Number 5 - Geological Curators Group

authorities asked the Curator of Gloucester CityMuseum (J. N. Taylor Esq.) to assist them indisposing of parts of the Museum. Taylor wasable to tell Liverpool Museum of theavailability of zoological material and Daley atPortsmouth about the geological collections.Daley promptly wrote to the College on 4 April,just beating Liverpool Museum to the draw! Themain geological collection then passed toPortsmouth Polytechnic (as it now is), whilesome natural history material went to Liverpooland some archaeological material to CambridgeUniversity. But a lot of material was m thendisposed of, being put into store (in a room offRoom 30, above Old Junior) in August 1963.In 1970 HST visited the College to look at whatmaterial had not been transferred to Portsmouth,and found one of two ammonites recently cited byArkell (1951-1959), almost certainly wrongly, ashaving formed part of the C. I. Gardinercollection rather than that of the old CollegeMuseum (Appendix 2: the specimen is now BMNHC82796, the other is C89608).In 1976 the April issue of the Museums Bulletinannounced (~01.16, p.4) the complete disposal ofthe remaining Natural History eollectians fromthe College Museum which passed to LiverpoolMuseum, by purchase. Liverpool also purchasedthirteen fossil fish (Reg. nos. 1976 159 A-N),including two Da~edium oolitum fram the LowerLias, one fram Lyme Regis (z Rev. W. B. Cardew).The geological material now at PortsmouthPolytechnic chiefly comprises molluscs fram theGreat Oolite at Minchinhampton, and molluscs andbrachiapods from the Upper Lias and InferiorOolite of the Cotswolds: it has suffered somelosses even since 1950 (Cleevely 1983, p.81).The 4,500-5,000 specimens have been computerised(M. J. Barker iLI U. 10 December 1985).But some material still remains at the College,including an ichtbyasaur paddle with vertebraeseen there in 1985, and probably that visible inFig.8. But of the other large Saurians no-oneseems to know their fate!Cheltenham Ladies College was founded in 1853 asa Church of England day school, with the closeinvolvement of the Principal and Vice-Principalof the twelve years old Boys College. It was aremarkable development in the education of women.By 1895 it boasted a Museum, within the sciencedepartment, 70 by 26 feet in size (Meade 1895,p.288). The school's historian records that itwas the inspiration of Miss Dorothea Beale(1831-1906), College Principal from 1858 to 1906and the part subject of one of the more famousclerihews in English, who 'Cupid's darts [did]not feel'. She was a true pioneer of theeducation of women in Britain, and it isinteresting to find that she included provisionfar a Museum.Soon after Beale's arrival the focus for scienceteaching became physical geography (Kamm 1958,p.56), as it was thought a safe subject forgirls. In 1894 a new College library was builtand the Museum occupied the floor above (Clarke1953, p.81). Geography teaching provided thestimulus for a model of the physical geographyand geology round Cheltenham made byMiss A. F. Parkinson, a photograph of which waspublished by Richardson (1904, p.v, pl.xiii).Such geographical focus continued until at least1914 when E. M. Sanders was awarded her Parisdoctorate for a thesis on the Region of Bristolwhile 'Geography specialist at the College'(Sanders 1914).Richardson also recorded (z. &., p.211) thepresence of one of the geological treasures ofthe College Museum. This was the ichthyosaurTemnodontosaurus olatvodon (Conyheare) found in1899 while digging the foundations for theCollege's first purpose-built hoarding house,'Glenlee' in Malvern Road. The specimen wasfourteen feet long (BRSMG Geology File FER2) andit remained in the Museum until August 1917 whenit was lent to the Town Museum (CheltenhamLooker On, 6 October 1917, p.8). It wasreturned to the Ladies College an 29 July 1932,when Cheltenham Museum no longer had space forit (letter to Miss E. N. Fergussan in CHLGMarchives).Then in 1934 the College Musewn was divided intonew classrooms, 'but there [were] many whoremember vividly same of its contents ...[including] the ichthyosaur whose remains hadbeen found near the playing-field when thefoundations were dug for Glenlee' (Clarke 1953,p.81).The fate of this specimen is thereafterunknown. In 1962 the Misses Fergusson ofCheltenham tried, without success, to locateit. It was not there when Justin Delair, in1968, and Wendy Sayer, in 1973, worked throughthe remnants of these collections. In 1972Miss S. M. Sadlier, who was an the staff of theCollege from 1935 to 1969 and was latterlyVice-Principal, kindly wrote to HST (iLI U. 2July 1972), 'I am sorry I cannot help you averthe Museum which we once had at College. It wasdispersed during the War when I was a juniormember of staff and it was only years later..... that I tried to trace what had happenedhut the Bursar who arranged the dispersal haddied and all I could discover was that variousitems had been given to the Museums inGloucester and Cheltenham and also to one of theColleges in Oxford. My efforts to trace themfailed and I cannot therefore give you anyinformation about the geological specimens. Ourbuildings were taken over during the War and itwas a time of great confusion and apparently norecords were kept. It is a great pity'. Nomore recent information has come to light andany further news would he welcomed.The Cheltenham Naturalists' Association of 1867soon foundered, like its ancestor: but the needfor some such local society remained, and a newCheltenham Natural Science Society wasestablished in 1877 (Austin 1928, p.523).Papers were read at its meetings and it seems tohave led a rather desultory life until 1907 whennew rules were agreed and it entered a new, ifshortlived, lease of life under the Presidencyof E. T. Wilson, father of the Polar explorer,and Linsdall Richardson as Honorary Secretary.It published its Proceedines in a New Seriesfrom 1907 until at least the First World War.