In a lecture in 1884, the Victorian art critic John Ruskin described a ‘plague-wind’ darkening Britain’s skies. After decades of looking closely at weather he believed that the atmosphere itself had changed, and that the smoke and ‘filth’ of industrial society formed part of the cause. His argument was urgent:. Under the title ‘The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century’ he described changes in the appearance of the sky and its relation to the pollution and industrial modernity of his time.
Ruskin was hugely involved in the building of the Museum of Natural History in Oxford. Its Neo-Gothic architecture and ornate pre-Raphaelite decoration was chosen to relate to a purer time when people were more in tune with the beauty of what was seen as an unspoiled nature. The Museum’s huge, airy, glass-roofed central court allows light and air to suffuse the building, offering a view of the changing skies overhead. It was a reaction to – and rejection of – what Ruskin viewed as the insidious march of Victorian industrialisation.
With current concerns about climate change, extreme weather events and environmental pollution, Ruskin’s lecture seems remarkably prescient and his work continues to stimulate conversations today.
The Museum of Natural History main court
On 24 October 2026, in the same lecture theatre that Ruskin used for his 19th century talk, we hosted Dr Tom Payne of the Sheffield Creative Industries Institute at Sheffield Hallam University. Tom brought Ruskin’s lecture back to life with a public performance called Storm-Cloud: Observations of the Sky as part of an event in partnership with IF Oxford, the annual science and ideas festival. Part research project and part provocative performance, ‘Storm-Cloud’ melds Ruskin’s original lecture with projected digital artwork created by Jake Goodall, enriched by a soundscape by David John Brady.
Prior to the performance itself visitors were able to see prints of Ruskin’s paintings of his observations of the skies (thanks to the Ashmolean Museum for the loan of these). In these pictures, Ruskin had visually documented the environmental changes he was seeing.
Prints of Ruskin’s paintings of the sky were on display for visitors / Image: Becky Payne
Museum staff also presented specimens from the collections to talk about how scientists can use them to demonstrate human-caused changes to nature over time. These included Bernard Kettlewell’s famous Peppered Moths, which showed how the smog of industrial Britain had influenced natural selection in a species, and feathers from Victorian birds that can help us feed better information into climate change models and understand changes in pollutant levels today.
Museum Education Officer Chris Jarvis shows visitors Peppered Moths from the collections / Image: Becky Payne
I think John Ruskin would have thoroughly approved of this powerful blend of art and science. The event highlighted how museums are still places of public debate, provocation and discussion, and how the millions of natural history specimens and the data they hold can be used to inform us about environmental change today.
You’re 18 years old, an orphan, and your uncle and guardian has just been thrown in debtor’s prison. You have no other family around you. What do you do? Well, if you’re John Phillips (1800–1874), you attempt to run a lithographic printing business out of your uncle’s house; extraordinary for one so young and doubly so as lithography was still a relatively new technology. According to Michael Twyman, in 1819 “the number of lithographic printers in London could still be counted on one hand.”
Engraving vs Lithography
At the time, mass-printed drawings were still commonly engraved on copper plates. It was a time-consuming process. A skilled engraver could take over 40 hours to complete a ten-inch plate and any errors were costly to correct.1
Dale copperplate
Invented just two decades earlier in 1798 by German playwright Aloys Senefelder, lithography made the process of printing cheaper and simpler. Drawing on a prepared stone surface with waxy ink or chalk and using the repelling properties of fat and water to print the finished design, the need for precise etching was eliminated and errors could be wiped away rather than having to burnish and re-etch a metal plate.
Lithographic stone
Phillips’ Early Experiments
With few works to reference or professionals to consult, Phillips had taken what information he could find and applied himself to testing and recording different ink to chalk ratios for optimal drawing and printing. He even tinkered with existing press designs, trying to invent a more efficient machine. The results of his experiments are preserved today in his notebooks, held here at the Museum.
Phillips’ press design sketches
Phillips set up shop in his uncle’s house at 15 Buckingham Street and advertised in a circular, “I take the liberty of soliciting Your Attention to my method of Drawing and Printing from Stone. The Process is much cheaper, and is far more expeditious than the common method of Engraving on Copper.”
Phillips’ advert
Family, Fossils and Geology
Having arrived in London in 1815 to live with his uncle, William Smith—later hailed as the father of English Geology—Phillips had spent much of his youth bouncing from relative to boarding school to family friend. Most recently he had stayed with Smith’s friend the Reverend Benjamin Richardson, an avid naturalist and geologist.
William Smith had just published A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales with part of Scotland…, the first geological map of England and Wales. Smith showed that the relative positioning of specific fossil species in strata could be used to identify the same strata across the UK — a remarkable achievement, but one that nearly ruined him financially. His finances were so desperate that when his nephew arrived he was in the middle of negotiating the sale of his fossil collection to the British Museum.
These same fossils, arranged according to the strata in which they were found, had formed the basis of his great work. Selling them was a huge blow, both personally and professionally; he had collected them himself whilst travelling as a land surveyor, consulted them frequently in his studies, and given access to any scientist wishing to see them. It also meant they would need to be formally catalogued to be useful.
Luckily his newly arrived nephew had a talent for drawing and a keen interest in shells and geology; Phillips had by then begun his experiments with lithographic printing, conscious of the enormous cost savings possible for publications, both for his uncle and his own work on fossil conchology. He became the person Smith needed to assist in drawing, arranging, and cataloguing the fossils for publication before they were crated up and sent away. This led to the publication of Strata Identified by Fossils (1816) and Stratigraphical System of Organized Fossils (1817). It was then that Phillips began experimenting with lithographic printing, conscious of the enormous cost savings possible for publications, both for his uncle and his own work on fossil conchology.
Phillips’ test print for Fossil Conchology
Notebooks, Inventions and Later Life
Phillips’ notebooks are filled with detailed observations of natural history from his travels across the UK. They also show his fascination with all things mechanical; doodling whimsical contraptions meant to solve the day-to-day problems of the active naturalist.
Phillips’ camp chair
With an interest in geology and a fascination with technology, it’s hardly surprising that when Phillips found himself with no support and no money he would see if his interest in lithography or “stone writing” could help with his pressing financial problems. But did it work? Did John Phillips make any money?
While we hold Phillips’ personal and research papers, sadly no record of sales or responses survive. What we do know is that after William Smith was released from debtor’s prison the house was repossessed and Smith, along with his wife and nephew, left London to eke out a living as itinerant mineral surveyors.
Phillips’ experiment notes
Phillips’ experiment notes
Phillips remained a lifelong advocate for science and technology and went on to become a well-respected geologist, the first keeper of the Museum, and only the second Professor of Geology in Oxford. Tragically, after a convivial dinner on 23 April 1874 at All Souls College Phillips slipped and fell down a flight of stone steps, falling into a coma never to awake.
In February 2023, the Museum was lucky enough to acquire an important historical archive – a collection of notes, correspondence, artworks, photographs and family documents belonging to geologists William and Mary Buckland. But before the archive can be enjoyed by visitors and researchers, it must first be cared for, ensuring its preservation for generations to come. Thanks to generous funders, the Museum was able to hire a Project Paper Conservator, Anna Espanol Costa. Considering the Museum had not had a paper conservator since the mid-1990s, Anna was incredibly resourceful with her use of tools and materials, utilising everything from makeup sponges and soft brushes to tweezers and dental picks. In this blog post, we share insights from the eight months she spent assessing, cleaning and repairing some of the most at-risk and important material in the archive, as well as some unexpected surprises she found along the way…
Paper can be used to store information for decades, if not centuries, but it is still vulnerable to frequent handling and poor environmental storage conditions. When the Museum acquired the Buckland archive it was around two hundred years old and, unsurprisingly, many of its items needed care and restoration. Over the years, the papers had been housed in the standard file folders and boxes you would use for office documents, rather than an important historical archive. Many of the folders were overcrowded and had been tied together with string. Some manuscripts had been damaged due to too many items being stored in the same folder, and there were places where the string had cut into the larger pieces of paper causing tears. The most fragile and vulnerable items showed signs of chemical and physical damage, including iron-gall ink corrosion; chemicals in the ink had started to eat through the paper, causing cracks and loss of ink, and consequently text, in some areas.
Before treatment: Photographs mounted on an unsuitable bright blue backingBefore treatment: An unsuitably preserved letter with ingrained dirt
Past efforts had been made to restore the documents, but sometimes these had disfigured the original manuscripts: “in-fills” had been made with unsuitable paper, and backing sheets had been added in bright colours like blue or green. The archive was also being held together with unstable and rusty paper clips, and many of the original wax seals had cracks. It would have been a great shame to lose any of the seals, which feature beautiful examples of natural history icons, like ammonites and cephalopods.
PRESERVING HISTORY
The objective of my work was to stabilise the Buckland archive to ensure its long-term preservation and restore the appearance of the collection so it could be safely handled, digitised and exhibited in future.
One of the most important principles behind conservation is doing the ‘least amount to do the most good’. Conservation aims to slow down the ageing and deterioration process by using treatments that will not damage or disfigure the integrity of the original document. Conservation may be preventative — for instance, moving documents to a new box that creates the right ‘microclimate’ for their preservation. It may also be interventive — e.g. repairing with non-acidic and reversible materials that can be easily removed at any time, and that also can stand the test of time.
During my time at the Museum, I have been able to conserve a number of the most at-risk and important pieces of archival material. In some cases, this involved a light clean with a soft brush and re-housing of the most overcrowded items. In other cases, I performed more interventive and invasive conservation treatments including mechanical surface cleaning with smoke sponges, relaxing folds with paperweights or steam, stabilising iron-gall inks with gelatin to prevent further corrosion, mending tears with different grades of Japanese papers and tissues, and cleaning and consolidating cracks in the wax seals on the letters to prevent further loss. I also tackled some of the previous ‘repairs’ by eliminating old animal glue which had left the manuscripts shiny in places, carefully removing the unsuitable paper, and adding supports where necessary, thus leaving no traces of the bright blue backing paper.
Cleaning a letter to remove ingrained dirtA wax seal on a letter in the archive, featuring an ammonite motif
INTERESTING AND UNEXPECTED STOWAWAYS
As well as undertaking conservation repairs, I also documented the condition of the items; photographing the manuscripts before and after conservation treatments to ensure the Museum, or any other future conservators, have a record of my work. Whilst undertaking conservation treatments, I found some interesting and unexpected stowaways in the archive. What looked to be small holes in one of the pages of a letter ended up being recognised by one of the Museum’s entomologists as spider frass (poop). A moth had also decided to call the papers home at some point in the last two hundred years as I came across a small cocoon that was now long dead, desiccated (dry) and dusty. The most unusual find, however, was a small black dot that I initially thought was an insect. However, employing the help of a microscope and one of the Musuem’s entomologists, we realised that it was actually a seed! What kind of seed, and how or when that seed came to reside in the Buckland archive, we don’t know, but it shows the archive had a life and story of its own long before it came to rest here in the Museum.
A JOB WELL DONE
Overall, I was pleased with the amount of work I was able to accomplish at the Museum. I managed to conserve a significant amount of the archive and was fortunate enough to work with, and learn from, a range of museum staff, including palaeontologists, geologists, zoologists, entomologists and the Life and Earth collections conservators. It has been a privilege to share and exchange knowledge with my colleagues and work collaboratively on the preservation of an important archive. I look forward to hearing about some of the research findings it produces, and to see it shared with the public in future exhibitions and displays.
Bundle of letters before treatmentBundle of letters after treatment
Thank you to the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust and Helen Roll Charity for funding Anna’s work. Items from the Buckland archive will feature in the Museum’s upcoming exhibition ‘Breaking Ground’ opening 18th October 2024.
THE INVISIBLE HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM’S GLASS DISPLAY CASES
Glass cases play an integral role in museums and galleries, but they are designed to be overlooked and ignored. In this blog post, Librarian and Archivist Danielle Czerkaszyn uses research collected by Helen Goulston (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD Candidate) to uncover the invisible history of OUMNH’s glass display cases and considers how they have evolved alongside the museum during its 160-year history.
Since 2018, the Museum has been working to refresh its Main Court by installing new permanent displays. This morning, we placed the final specimen in our brand new “Open Oceans” display, concluding the latest phase of the redisplay project. The “Open Oceans” display is housed in one of eight new conservation-grade glass cases installed last year. While some visitors have welcomed the new cases, others have mourned the loss of the wooden cases or questioned why they needed to be replaced. Others have wondered why the tops of the new glass cases have roofs with different heights. To answer these questions, we need to dive into the museum archive…
A CASE HISTORY
When visitors arrived at the newly-opened museum in 1860 they would have been greeted by an empty central court, devoid of displays. While the fabric of the building was more or less complete, and preparation for the installation of displays had already begun, the university’s scientific and natural history collections had not yet been transferred to the building.
A sketch in the archive dated 16 October 1858 by architect Benjamin Woodward shows an early plan for the display cases to be arranged between the iron columns in the Main Court, allowing visitors to circulate among the exhibits, with display cases echoing the Gothic revival architecture. The right of the document shows grand double-height displays with a central balustrade that were never realised, but cases similar to those on the left would be ordered in January 1862.
The empty Main Court of the Museum when it opened in 1860, London Illustrated NewsSketch by Benjamin Woodward showing an early plan for the arrangement of displays in the Main Court, 16th October 1858Close-up from Benjamin Woodward’s 1858 sketch envisaging similar display cases to those that would be ordered in January 1862
The 1862 tender document written by William Bramwell, Clerk of Works at the Museum, shows two types of upright display cases ordered for installation between the iron columns — some with pitched roofs and others with flat tops, which were considerably cheaper. Though the design of the cases resembles Woodward’s original sketches, the tender included detailed specifications that addressed the practicalities of displaying specimens, such as cotton velvet door linings to stop dust from getting in.
In addition to the upright centre court cases, ten table cases were ordered from the high-end London cabinet makers, Jackson and Graham, at a cost of £344.10. The same firm was also commissioned to fit the tall wall cases in the outer corridors. Plans and photographs from the archive show that the installation of these cases was piecemeal and it wasn’t until 1866 that all the display cases were fully in place.
A tender document written for the Museum’s first display cases, written by William Bramwell in 1862The Main Court of the Museum prior to 1864
WHY REPLACE THE CASES?
The wooden display cases that we have been replacing may look old, but few of the original cases from 1866 survive. While some of the old display cases were moved behind the scenes for preservation, others found homes in different museums or were disposed of when they were beyond repair. The most recent timber-framed cases in the Main Court are 20th-century replicas that have been heavily modified, particularly in the late 1960s-early 1970s, and again in the early 2000s when the clear acrylic roofs were added. Some of these modifications affected the stability of the cases, particularly when the doors were opened, making them unsafe for staff to access. Other modifications meant the cases were no longer dust or pest-proof, which poses a risk to specimens.
Main Court in 1870s, by Henry Taunt, showing roofed display cases with alternating pitchesMain Court in 1990s, with un-roofed display casesMain Court in 2017 with acrylic roofs re-added to the display cases
As these wooden display cases neared the end of their life, the museum and Oxford University Estates worked with Oxford City Council and Historic England to approve the replacement of the cases and ensure the redevelopment was historically sensitive to our Grade 1 listed Victorian building.
For this reason, the new cases retain the original 1866 arrangement and are built to the same dimensions. We have also returned to the original form, including outer aisle cases with alternating pitched and flat roofs. It was decided early on that the new cases would not be lined in wood because timber can be detrimental to the conservation of certain specimens. However, the design of the edges of the new cases sought to mirror the craftmanship of the 1866 cases by emulating the beading on the edges – albeit much more subtly, and in bronze rather than timber – complementing the colours of the ironwork in the museum roof.
New display cases, photographed in 2024Close-up of bronze beading on the new display cases
A CASE FOR THE FUTURE
The new glass cases are built by museum showcase experts ClickNetherfield and provide a stable, pest-proof environment for our delicate and historically important specimens. Their design artfully captures the character of the museum building, while still focusing the visitor’s attention on their contents. It is hoped that the new displays will last for at least another two decades, and the cases even longer. During that time, millions of eyes will be cast over our displays, but the glass cases that protect them may barely even be noticed.
CELEBRATING THE RECENT ACQUISITION OF AN IMPORTANT ARCHIVE
By Danielle Czerkaszyn, Librarian and Archivist and Grace Exley, AHRC Doctoral Student
200 years since the first scientific description of a dinosaur, the Museum has welcomed a significant archival collection relating to the man who introduced us to Megalosaurus, William Buckland (1784-1856). The archive contains over 1,000 items including letters, notebooks, family papers, prints, and artworks. It joins the Museum’s existing Buckland archive, as well as more than 4,000 geological specimens, and helps fill in the knowledge gaps surrounding the life and work of Oxford’s first Reader in Geology and Mineralogy. Not only is there the potential to learn more about Buckland’s early life as a student at Christ Church, there is also material relating to the wider Buckland family, including his son, the zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland, and wife, the naturalist Mary Buckland (née Morland, 1797-1857).
Among the 70 letters in the archive that are addressed to Mary, there is correspondence from chemist William Wollaston, Scottish polymath Mary Somerville, and a lively letter from John Ruskin, explaining to Mary his disgust at all things marine:
“I dont [sic] doubt that those double natured or no-natured salt water things are very pretty alive, but they disgust me by their perpetual gobbling and turning themselves inside out and on the whole I think for purple and rose colour & pretty shape, I may do well enough with convolvulus’s [sic] & such things which dont [sic] eat each other up, backwards & forwards all day long.”
Ruskin was clearly teasing his friend, as molluscs happened to be Mary’s specialist subject!
Mary Buckland’s notebook, recently acquired by OUMNH
The collection also contains two sketchbooks belonging to Mary, one of which dates from June 1817, seven years before her marriage to William and contains exquisite ink and watercolour illustrations of natural history specimens.
Illustration of Megalosaurus type fossil by Mary Morland, used in the original 1824 description of the species.Fulgurite, or, as Mary called it a ‘vitrified sand tube’. These form when lightning strikes the ground, particularly sandy surfaces. Similar examples are present in the remains of Mary’s mineral collection, held by OUMNH.
The sketchbook gives us a rare glimpse into how a nineteenth-century woman learned about natural history. The book contains copied passages from natural history texts, enabling us to trace what Mary was reading. Her interests spanned geology and mineralogy, and she also included pieces on zoological curiosities and even polar exploration. She read and copied extracts from a variety of sources, some of which – George Shaw’s Zoological Lectures, for example – were intended to suit a lay-audience (as Shaw put it, intended as a “familiar discourse with Lady-Auditors”). However, other elements of her reading were probably never intended for a woman like Mary — she also copied passages from the Transactions of the Geological Society even though women could not join as Fellows until 1919. As archival materials relating to women are often sparse, this is a truly rare and incredibly valuable insight into how Mary used her connections to access resources and the techniques she used to teach herself about natural history.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the notebook is its intricate, exquisite illustrations. These, done in watercolour, ink, and pencil, are reproductions of the figures from the works Mary copied out. A favourite in the sketchbook is the “Canadian Jumping Mouse”, a long-tailed rodent described in a piece in the Transactions of the Linnaean Society by Major General Thomas Davies in 1797. There are also many representations of molluscs (detailed enough to repulse Ruskin), mineral specimens, and occasional fold-out geological sections. As we flick through the book, we can see Mary experimenting with media and techniques — not only developing as an artist but also honing her skills as a scientific illustrator.
The skills and knowledge Mary developed in her natural history notebook were crucial to her later collaboration with William, as well as her own independent work as a draughtswoman before her marriage. In 1824, when Buckland presented the jaw of Megalosaurus to the Geological Society, it was “M. Morland” who provided the painstakingly detailed plates. Research has begun to uncover the extent of Mary’s work as a naturalist and illustrator, and now, with the help of the materials in the newly acquired archive, we can explore the origins of her skills. The archive is currently in the hands of a Paper Conservator, Anna Español Costa, to ensure the material is kept in the best condition for many years to come. Items from the archive will feature in the Breaking Ground exhibition, opening in October 2024.
Our fundraising campaign saw us receive generous support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Friends of the National Libraries, Headley Trust, and other private donors. Additionally, in late 2022, we launched the Buckland Papers Appeal, asking members of the public to help us meet our target to purchase the archive. Thank you to all our funders and members of the public who responded to our call. We could not have raised the money so quickly without your support and we are now thrilled to share the archive with you all.
Looking through the collections at OUMNH never gets boring, but sometimes a drawer will open up to reveal something even more eye-catching than the fossils usually found inside. Whilst working on the Museum’s Jurassic marine reptiles a few weeks ago, I came across something particularly surprising: a jewel-green box with a fantastic piece of art on the front. I was instantly intrigued and reminded of all the other times I had encountered a holder as fascinating as the specimen inside it.
Storage in museum collections is an ongoing pursuit of balance between ideal environmental conditions, specimen accessibility, and efficient use of space. This balance applies to all levels of storage: from building to room, cabinet to specimen tray. OUMNH’s Earth Collections are stored in conservation-grade, acid-free boxes or trays made of plastic or cardboard. These boxes are sometimes layered with low-density foam or ‘plastazote’ which can be carved to fit the specimen and keep it from being jostled or damaged. Holders with lids can also provide a micro-environment for specimens to help minimise their exposure to changes in humidity and temperature. The use of these standard materials not only helps protect specimens from degradation but can also deter pests from harbouring in collections spaces.
However, historical collections like those at OUMNH may retain holders that are not standard use. Sometimes, a clean and empty plastic Ferrero Rocher box is the perfect size for that small mammal skeleton that needs storing! Other times, an unusual holder might have been the only thing a field collector had on hand to transport a specimen to the Museum.
A harmonica box containing pliosaur teeth, a marine reptile that lived during the Jurassic (145.5 million – 201.6 million years ago).
One example of an unusual specimen holder is this ‘Echo Harp’ box by pre-eminent German harmonica manufacturer Hohner, likely from the 1960s. The box no longer holds a harmonica, but instead accompanies pieces of Jurassic pliosaur teeth from Weymouth, Dorset. Pliosaurs were a kind of carnivorous marine reptile related to plesiosaurs, with four flippers, and long tails and necks. If they hadn’t gone extinct in the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, perhaps they would have come to appreciate the harmonica and its artistic packaging!
Aside from their artistic value, museums may sometimes retain unusual holders because they contain primary source information on the specimen. One such example is a ‘Bryant and May’s Patent Safety Matches’ box in our Earth collections, bearing a packaging design from the early 1900s. The box actually houses a chicken tarsometatarsus bone excavated from “High St. New Schools” in Oxfordshire and is accompanied by a label which describes the particular layer of gravel the specimen was found in — important information for any archaeological or palaeontological find. Although the specimen is stored alongside Pleistocene fossils (10,000 – 2.6 million years ago), chickens did not originate in the UK, so the bone is likely from much more recent times. Someone still must have thought it was important enough to keep in its own special holder!
A Tate and Lyle sugar bag containing a Jurassic specimen, with handwriting on the outside describing the stratigraphy the fossil was found in.
Similarly, this ‘Tate and Lyle Granulated Sugar’ paper bag features a handwritten original notation in blue pen on the outside. The bag originally contained a specimen found in a collection of Jurassic gastropods and bivalves from Somerset, with the handwriting describing the fossil’s stratigraphic information. The bag also features a recipe for cinnamon apples on the reverse, which we have yet to try!
A wooden box and the Quarternary fossils (up to 2.6 million years ago) it originally housed. An accompanying letter describes the delivery of the fossils to William Buckland, Oxford University’s First Reader in Geology.
In addition to primary source information, original holders may also provide specimens with provenance. This ovular wooden box filled with organic stuffing material originally contained Quarternary fossil specimens found in Peak’s Hole, Derbyshire. The Museum archive also holds a handwritten letter describing the specimens inside the package and how they were found. The letter dates to 1841 and is addressed to Oxford University’s first Reader in Geology, William Buckland. The specimen holder forms part of a group of objects with such a strong interconnection, and such strong documentation, that retaining the box is a matter of course.
All in all, it’s great that we’ve come so far in the advancement of safe and stable housing for specimens. At the same time, it’s always fascinating to see what else has made its way into collections, just by nature of being able to hold things, either for a short time or a long one. Despite living in the Earth Collections – among fossils, rocks, and the geological past – these objects offer us a little bit of human history too.
