The gathered
crowd of learned gentlemen murmured amongst themselves about the argument that
had erupted on the auditorium floor. On one side stood Samuel Wilberforce, the
Bishop of Oxford, one of England’s finest public speakers and a man who had recently
barraged his parishioners with a tirade against Charles Darwin and his recently
published book ‘On the Origin of Species’. About Wilberforce stood many of
those whose opinions mirrored his own.
Opposite them were
the less numerous but equally vocal defenders of Darwin, including the man who
would one day be dubbed Darwin’s Bulldog for his tenacious advocacy of the theory
of evolution, Thomas Huxley.
Wilberforce had
arrived at the meeting of the British Association to bring the lords wrath into
the debate and stood before the gathered crowd, his booming voice clear as a
bell as he scorned
The ‘Man of God’
could certainly talk and soon had many of those gathered in the auditorium eating
out of his oratory hand. Like any professional entertainer, Wilberforce built a
report with the audience with charm and wit, setting them up for the peak of
his speech. After reminding everyone of the beauty of the Lords plan for the
world and how dark the universe would seem without a guiding hand, he lordly turned
on the science and pointed out how there was no evidence to support Darwin’s
grand idea and that most scientists actually disagreed with the theory.
Wilberforce ended with a grand flourish,
gesturing towards his opponent and asking if it was on Huxley’s grandmother or
his grandfather’s side that he considered himself descended from a monkey?
The crowd
erupted in laughter at the gibe and, as Wilberforce returned to his seat in
good humour and gave the floor to Huxley, only those paying close attention
noticed the naturalist was also smiling.
Once the room
had quieted down Huxley, a peerless orator himself, nailed the Bishop to his
chair with a steely glare and replied….
‘I would not be ashamed
of having a monkey for an ancestor, but I would be ashamed to be connected to a
man who uses his great gifts to obscure the truth!’
The story above
is my dramatization of the famous evolution debate that occurred in the newly
built Oxford University in the 1860’s, a building that now houses the collections
of some of the world’s first palaeontologists. The Neo-Gothic building that
held this debate is now a Grade-1 listed historical building in England and
today houses the Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History.
A competition
had been held for the design of the building with a stipulation iron and glass
must be incorporated into the building. It was one of the builders who pointed
out it would be cheaper if Wrought iron was used instead of the stronger, more
expensive cast iron. The softer Wrought iron was used to help create the
intricate details on many of the museums features, while cast iron remained
wherever strong support was needed to hold up that amazing, cathedral-like glass roof.
It really is one
of the world’s best looking museums and once you visit you understand why it’s
being protected. The problem with visiting, however, is you have to visit
Oxford and believe me this is easier said then done. The town is a rabbit
warren of tiny little streets and no, and I cannot repeat this strongly enough,
NO parking. Either catch a bus after you have parked outside the city or be
ready to drive around for a few hours until you find one of the very few street
car parks (and I’ve just read they’re planning to cut down even more traffic in
an effort to ‘pedestrianise’ the city, so things are likely to get even worse
in the near future).
In truth this
isn’t as bad as it sounds since, while you’re driving around looking for
somewhere to park, you really do get a great look at the city, though if you
have limited time it can be frustrating.
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Once you’ve
parked and walked about the same distance as you would have if you’d walked to
Oxford, you’ll easily find the museum. It looks like an old church on the
outside and is one of the few buildings with a large lawn in front- containing
dinosaur footprints running across it (from a Megalosaurus or possibly Cetios),
which should help. As great as the building is on the outside, it’s inside that
the museum that really blows you away.
Harking from a
time gone by, the majority of the museum’s exhibits are contained within the
cathedral-like main court of the building. This all sits under an elaborate
roof of Victorian ironwork and glass, supported by numerous intricately decorated
columns in a series of high arches that create three adjacent aisles. Standing
in the middle of all this is one of the best Tyrannosaurs I’ve ever
seen, though whether it’s the ferocious pose or the fantastic backdrop that
makes it so great still eludes me. One of the best images in the museum is,
when you get to the right angle, seeing this T-rex in comparison to the tallest animals in the world today, the
skeleton of a giraffe. It makes you
realise there just is no comparison.
Each aisle
houses a numbers of displays, like a row of mammal skeletons or dinosaur
fossils, and (while I was there) a large number of props from the ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ series. There
is also an Iguanodon, standing in
the old kangaroo-style pose, along with row upon row of modern animal
skeletons.
Along the walls,
amongst the numerous statues of historical men of science, are glass displays and
Victorian cabinets containing every type of fossils you can think of along with
a living counterpart if available. Even though the museum is mostly contained
in one large room, the display really does have everything you’d want from a
modern natural history exhibit.
I’m hard pressed
to think of any major prehistoric group that didn’t have some sort of presence
at Oxford, I mean there was even a display with a number of Gorgonopsians, and I mean a number, not
just the solitary skull most museums display. I should point out the entire prehistoric
mammal collection is amazing, including a Cave Hyena which, for sometime, was
an intricate part of early palaeontology. Kirkdale
Cave is where many early fossils were unearthed in the UK, and these helped
scientists at the time understand the very land about them had changed and
began challenging the idea the bones found in the earth had been deposited by
Noah’s flood. It was clear many of these fossils had come from an ancient predators
den.
The main focus
of Oxford is what it’s famous for, dinosaurs like Megalosaurus, along with
the history of the fossils and the men who found them. It was William Buckland’s
Megalosaurus (unearthed at nearby
Stonesfield) that began the whole dinosaur obsession, a craze that seems to be
running as strong today as it did back then. The museum also holds the ‘Red Lady of Paviland’, a Palaeolithic
human skeleton that had been buried in red ochre and the first paleo-human
fossil found anywhere in the world. Buckland had found the near complete
remains in 1823 during a dig in Wales, and as you can tell by the name, he
believed he’d found the remains of a woman.
The museum has
many of the early fossils from Megalosaurus
on display. It was also home to the first ‘fossil’ ever described, the lower
part of a theropod limb bone. At the time of its discovery dinosaurs simply
weren’t known, so thanks to the size and shape of this fossil, the great
‘terrible-lizards’ received their first ever scientific name, Scrotum humanum, from Richard Brookes
in 1763. Nearly a century earlier Oxford’s Robert Plot had recognised the
fossil as the remains from a large thigh bone- though he believed it had come
from one of the giants mentioned in the bible. There are some who believe the
name Scrotum humanum is still valid
and should replace ‘Dinosaur’ as the
groups name…though how strenuously they believe this I will leave up to you. 
One of my
favourite exhibits is a large glass cabinet containing a Moa Skeleton.
This is the same fossil that sir Richard Owen was famously photographed
standing next to all those years ago, and really brought home to me just
exactly where it was I was standing. About you are fossils and specimens
collected by some of the most famous figures in Natural History. Amongst the William
Buckland fossils are specimens collected by Mary Anning, Elizabeth Philpot,
Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas Bell, William Burchell, and Charles Darwin. Where
in the world would you see such a collection in one spot?
Another display
the museum’s famous for is its Dodo. The most complete remains of a dodo are
held here (a mummified foot and head)- though the Oxford collection once held
the only stuffed and mounted Dodo known, that is until some moronic museum
curator in the mid 18th century felt its was getting a little too
ratty and ordered it thrown on the fire. This display stimulated Charles Dodgson,
who lived near the museum as a child and spent many long days wandering its
galleries being inspired by the bizarre and freakish creatures it contained. You
may know Dodgson by his pen name, Lewis
Carroll, the man who’d famously place the museum’s Dodo (who many
authorities claimed was representing Carroll himself) in his book on the
adventures of a little girl called Alice.
All in all the
Oxford Natural History Museum is a must see if you’re anywhere near the area (it’s
an hour or more drive out of London), if for nothing more than to see that
fantastic building…and the Moa…and the Megalosaurus…and the
gorgonopsids…and the Liopleurodon...and...
PLEASE NOTE: That window
above the museum requires a lot of work and during 2013 the museum will be
closed. Though disappointing, those working at the museum have done their best
to temper this inconvenience by offering special behind-the-scene tours,
giving visitors a rare opportunity to sneak-a-peak behind the looking glass
(see what I did there, snuck in an Alice reference, I’m tricky that way).
Contact the Oxford
University Museum of Natural History for more information on these tours.
The Museum is
also documenting the repairs on a blog, which makes interesting reading to
anyone who’s ever wanted to know what goes on at a museum when the doors are
closed.
Lastly, anyone who follows my Facebook galleries or has ever received an email from me will know I am the self-proclaimed World Champion Aardvark Wrangler. Well the long hard journey to my world title began at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
