Manchester Museum
Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England. Sited on Oxford Road at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, it provides access to about 4.5 million items from every continent. It is the UK’s largest university museum and serves both as a major visitor attraction and as a resource for academic research and teaching. It has around 430,000 visitors each year.
History
The museum's first collections were assembled by the Manchester Society of Natural History formed in 1821 with the purchase of the collection of John Leigh Philips. The society established a museum in Peter Street, Manchester, on a site later occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association, in 1835. In 1850 the collections of the Manchester Geological Society were added. By the 1860s both societies encountered financial difficulties and, on the advice of the evolutionary biologist Thomas Huxley, Owens College accepted responsibility for the collections in 1867. The museum in Peter Street was sold in 1875 after Owens College moved to new buildings in Oxford Street.The college commissioned Alfred Waterhouse, architect of London's Natural History Museum, to design a museum to house the collections for the benefit of students and the public on a site in Oxford Road. The Manchester Museum was opened to the public in 1888. At the time, the scientific departments of the college were immediately adjacent, and students entered the galleries from their teaching rooms in the Beyer Building.
Two subsequent extensions mirror the development of its collections. The 1912 pavilion was largely funded by Jesse Haworth, a textile merchant, to house the archaeological and Egyptological collections acquired through excavations he had supported. The 1927 extension was built to house the ethnographic collections. The Gothic Revival street frontage which continues to the Whitworth Hall has been ingeniously integrated by three generations of the Waterhouse family. When the adjacent University Dental Hospital of Manchester moved to a new site, its old building was used for teaching and subsequently occupied by the museum.
The museum is one of the University of Manchester's 'cultural assets', along with the Whitworth Art Gallery, John Rylands Library, Jodrell Bank visitor centre and others.
2020s redevelopment
Manchester Museum temporarily closed on 29 August 2021 for redevelopment. During this time the Museum underwent the final phase of a £13.5 million reconstruction programme. The renovated museum includes a two-storey extension and new galleries including a large Exhibition Hall, Belonging Gallery, the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery and the South Asia Gallery. The South Asia Gallery is a partnership with the British Museum and will be the first ever permanent exhibition space in the UK dedicated to the stories, experiences and contributions of South Asian communities. The museum reopened 18 February 2023 and managed to attract 52,000 visitors in its first week after reopening.Galleries and redevelopment
In 1997 the museum was awarded £12.5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and with funding from the European Regional Development Fund, the University of Manchester, the Wellcome Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and other sponsors, the museum was refurbished and reopened in 2003. At this time the Fossils Gallery and Living Cultures Galleries were developed and The Vivarium was established on the second floor of the 1885 building.The Manchester Gallery explores the changing relationship between the museum, Manchester and the rest of the world. It explores where collections came from and how they relate to colonialism and empire.
Living Worlds opened in April 2011 as a new type of natural history gallery to encourage visitors to reflect on their attitudes to nature. The gallery was designed by Brussels-based design firm villa eugenie. Exhibits include a mounted demoiselle crane with a piece of rubble from the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast and hundreds of origami cranes. Themed exhibits explore attitudes to nature and environmental issues. The gallery has a smartphone app, 'Living Worlds'. This gallery has an allotment in the courtyard in front of the museum, where volunteers grow fruit and vegetables and show visitors how to grow and look after plants.
Ancient Worlds opened in October 2012 and transformed the main galleries of the 1912 building. Discovering Archaeology explores how people make sense of the past using objects and includes exhibits on facial reconstruction and some of the characters who were involved in the development of archaeology and the museum, including William Flinders Petrie and William Boyd Dawkins. Egyptian Worlds, takes visitors on a journey through the landscape, customs and practices of the Ancient Egyptians. Exploring Objects, reveals the archaeology collections through 'visible storage' with a difference. The gallery incorporates a haptic interactive.
File:Stan the Trex at Manchester Museum.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Stan, a reproduction cast of a fossilised Tyrannosaurus rex acquired by the museum in 2004.
In June 2013 time-lapse footage showing a 10-inch Egyptian statue in the museum's collection, apparently spinning around unaided, attracted worldwide media attention. Various theories were put forward, with the university's Professor Brian Cox suggesting "differential friction" between the glass shelf and the object, possibly caused by vibrations made by visitors, caused the object to move. The museum's Egyptologist Campbell Price, said "it has been on those surfaces since we have had it and it has never moved before. And why would it go around in a perfect circle?". The Manchester Evening News reported that the incident "sent visitor numbers soaring at the Manchester Museum", and Tim Manley, head of marketing and communications, commented that "There's been a definite spike in visitors".
Nature's Library opened in April 2013 displaying the museum's range of natural history, using a design inspired by a Gothic library to capitalise on the gallery's Gothic Revival architecture. Displays explore the variety of the natural world, where the collection came from, why people collect specimens, how they are used, and what they can tell scientists.
In 2004 the museum acquired a reproduction cast of a fossil Tyrannosaurus rex which is mounted in a running posture. "Stan", as it is called, is based on the second most complete T. rex excavated in 1992 in South Dakota, by Stan Sacrison.
Alchemy was a project initiating and facilitating artists' access to the museum and university. Funded by Arts Council England it offered four Alchemy Artist Fellowships, curated artist interventions in the permanent galleries and facilitated research and the loan of the museum's collections for contemporary art projects. Alchemy was the museum's first such sustained research programme. It aimed to reinvigorate displays, encourage diverse approaches and present alternative voices.
In August 2007, a temporary exhibition Myths About Race was opened. Many Victorian institutions are now viewed as having contributed to the racist thinking that justified slavery. As part of the Revealing Histories: Remembering Slavery project, it explored difficult and sensitive issues.
Lindow Man was on display for a year from April 2008, on loan from the British Museum.
Collections
Anthropology
The collection totals about 16,000 artefacts, nearly half of which are from Africa. Material from Oceania makes up a quarter and much of the remainder comes from Asia and the Americas. The first large donation came from Robert Dukinfield Darbishire, beginning in 1904/05. Darbishire gave about 700 items, including ceramics from Peru and Eskimo carvings. In 1922, Charles Heape donated his Oceanian and American collection, amounting to about 1500 items. It included a collection of weapons and paddles from the Pacific islands, collected by missionaries and others. Some items from Aboriginal Australians of Victoria, Australia were acquired while Heape was resident. The Lloyd collection of Japanese metalwork, carvings and ceramics were the bequest of R. W. Lloyd. There are two collections obtained in the field by professional anthropologists. Frank Willett collected pottery, masks and ritual regalia in Nigeria in 1956 and Peter Worsley collected basketry and other items from the Wanindiljaugwa people of Groote Eylandt, Australia in 1952.Archaeology
The major collecting areas in archaeology have been Western Europe, the Mediterranean, Egypt and Western Asia. Large accessions of material from Egypt and Western Asia came from the excavations of Sir Flinders Petrie and subsequently archaeologists from the university have been involved in expeditions to Western Asia and brought more finds. The Egyptological collections include finds from Kahun and Gurob, presented in 1890 by Jesse Haworth and Martyn Kennard. By 1912 the growth of this area had been so great that a new wing was added for the Egyptian material to which Jesse Haworth made a major donation of funds. Its first keeper was Winifred M. Crompton.The Egyptian Mummy Research Project, begun in 1973 under Rosalie David's direction, has yielded much information on health and social conditions in ancient Egypt and radiology and endoscopy have been used extensively. One of the mummies studied was the first mummy to be completely unwrapped in Britain since 1908. This was mummy no. 1770 in 1975. From 1979 the researchers developed non-destructive techniques by a combination of radiology and endoscopy. The results are held on the International Mummy Data Base, stored on the university computer. A redesign of the galleries in 1984/85 resulted in improved displays. The archaeology collections were redisplayed in 2011 in the Ancient Worlds galleries. A bog body, Worsley Man, is also in the care of the museum. Lindow Man, another bog body had previously been displayed.