. cit. (27);
106. David Livingstone, Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter between Evangelical Theory and Evolutionary Thought, Grand Rapids, MI, 1987;
107. James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, Cambridge, 1979;
108. Ronald N. Numbers and John Stenhouse (eds.), Disseminating Darwinism, Cambridge, 2001;
109. J. Scowen, 'A study in the historical geography of an idea: Darwinism in Edinburgh 1859-75', Scottish Geographical Magazine (1998), 114, 148-56;
110. Robert M. Young, Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture, Cambridge, 1985.
111. For Irish reactions to Darwinism see Thomas Duddy, A 'History of Irish Thought, London, 2002;
112. Thomas Duddy (ed.) The Irish Response to Darwinism, 6 vols., Bristol, 2003;
113. Jones, 'Catholicism, nationalism and science', The Irish Response to Darwinism, op. cit. (27);
114. Jones, idem, 'Contested territories', The Irish Response to Darwinism, op. cit. (27);
115. Greta Jones, 'Scientists against home rule', in Defenders of the Union: A Survey of British and Irish Unionism since 1801 (ed. D. George Boyce and Alan O'Day), London, 2001, 188-208;
116. Greta Jones, idem, 'Darwinism in Ireland', Science and Irish Culture (2004), 1, 115-38;
117. David Livingstone, 'Darwin in Belfast: the evolution debate', in Nature in Ireland (ed. John Wilson Foster), Dublin, 1997, 387-408.
118. Jones, 'Darwinism in Ireland', Nature in Ireland op. cit. (74).
119. Livingstone, Nature in Ireland op. cit. (74).
120. Jones, 'Scientists against home rule', op. cit. (74).
121. Jones, 'Darwinism in Ireland', Nature in Ireland op. cit. (74).
122. See, for example, S. Haughton, 'The history of the Earth and of its inhabitants', Dublin University Magazine (1861), 58, 105-13.
123. See also Jones, 'Darwinism in Ireland', Dublin University Magazine op. cit. (74).
124. Jones, 'Scientists against home rule', Dublin University Magazine op. cit. (74).
125. Jones, 'Darwinism in Ireland', Dublin University Magazine op. cit. (74).
126. See, for example, G. H. Carpenter, 'A deceptive caterpillar', Irish Naturalist (1893), 2, 279-82;
127. G. H. Carpenter idem, 'Mingling of the North and South', Irish Naturalist (1896), 5, 57-68;
128. R. F. Scharff, 'On the origin of the European fauna', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1897), 4, 427-514;
129. R. F. Scharff, idem, op. cit. (66).
130. Jones, 'Darwinism in Ireland', op. cit. (74).
131. Lysaght, Robert Lloyd Praeger, op. cit. (27);
132. Collins, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (47).
133. Carpenter, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (4), 131.
134. Carpenter, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (4), 139. Interestingly, a recent book by Tony Bennett cites this label as support for Bennett's view of 'evolutionary museums' around the turn of the century. These museums, Bennett argues, used labels to encourage visitors to absorb a view of progress as slow and inevitable.
135. See Tony Bennett, Pasts Beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums, Colonialism, London, 2004.
136. Carpenter, Pasts beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums, Colonialism op. cit. (4), 137.
137. Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, London, 1991.
138. Jones, 'Contested territories', Darwin op. cit. (27).
139. Carpenter, Darwin op. cit. (4), 106. Added emphasis.
140. Carpenter, Darwin op. cit. (4).
141. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1897.
142. Ball, Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin op. cit. (36).
143. O'Riordan, Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin op. cit. (24);
144. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, 1899.
145. William T. Stearn, The Natural History Museum at South Kensington: A History of the British Museum (Natural History) 1753-1980, London, 1981.
146. Carpenter, The Natural History Museum at South Kensington: A History of the British Museum (Natural History) 1753-1980 op. cit. (4), 110-11.
147. Alfred Cort Haddon, Guide to the Natural History Department. Series II. Invertebrate Animals. Part I: Recent Invertebrates, Dublin, 1887.
148. General Guide to the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, 3rd edn, Dublin, 1892, 18.
149. Short Guide to the Collections, Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1897.
150. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, 1896. This was a practice initiated by the Liverpool Museum in 1884 and subsequently promoted by the Museums Association.
151. See Lewis, Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin op. cit. (15).
152. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, 1896-9.
153. 'The museum demonstrations',Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin op. cit. (1).
154. Report of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, 1896.
155. F. A. Bather, ' How may museums best retard the advance of science?' Report of the Proceedings of the Museums Association (1896), 92-105.
156. Bather, Report of the Proceedings of the Museums Association op. cit. (104), 104.
157. Report of the Board of Visitors of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, Dublin, 1891.
158. A. Curry to Colonel Plunkett, 29 July 1899, NHA, Box 11.
159. Robert Francis Scharff, 'The Irish land and freshwater mollusca', Irish Naturalist (1892), 1, 45-7, 46.
160. Carpenter, 'Mingling of the North and South', Irish Naturalist op. cit. (82), 58.
161. Carpenter, 'Mingling of the North and South', Irish Naturalist op. cit. (82), 58.
162. George Henry Carpenter, 'The Dublin Museum and Irish Naturalists', Irish Naturalist (1901), 10, 157-61, 158.
163. Bruno Latour, Science in Action, Cambridge, MA, 1987.
164. Scharff, Science in Action op. cit. (82);
165. Scharff, idem, Science in Action op. cit. (66).
166. See, for example, Rev. John Andrew, 'Some thoughts on the development theory of creation', Proceedings of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, 1880-1887 (1888), 2, 118-19.
167. See also Jones, ' Darwinism in Ireland', Proceedings of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, 1880-1887 op. cit. (74).
168. 'Belfast Naturalists' Field Club', Irish Naturalist (1896), 5, 52.
169. Carpenter, 'Mingling of the North and South', Irish Naturalist op. cit. (82), 68.
170. David Elliston Allen, The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History, 2nd edn, Princeton, NJ, 1994.
171. See Collins, The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History, 2nd Edn op. cit. (47).
172. Lysaght, Robert Lloyd Praeger, op. cit. (27);
173. Collins, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (47).
174. Collins, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (47).
175. Carpenter, Robert Lloyd Praeger op. cit. (4).