Number 5 - Geological Curators Group

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specimens as such. Only a few specimens werelabelled and many of the rest had been separatedfrom their labels in the 1970s removal. With afew exceptions noted below, the specimens wereunnumbered. The physical state of the specimenswas variable. Dirt and dust, and physicaldamage due to poor storage, were by far thecommonest problems. There were rather fewspecimens with more specialised problems, suchas pyrite decay.Rocks and minerals. The rock and mineralcollections include useful general suites ofspecimens from all over the world, although theminerals in particular have suffered from pastdirt and neglect. The total number of specimensis not known but is of the order of 1,000,ignoring Drift and soil specimens. The rockcollection's largest component consists of some300 hand specimens from various localities(catalogued and described by Wild 1920; Fig.12).Virtually all these specimens have been traced,including Antarctic material collected byRaymond Priestley and other members of theBritish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904.Fig. 12. Portrait of Captain R. P. Wild, themineralogist and Inspector of Mines in theGold Coast, by Flora Tomkins (painting inCheltenham Art Gallery and Museum) (AMCSW).than neglect or disposal) was to use temporaryspecialist curators to restore the collection tosuch a standard that it could be maintainedeasily by non-specialist curators. Cheltenhamthus stands between museums with collectionssmall enough to be recurated by outside staff,and larger museums which need to recruit theirown specialist curators (Taylor 1987).In 1982-1983 the Area Museum Council for theSouth West (AMCSW) carried out a survey ofgeological 'conservation' work which its membermuseums wanted done. In return for work on thecollections, Cheltenham promised a contributiontowards the cost of the AMCSW post of GeologicalConservator/Preparatar (later retitledGeological Officer) which MAT took up in 1983.Content of the eeoloeical collectionsThe collections number several thousandspecimens. They are not yet fully curated andsome of the missing specimens mentioned belowmay yet turn up at Cheltenham or eleswhere. Theaccount here can only be a preliminary one andwe hope that eventually someone will completethe job (perhaps looking also at the otherlinked Gloucestershire collections, e. g. thoseof Hutton, Richardson and Uptan, see below).Documentation was almost non-existent in 1983.Gaynor Andrexs and Tim Pettigrew had compiled acard index of geological accessions from theMuseum's central records, but these did not listThere are a number of samples of Drift and soilmaterial. A collection of local Quaternarygravels and sands made by J. W. Gray (see below)was briefly described by Gray (1927) but the'typed copies of the Notes, etc. in full [whichwere ta be] placed in the library of the[Cotteswold Naturalists' Field] Club and in theCheltenham Museum' have not yet been traced inthe Museum. Further samples in this categorywere donated by C. R. Mapp and A. W. Jamieson.The minerals comprise a range of specimensincluding semi-precious stones. The Museumpurchased the collection of the engineerRobert Stephenson (see p.202), but none of theseimportant specimens have so far been identified.Borehole material. Linsdall Richardson, wellknown for his publications on ground watersupplies, donated samples from several localboreholes drilled for water and cited most ofthose samples as being in the Museum. Only oneof the two cited s~ecimens fram the Lewis Lane.Cirencester, b ore hole of 1904 has been found(Hibbert and Richardson 1904). The citedmaterial from a deep well-sinking at LeckhamptonHill (c. 1910) has not been traced (Richardson1910a). However, the cited samples fram theKemble Borehole of 1911 all survive (Richardson1913). Most, but not all, of the citedspecimens fram the Tetbury Borehole of 1915(Richardson 1915a, 1915b, 1930) were transferredto Bristol City Museum as part of the 1946transfer (15 specimens; BRSMG Geology File112). Most samples from the Shipton Moyne No.2Borehole of 1914-1915 cited by Richardson(1915c), and some uncited samples, survive atCheltenham, as well as a few mare fram theShipton Moyne No.3 Borehale (Richardson 1919).As for the rest, some may be in the BritishGeological Survey collections, either in theBorings Collection or more likely in theRichardson Collection. See Fig.13.Fossils. The fossil collection mostly comprisesmaterial from the local Jurassic of the Vale ofSevern and the Cotswolds. It includes some ofthe personal collections of Hutton andRichardson (see below) but their material has
ammonitesubcontractus from Laycock,Sherbarne, and possibly cited in the ShaftesburyMemoir of the Geological Survey (fideH. S. Torrens). Cope d. (1980) referred tounspecified Cheltenham Museum material in theirrevision of British Jurassic stratigraphy.The holotype of the decapod crustacean mrichardsoni H. B. Woodward, 1911, is in thecollection at Cheltenham. It was collected byHarriet Holland from the Upper Lias of DumbletonHill (H. B. Woadward 1911; Woods 1924-1931).Fig. 13. Core specimens from the KembleBorehole 1911 and the Shipton Moyne Borehole1914-1915, in Cheltenham Art Gallery andMuseum, labelled and cited by LinsdallRichardson (AMCSW).been partly dispersed to the BM(NH) and BristolCity Museum. Some type and cited material stillsurvives at Cheltenham but more remainsuntraced. A formal listing must await fullcuration of the collection.Still at Cheltenham are the seven syntypespicules of the Inferior Oolite sponge Renieraoolitica Richardson and Thacker,1920,from thecollection of Charles Upton (see below)(Richardson 1910b; Richardson and Thacker 1920)Sayer (1974) noted the presence af a syntype ofthe hrachiopod Stroudithvris randwickensisRichardson and Upton, 1913, the possibleholotype of the MS species Pseudoelossithvriss~atulata L. Richardson MS, and tapotypes ofother species in the Richardson brachiopods atCheltenham.The holotype of the ammonite Denckmanniabredonensis Buckman, 1903, was transferred tothe BM(NH) in 1967; Phillips (1977) listed itas Phmnatoceras -.Crick (1920) mentioned a collection ofdibranchiate cepbalopods from the Upper Lias ofAlderton as being at the Museum, and that itincluded 'examples of both Geoteuthis andTeuthapsis as well as some detached hooklets'.He figured a specimen of Geoteuthis and one ofT. hrunelii, describing another of- G. aeassizii. None have been located at~Cheltenham but the G. agassizii at least is nowat Bristol (BRSMG Ce3230).Richardson and Walters (1922) described anexcavation in the Lower Lias at CheltenhamCorporation Sewage Works, citing variousspecimens then in the ~heltenham Museum.Trueman (1922) further cited, described andfi~ured some of the ammonites. erecting the newspecies Arniaceras W. None of thesehas been traced at Cheltenham but same at leastwere transferred to Bristol in 1946 and threefigured and thirty-three cited specimens survivein the collection there (BRSMG Ce3231-65);unfortunately, the holotype of A. juncticostaremains untraced.Another ex-Cheltenham Town Museum specimen atBristol is BRSMG Ce97, a specimen of theA. S. Woodward (1911) described two specimens ofthe fish Euthvnotus from Dumbleton Hill as thefirst records of that genus from the EnglishLias. Dr M. J. Simms (pers. corn.) pointed outthat the descriptions closely fit two specimens(Fh9 and 10) in the teaching collection of theCollege of St Paul and St Mary; these arelabelled as coming from Gretton Hill nearDumbleton Hill but Woodward may well have mixedup the locality with the former home of thecollection at Dumbleton Hall. If Woodward wascorrect in citing their repository as theCheltenham Museum, then they must have strayedto the College at some time, probably underMapp's auspices in the 1930s.The Cornfard and Lingwood collection includesremains of Pleistocene mammals excavated in 1871from King Arthurs's Cave in the Wye Valley(Symonds 1880; Jackson 1937), now curated aspart of the archaeological collection.Finally, a plaster cast of an ichthyosaur foundin the museum's furniture store in 1982 (CHLGM1931, 1la) appears to be one of the very fewcasts remaining of an original destroyed in theair-raid on Bristol City Museum in November1940. This specimen (BRSMG Cb2464), supposedlyfrom Saltford near Bath, had an involved history(Taylor and Clark, in prep.; BRSMG Geology FilePUR 1). Owen (1840) described preserved softtissue in its tail fin but included it in erroras a syntype of Ichthvosaurus latimanus Owen,1840. Later, Lydekker (1889, pp.53-54)described it as a paratype of I. convheariLydekker. The cast was purchased from aCheltenham junk shop in 1931; its previoushistory is unrecorded but it must be the castthat the Bristol Institution supplied to aPurnell Bransby Purnell (1791-1866) in 1847.Purnell lived at Stancombe Park near Dursley(Burke 1921, p.1459) and his partly geologicalpersonal museum therewas thrown open to membersof the CNFC an 28 August 1855 (Baker 1860,p.iii). This late casting date is consistentwith differences between it and earlier casts ofthe same specimen (e. g. BMNH 1065), indicatingchanges to the specimen itself or modificationsto the moulds.Some maior donors and collectorsThe following list summarises some of the knowndonors to the CHLGM collection, and is based onthe Museum's archives, Art Gallery SubcommitteeReports (henceforth m CHLGM), and otherreferences that we have located.ACTON, Miss Anne Moore (died c. 1904-1905).Collection of 'shells and minerals' given byher sister, Miss Moore Acton (5thWBI, for 1904-1905, p.24).
Page 2 and 3: THE GEOLOGICAL CURATORVOLUME 5. N0.
Page 4 and 5: Gcolap,rcal Curator, Vol .5, No.5.
Page 6 and 7: THE CHELTENHAM LITERARY AND PHILOSO
Page 8 and 9: The earlv vears of the CLPIDavid Wi
Page 10 and 11: Fig. 4. A lithograph (260 x 200 m.)
Page 12 and 13: on the local geology (Lycett 1857).
Page 14 and 15: The known contents of the Museum to
Page 16 and 17: 'Geological Museum - superior in it
Page 18 and 19: that is a fact' (Matheson 1964, p.2
Page 20 and 21: A published source which now throws
Page 22 and 23: Fig. 8. The interior of the College
Page 24 and 25: The Second World War and its leeace
Page 26 and 27: The Society provided a forum which
Page 30 and 31: BIGOT, Prof. [A. P. D. (1863-1953)l
Page 32 and 33: numbers of specimens, and have labe
Page 34 and 35: Fig. 18. Sylvia Humphrey matching s
Page 36 and 37: in August 1985) the particular stre
Page 38 and 39: Eliot, W. 1871. List of Field Clubs
Page 40 and 41: Tatlow, J. 1821. Memoirs of John Ta
Page 42 and 43: The BM(NH) set has a note from C. I
Page 44 and 45: comparison of his ideas on fossils

Number 5 - Geological Curators Group

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