CfP Bon Voyage? 250 Years Exploring the Natural World

SHNH summer meeting and AGM in association with the British Ornithologists’ Club World Museum Liverpool Thursday 14th and Friday 15th June 2018 (Lunch and tour of Knowsley Hall, Wednesday 13th June) 2018 marks the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific. A pivotal moment in the history of exploration. Cook’s voyages […]

Making Nature: How we see animals

Wellcome Trust, London, UK Exhibition 1 December 2016 – 21 May 2017 The Wellcome Trust’s thought-provoking exhibition Making Nature invites the visitor to reflect upon the ways in which culture and knowledge affect the way in which we understand animals and the natural world. It brings together over 100 fascinating objects from literature, film, taxidermy […]

Darwin, l’original exhibition at the Paris Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie

The Paris Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, in collaboration with the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, is hosting the exhibition Darwin, l’original [Darwin, the original] until 31 July 2016. The exhibition is the result of two years of work by Commissioner Eric Lapie. It focuses on Charles Darwin’s life and highlights the extraordinary personal characteristics […]

A History and Philosophy of Monsters: Part of the History and Philosophy of Science in 20 Objects Lecture Series, University of Leeds

By Matthew Holmes On the 16th February, the ‘History and Philosophy of Science in 20 Objects’ lecture series held its second event, featuring monsters. PhD student Laura Sellers introduced a large audience to a member of the Museum of HPS’s wet specimen collection: a two-headed shark (spiny dogfish, or Squalus acanthias). The spiny dogfish is […]

Strange Creatures, UCL Grant Museum of Zoology

Strange Creatures, UCL Grant Museum of Zoology, 16 March-27 June 2015, Monday-Saturday, 1-5pm. Curated by Jack Ashby. The exhibition Strange Creatures at the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology looks at the value of images in the building of knowledge of unknown creatures. Its starting point is a painting of The Kongouro from New Holland by […]

Cotton to Gold exhibition: Extraordinary Collections of the Industrial North West

Cotton to Gold: Extraordinary Collections of the Industrial North West was the fourth exhibition in the hugely successful Winter Exhibition Programme at Two Temple Place, London (January – April 2015). The exhibition profiled a selection of successful 19th century industrialists and philanthropists who made their fortunes in the cotton industry and showcased the collections they […]

A taxidermist’s working life in the 19th Century

From the Edinburgh University Press Journals Blog April 30, 2014 An April article in Archives of natural history gives a fascinating insight into the life of Charles Francis Adams, a young American who prepared, stuffed and mounted the skins of birds and mammals for display. It also details the early years of the Auckland Museum […]