Tag Archives for Historical collections

Living in Spirits: The Molecular Revival of Fluid Collections

Written by Dr Shea (Tiffany) Slater, Taphonomist, Experimental Officer, University College Cork.

Valuable Biodiversity Archives

Fluid-preserved collections are increasingly valued as long-term biodiversity archives that can help us understand environmental change and biodiversity loss. Spirit collections contain specimens from taxonomic groups that are now of considerable conservation interest, including lampreys, seahorses, sharks and other ecologically important or understudied species. These specimens have traditionally been used for taxonomic and morphological study but are increasingly recognised as valuable molecular resources.

While recently collected specimens stored in ethanol are widely known to preserve DNA, formalin-preserved specimens have long been considered unsuitable for genomic research. In recent years, however, researchers have shown that genomic data can be recovered from many of these specimens using bespoke extraction protocols for highly altered DNA. These advances have helped unlock millions of museum specimens for molecular research, with recent studies exploring historical microbiomes and genome expression through time.

Historic sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) preserved in fluid held in the University College Cork Natural Collections.

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Where are the Women? Uncovering Hidden Connections to Calke Abbey’s Natural History Collection

Written by Julie Griffith, Property Experience Curator, Calke Abbey, National Trust.

Exploring the stories of Selina (1822-1905), Georgiana (1824-1910) and Matilda (1831-1899) Lovell, uncovers three curious and accomplished women. With interests in botany and conchology and stretching from Derbyshire to Australia, their story is of both individual achievement and natural history connecting sisters across the globe.

With existing narratives around Calke Abbey’s natural history collection overwhelmingly male focussed, recent research into the three Lovell sisters aims to bring women’s stories and connections to natural history into the spotlight at this country house property.

Selina Lovell (1822-1905). Credit: National Trust/David Midgelow
Georgiana Lovell (1824-1910). Credit: National Trust/Ian Buxton, David Midgelow and Brian Birch
Matilda Lovell (1831-1899). AI created image

Who were the Lovell sisters?

The Lovell sisters were closely related to the Harpur Crewe family of Calke Abbey through their mother, Selina Crewe (d.1838), a daughter of Sir Henry, Calke’s 7th Baronet and Nanny, Lady Crewe. Their father, Vice-Admiral William Stanhope Lovell (c.1788-1859) was a distinguished naval officer and veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar.

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Micro to Macro: Modelling and Magnifying Insects

Written by Maria Dragoi, PhD Candidate, UCL Institute of Archaeology & NHM Science.

Insects are very numerous, and very small. Their ubiquity and importance has meant that they need to be addressed in natural history galleries, but their minute size and fragile nature can make this a challenge. Various techniques have been developed to represent insects in galleries, including projection, illustration, and sculpture. This blog looks at model making as a technique used to enlarge insects for public displays at the Natural History Museum in London in the 20th century. It reflects on what magnification as a representation and display tactic does to how we construct a relationship with an insect.

I think something that’s important to remember about when we interact with insect models is that we know and recognise them as such. We are aware that they are not the thing in itself, but a representation of it. What we don’t often realise is that there needs to be a cultural schema around us for us to know and understand these things as representations. There’s some really interesting research by Pauline Kusiak on the use of projections to teach West African communities about the dangers of malaria in the early twentieth century. French Christian missionaries used new projection technology in order to show enlarged images of mosquitoes and their larvae to create awareness within these communities about the transmission of disease. At first it didn’t go very well, because the people that were shown the projections didn’t understand them as such. They told the French missionaries they clearly had no idea what was going on, because what they had shown was huge, a monster, whereas the insects that were known by communities to cause a problem were very small. Before using the model, or projection, as an educational tactic, the missionaries realised they first had to build up an understanding of what their representation technology was.

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From Dioramas to The Red List: Conserving Felbrigg Hall’s Taxidermy Birds for a New Conservation Story.

Written by Louise Green, Project Manager and Collections & House Manager, Felbrigg Hall, National Trust, and Martha Infray, Regional Conservator, National Trust.

Introduction

The Bird Corridor at Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, houses a nationally significant natural history collection. Consisting of taxidermy bird dioramas collected by Thomas Wyndham Cremer (1834-1894), the displays document many of the resident and migratory bird species historically found in East Anglia.

Created by renowned nineteenth-century taxidermists Gunn of Norwich and Pratt of Brighton, the dioramas are a first-hand resource documenting the ornithological scene in East Anglia during the 19th-century.

Following the successful completion of the first Phase of conservation treatment in 2025, the second and final phase is nearing completion, with only two weeks of treatment remaining this autumn.

Historic label by Thomas Gunn, attached to the back of a diorama © National Trust/ Rob Coleman

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A Mammoth Task: Stabilising and Protecting Fossil Mammal Specimens in a Sustainable and Access-friendly Way for a Large-scale Collections Move.

Written by Lydia Amies, Caitlin Jenkins, Emanuele Casafredda, Lucia Petrera, Tanya Nakamoto and Fabiana Portoni, Natural History Museum, London.

The Natural History Museum, London (NHM) is moving a third of its collection (28 million) specimens to a to a new, purpose-built centre at Thames Valley Science Park near Reading. Under the umbrella of the Unlocked Programme a new facility is being designed and built to house natural history specimens, research laboratories, working space, and digitisation facilities. The project started in 2020 and the moves stage will commence in 2028.

The Unlocked Conservation Team is working to assess, treat and stabilise at-risk specimens that are due to move. Our focus is to futureproof collection storage while using materials in a sustainable and cost-effective way. Our work will improve access to the collections and enable safe handling of specimens. One of the largest and most complex collections we are working on is the Fossil Mammal Collection which is made up of a wide variety of species, from tiny extinct rodents to woolly mammoths.

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