Number 5 - Geological Curators Group

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Gcolap,rcal Curator, Vol .5, No.5. 1990 (for 1988), ppCO1.I.ECTIONS. COLI.F.CTURS AND MUSEUMS OF NOTE. NO. 55GEOLOGICAL COLLECTORS AND MUSEUMS IN CHELTENHAMA CASE HISTORY AND ITS LESSONSBY HUGH S. TORRENS AND MlCHAEb A. TAYLOR'Society is very good here - if Lords andBaronets can constitute such. I generally meet10 or a dozen of the latter and 6 or 8 of theformer every evening'! C. H. Parry October 1808[Bodleian Library Eng. Misc. d 612 p.611.INTRODUCTIONThe geological treasures of at least parts ofthe Cotswolds had already attracted seventeenthcentury collectors (Torrens 1982) but becamemore widely known with the development ofRegency Cheltenham. This was especially soafter the end of the Napoleonic Wars, whenCheltenham became a nationally andinternationally known spa attracting numerousvisitors and longer term residents (Hart 1965;Ashton 1983). William Smith (1769-1839), whosework on stratigraphical palaeontologyrevolutionised the study and search for fossils,had coloured in the geological strata on a mapof the surroundings of Cheltenham soon after itspublication in 1812 (Cox 1942, p.9). He alsodescribed a number of Inferior Oolite fossilsfrom localities in the immediate vicinity, suchas Crickley Hill (Smith 1817, pp.95, 98, 104) orDawdeswell Hill (G. d., p.107).Some of the first fossils in the Sowerbys'Mineral Concholopy, the major work on Britishfossils which was inspired by Smith'sactivities, came from the Cotswolds (e.g.Sowerby 1813, p.47). Many of these specimenswere sent to James Sawerhy hy an enthusiasticcollector named Richard Cowling Taylor(1789-1851). Taylor had been trained as a landsurveyor between July 1805 and 1811 atStaw-on-the-Wold under Edward Webb (1751-1828),as had William Smith earlier (Gents Mag. NS X,1852, pp. 201-205, 218). Taylor then became oneof Smith's pupils as well, to emphasise theclose connections between the three.These pioneers started off the long and highlyepisodic history of geological collectors andcollections in Cheltenham. This story startswith the early commercial shaps-cum-museums,formed as the first 'Cheltenham Museums' in the1810s. The Cheltenham Literary andPhilosophical Institution of 1833-1861, acharacteristic private joint-stock institution,served the upper and middle classes, and some ofthe working classes following its amalgamationwith the Cheltenham Institute in 1844-1845(13th Report CLPI, p.6). Some members of thisinstitution regrauped to form the CheltenhamWorking Naturalists' Association of 1861 (after1867 the Cheltenham Naturalists' Association).Increasing costs, decreasing interest and theimprovements in public transport had all allowedthe increasingly popular Cotteswold Naturalists'Field Club of 1846 to put paid to theInstitution. Another mid century developmentwas the foundation of the Colleges of St Pauland St Mary in 1849 (Hart 1965, p.213). Themid-Victorian Public Schools, with theirorganised Naturalists' Societies (so differentfrom Charles Darwin's earlier anarchicbug-hunting at school) are represented by one ofthe first, the Cheltenham College and itsmuseum, now completely dispersed, hut whichabsorbed most of these earlier collections.Cheltenham Ladies' College too had its ownmuseum. In the late nineteenth century andearly twentieth century new social thought andcivic legislation gave Cheltenham the presentArt Gallery and Museum, and a Teacher TrainingCollege (from the amalgamated Colleges of StPaul and St Mary) which both had - and stillhave - collections formed more or lessindependently of the earlier ones. The presentCheltenham Museum's collection was actively usedand added to in the early twentieth century butlater lapsed into disuse and neglect. It hasrecently been revived under a scheme of pastoralcuration.Thus the story of Cheltenham's geologicalcollections, with obligatory Commercial Museumsfound in such resorts, its Literary andPhilosophical Institution, and moreWorking-Class Societies, Public Schools, CivicMuseum and now a College of Further Education,repeats in one town the major themes and trendsof British provincial natural sciencecollections over the last 200 years (Allen1976; Brears 1984; Lewis 1984a, h; Foster1984). Sadly, as in so many other cases, it isalso a story of the accumulation and thenneglect, dispersal and loss of what were onceimportant collections of fossils and minerals.[Note. In what follows HST deals with allnineteenth century collections (the firstMuseums, Institution, Naturalists' Associationand Natural Science Society, Ladies College andCheltenham College's collections and theirdispersal) while MAT deals with those of thetwentieth century (including the present ArtGallery and Museum and the College of St Pauland St Mary) and discusses the lessons for thefuture to be drawn from recent pastoral curationat the Art Gallery and Museum. Far more remainsto he discovered and any information will hegratefully received by the authors, especiallyconcerning the fates of more recently disperseditems. l
Abbreviations used in this article: AMCSW, AreaMuseum Council for the South West; BM(NH),British Museum (Natural History); BRSMG,Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery; CCNHS,Cheltenham Colleee Natural Historv Societv: ..CHLGM, Cheltenham Art Galleries and Museum;CLPI, Cheltenham Literarv and PhilosophicalInstitution; CNFC, ~otteswold ~aturaiists FieldClub; a, Newsletter of the Geolo~ical<strong>Curators</strong>' Groue, laler The Gcolueical Curotor;Glos N&O, Gloucesrershire Notes and Oueries;OUM, Oxford University Museum; Revort, Reportsof the CCNHS; ~evort CHLGM, Renorts ofCheltenham Art Gallerv Subcommittee;m, Annual Reports of the CLPI.TATLOW MUSEUMBy the time Smith's discoveries were encouragingthe search for fossils in the Cotswolds,Cheltenham had become an early provincial centrefor the sale of geological material tovisitors. Smith's influence here was widelyspread before his own publications appeared(from 1815 on) through the publications ofothers and the dissemination of his ideas fromthe Bath area by word of mouth (from 1799).Apart from the active collecting of Cheltenhamfossils by people like his pupil R. C. Taylor,another Smithian geologist was busydisseminating his ideas at Cheltenham. This wasCharles Henry Parry (1779-1860) who set up inmedical practice here, from Bath, in June 1807.Following the announcement that 'coals' had beenfound in sinking a well there (Bath andCheltenham Gazette, 8 June 1814; BathChronicle, 9 June; Cheltenham Chronicle,16 June), Parry - who was well informed onSmithian geology through his father (Tarrens1979h, pp.221-222) - urged caution in attemptsto mine such 'coal' in the Cheltenham area, bothbecause of possible damage to the CheltenhamWaters and on scientific grounds (CheltenhamChronicle, 30 June 1814).As at Bath (on which many of the social stimulifor the development of Cheltenham seem to havebeen modelled), the first Cheltenham 'museums'were clearly forms of commercial speculation(Tarrens 1979b, pp. 226-227). Such operationsare often very badly recorded. The first atCheltenham may have been the 'Cheltenham Museumof Natural and Artificial Curiosities', openedin 1810 bv the Finnish artist Jacob Spornberg -(1768 - pbst 1840) (Cheltenham ~hronikle,16 August, 11 October 1810; Blake 1984a, p.14;McKechnie 1971).The first such properly geological 'museum' inCheltenham was purpose-built and opened in 1816by John Mawe (1766-1829), the mineralogist andtraveller, and his new son-in-law Anthony Tatlow(1789-1828) (Tatlow 1821) in highly fashionableMontpelier Walk, Cheltenham (Blake 1984b). BothMawe and Tatlow had come from Derbyshire(Torrens 1989) and, since Mawe's similarestablishment at 149 Strand in London was bythen flourishing, they decided, after Mawe'sdaughter Sarah Ann married Anthony Tatlow in1815, to establish a similar enterprise inFig. 1. Label (80 x 48 mm.) on the base of apaperweight supplied c.1830 by the MaweMuseum in Cheltenham (HST collection).Cheltenham. They soon had another at MatlockBath in Derbyshire (flontblv Maaazine 44, 1817,p.125).By 1823 the Mawe and Tatlow Museum was the onlyone listed in the C h e l t e n h a m y (Pigot1822, p.50), while by 1826 it was under Royalpatronage (Griffith 1826, p.283 and plate) and'an object of universal attraction'. In July1828 Tatlow died and the Museum became simplyMawe's Museum (Goding 1863, p.319). It sold awide variety of geological specimens andornamental materials as souvenirs, many made ofinlaid Derbyshire and foreign marbles, which arelisted in their advertisement in the CheltenhamJournal for 17 August 1829, p.3. One, apaperweight in HST's possession, carries theoriginal engraved label of the Museum, c.1830Fig.1) The range of goods offered for sale atMawe's shops can also be seen in the advertisingmaterial inserted at the end of Mawe (1832)issued after Mawe's death in 1829, when hiswidow Sarah Mawe (1767-1846) continued thebusiness (Davies 1834, p.166).In February 1840 their former assistant inLondon, James Tennant (1808-1881), bought outthe Mawe business in London (British Museumarchives, CE4/22 - 8 May 1840), whileWilliam Adam (c.1794-1873) and his brotherJaseph Adam (died 1870) took over the MaweMuseums in Cheltenham and Matlock in 1839(Cheltenham Looker On, 18 May 1839, p.320). Butthe Adams met with limited success financially(Ford 1973) and the Cheltenham Museum - by nowknown as the Royal Museum - was closed in 1843(Acit.,6 May 1843, p.281) and its contentssold by auction between April and October ofthat year (d.,15 April 1843, p.238; 30September 1843, p.610). It was then demolishedto make way for the Montpellier Exchange(Cheltenham, 22 July 1843, p.228).The Matlock business continued until December1850 when Highmore Rosser of Bakewell wrote totell Sir Henry de la Beche (1796-1855) of Adams'bankruptcy and of the sale, 'when it is thoughteverything will go cheap', of its contents(De la Beche archive, National Museum of Wales,Cardiff).
Page 2 and 3: THE GEOLOGICAL CURATORVOLUME 5. N0.
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 28 and 29: specimens as such. Only a few speci
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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