The BSA stalagmite collection

[mikem]

In the database, if you click on "Object name(s)" you do get more details - although the Craven museum's "Collection of stalagmites, stalagtites and flowstones" doesn't tell you much, all other samples there come from:
Cheddar & Lebanon - Pittaway Collection
Windegg Mine - Butterfield Collection
Unknown location - Bedford/Tottie Collection
North Yorkshire, Nenthead & unknowns - Raistrick Mineral Collection
Cheddar & unknowns - Hutchinson Geology Collection
Mother shipton's, nenthead & unknown - Backhouse Mineral Collection
Derbyshire & unknown - Welbury Holgate Mineral Collection

They do, however, have two Large box(es) of "cave pearls", and other geological samples, from British Speleological Assoc. - Stump Cross Caverns (expedition to Greenhow Hill), pearls listed under speleothem

 

[mikem]

Latter are mentioned in pitlamp's first post from Saturday 30th May (although the database doesn't include any tools, and the curator didn't mention other samples). N.B. craven museum is Skipton town hall

The Science museum group only has 9 items under stalactite (all from industrial sites), whilst none appear under other headings - they definitely have more than that, so majority does appear to be uncatalogued.

 

[Jenny P]

I did contact the Buxton Museum at the beginning of June and received a reply from the Assistant Collections Officer as follows:

Unfortunately, I cannot find any evidence that this collection is a part of Buxton Museum. I’ve looked at our digital database and through our paper records for geology/1970s and cannot find anything
that links to your enquiry. The name Eli Simpson doesn’t appear anywhere either and a lot of the geological collections we have are known by their depositors name so again feels like a sign that collection didn’t come in to us.

I’ve not heard of a ‘Geological Museum’, but I don’t know whether you’ve already contacted the National Stone Centre which is based near Matlock? - The National Stone Centre.

If you do come across anything else that links it to Buxton Museum let me know and I
can see if I can trace anything else. It could just be that the Museum helped with
moving it to another collection. If a lot of the items are from Yorkshire Dales it might
have headed to a collection closer to there?

I did specifically say to the Buxtom Museum that the items could be listed under British Speleological Association or under Eli Simpson. (I referred in my original enquiry to the "Geological Museum", meaning the branch of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, as earlier enquiries had drawn a blank there.)

So it does seem that the Buxton Museum is quite definite that they do not hold any of the BSA/Simpson collection.

I have seen the collections at the National Stone Centre and there doesn't appear to be anythng recorded as being from either BSA or Simpson.

The original suggestion in the BSA Minute from 1947-8 is that Simpson's collection be donated to "the Geological Museum", so I had always assumed this referred to the South Ken. branch of the Natural History Museum.

I'll keep on searching ...

 

[martinr]

"the Geological Museum", so I had always assumed this referred to the South Ken. branch of the Natural History Museum.

As in:

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

maps.app.goo.gl

Note also the date of AD 1933, it didn't become part of the Natural History Museum until (i think) 1985. So in 1948 if you said "the geolocial musuem" you meant this institution

 

[Jenny P]

As in:

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

maps.app.goo.gl

Note also the date of AD 1933, it didn't become part of the Natural History Museum until (i think) 1985. So in 1948 if you said "the geolocial musuem" you meant this institution

Your pictures are of the "Science Museum", not the "Geological Museum" - they are two quite different places. The Geological Museum, when I last visited some 20+ years ago, had case after case of mineral specimens, including some stalactites, -mites, flowstone, cave pearls, etc. Definitely no machinery or owt like that. It was quite a small place compared to the Natural History and Science museums. I know there was also the Aeronautical Museum just around the corner and the Commonwealth Institute down the road (just the place if you wanted to see a diorama of Nova Scotia).

 

[martinr]

Your pictures are of the "Science Museum", not the "Geological Museum" - they are two quite different places. The Geological Museum, when I last visited some 20+ years ago, had case after case of mineral specimens, including some stalactites, -mites, flowstone, cave pearls, etc. Definitely no machinery or owt like that. It was quite a small place compared to the Natural History and Science museums. I know there was also the Aeronautical Museum just around the corner and the Commonwealth Institute down the road (just the place if you wanted to see a diorama of Nova Scotia).

My picture is one of the entrances to what is now the NHM

In 1948 this building WAS the Geological Museum. This is the inscription over the entrance

It was still known as "The Geological Museum" when I was visiting it in the 1970s, it beacme part of the NHM in about 1985

I'm just trying to support your view that "the Geological Museum", refers to the South Ken. branch of the Natural History Museum.

 

[langcliffe]

I think it was amalgamated with the Natural History Museum. I was there earlier this year, and it was very disappointing.

 

[martinr]

it was amalgamated with the Natural History Museum.

Yes, in about 1985

To comment further on JP's post a little while ago, The Geological Museum was not the same building as The Science Museum, which is a little further along the road, to the right. You can still see the original inscriptions from appox 1930s in Google Street View

For the Geological Museum it's 1933:

 

[Jenny P]

Yes, in about 1985

To comment further on JP's post a little while ago, The Geological Museum was not the same building as The Science Museum, which is a little further along the road, to the right. You can still see the original inscriptions from appox 1930s in Google Street View

For the Geolocical Museum it's 1933:

View attachment 26771

 

[Jenny P]

This area was my favourite stamping ground when I was a teenager living in the wilds of darkest Surrey in the 1950's. All the museums were free and I could catch a train from where I lived in Worcester Park to get to South Kensington and spend the whole of Saturday wandering round the various museums in the area. That's how I came across the Commonwealth Institute and its dioramas - quite fascinating. (Don't know if that museum still exists now - probably not.) I think the Aeronautical Museum may have amalgamated with the Science Museum now but that had aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling - a big thrill 'cos I loved planes.

As a teacher in the 1970's and 80's I used to take school parties by coach from Derbyshire down to the Science Museum (the best for the 11- and 12-year olds because of all the buttons you could press and handles you could twiddle !) and the Natural History Museum. We never visited the Geological Museum bcause most of the kids would have considered it boring: no big animals, no skeletons and no buttons to push.

 

[martinr]

..The Geological Museum, when I last visited some 20+ years ago, had case after case of mineral specimens, including some stalactites, -mites, flowstone, cave pearls, etc. Definitely no machinery or owt like that.

Ah, I see what happened. Google decided to add the images of machinery from the Science Museum to my Street View link. What I was trying to show was the inscription above the entrance, which says Geological Museum AD 1933

To repeat, I'm trying to support your view that The Geological Museum 1933 is now part of what we know as the NHM. I believe if someone referenced The Geological Museum in 1948, then they meant this building / institute from 1933, and if a donation was made to The Geological Museum in 1948, this is the building where it would have been deposited, and the items are likely to be part of the NHM collection now?

 

[mikem]

Yes, they moved in during 1935:

Geological Museum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is also a bit more about it in:

Natural History Museum, London - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Somewhere else with a geological collection:

Geology | Yorkshire Museum

www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk

Geology in Yorkshire's museums - MediaWiki

earthwise.bgs.ac.uk

Geological Museum - MediaWiki

earthwise.bgs.ac.uk

BGS also have 1867 and 1964 guides to geological museum exhibits:

Geological Museum, Museum of Practical Geology - a short guide to the exhibits (1964 edition) - MediaWiki

earthwise.bgs.ac.uk