Australian Museum (1827 - )

Summary

Established in 1827, the Australian Museum is Australia's oldest museum. This is in part why it uses Australian instead of New South Wales in its name. It is not a Federal or national museum, the National Museum of Australia was not established until 1980 in Canberra. The museum focuses on natural history and anthropology, including areas such as invertebrate and vertebrate zoology, mineralogy and palaeontology. The museum occupied a number of temporary locations before moving to its present site in 1849.

Details

From their Web site, May 2002: "The Australian Museum has an international reputation in the fields of natural history and indigenous studies research, community programs and exhibitions. The Museum was established in 1827 and is Australia's first museum, with unique and extensive collections of natural science and cultural artefacts."

Related entries

Published resources

Books

• Anon, Guide to the contents of the Australian Museum (Sydney: Australian Museum, 1883), 56 pp. Details
• Atkins, Brenda, The naturalist: the remarkable life of Allan Riverstone McCulloch (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2022), 208 pp. Details
• Bennett, George, A catalogue of specimens of natural history and miscellaneous curiosities deposited in the Australian Museum (Sydney: James Tegg, printer, 1837), 71 pp. Details
• Bennett, K. H., Descriptive list of Australian Aboriginal weapons, implements, etc. from the Darling and Lachlan Rivders in the Australian Museum (Sydney: Australian Museum, 1887), 8 pp. Details
• Buddin, Marguerite; Organ, Michael; Trott, Louise, A Guide to the Australian Museum Archives (Sydney: Australian Museum, 1988), 91 pp. Details
• Finney, Vanessa, Capturing nature: early scientific photography at the Australian Museum 1857 - 1893 (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2019), 199 pp. Details
• Khan, K., Catalogue of the Roth Collection of Aboriginal artefacts from north Queensland, volume II: items collected from Cairns, Cape Bedford, Cape Grafton, Cape Melville, Cardwell, Clump Point, Coen, Cooktown, Dunk Island, False Cape, Flinders Island, Hambledon, Herberton, Hinchinbrook Island, Ingham, Innisfail, Johnstone River, Kuranda, in 1887 - 1904 (Sydney: Australian Museum, 1996), 189 pp. Details
• Khan, K., Catalogue of the Roth Collection of Aboriginal artefacts from north Queensland, volume III: items collected from McDonnell Electric Telegraph Office, McIvor River, Mapoon and the Pennfeather and Wenlock Rivers, Maytown, Mitchell River, Morehead River, Moreton Electric Telegraph Office and Musgrave in 1897 - 1903 (Sydney: Australian Museum, 2003), 106 pp. Details
• Khan, K., Catalogue of the Roth Collection of Aboriginal artefacts from north Queensland, volume IV: items collected from Nassau River, Night Island, Palmer River, Peak Point Electric Telegraph Office, Princess Charlotte Bay, Staaten River, Starcke River, Tinaroo, Tully River, Vanrook and Weipa (Embley River) in 1896 - 1903 (Sydney: Australian Museum, 2004), 112 pp. Details
• Krefft, Gerard, Catalogue of the minerals and rocks in the collection of the Australian Museum (Sydney: Government Printer, 1873), 115 pp. Details
• Strahan, Ronald, Rare and curious specimens: an illustrated history of the Australian Museum, 1827-1979 (Sydney: Australian Museum, 1979), 173 pp. Details
• Walkom, A. B., Guide to the Australian Museum and its contents (Sydney: Trustees of the Australian Museum, 1941), 127 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Attenbrow, V.; and Kahn, K., 'F. D. McCarthy his work and legacy at the Australian Museum' in Archaeology in the north: proceedings of the 1993 Australian Archaeological Association Conference, Sullivan, M., Brockwell, S. and Webb, A., eds (Darwin: North Australian Research Unit, Australian National University, 1994), pp. 5-16. Details
• Attenbrow, Val, 'Ethnographic and Archaeological Collections by FD McCarthy in the Australian Museum' in The Makers and Making of Indigenous Australian Museum Collections, Peterson, Nicolas, Allen, Lindy and Hamby, Louise, eds (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2008), pp. 472-507. Details
• Boles, W. E., '180 Years of Stuff[ed] Birds: Ornithology at the Australian Museum, Sydney' in Contributions to Contributions to the History of Australasian Ornithology, volume 2, Davis, William E., Recher, Harry F. and Boles, Walter E., eds (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Nuttall Ornithological Club, 2012), pp. 141-266. Details
• Hutchings, Pat A, 'Foundations of Australian Science, Sydney's Natural History Legacy, and the Place of the Australian Museum' in The Natural History of Sydney, Lunney, Daniel, Hutchings, Pat A and Hochuli, Dieter, eds (Mosman, N.S.W.: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 2010), pp. 74-89. Details
• Kahn, Kate, 'The Man Who Collected Everything: WE Roth' in The Makers and Making of Indigenous Australian Museum Collections, Peterson, Nicolas, Allen, Lindy and Hamby, Louise, eds (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2008), pp. 163-86. Details
• Khan, K., 'The life and times of Walter Roth in north Queensland: the first Protector, the Australian Museum and scandal' in The Roth family, anthropology and colonial administration, McDougall, R. and Davidson, I., eds (Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, 2008), pp. 181-91. Details
• Paxton, J. R.; and McGrouther, M. A., 'A history of the fish collection at the Australian Museum (1860-1968), with a summary of current Australian fish collections' in Collection Building in Ichthyology and Herpetology, Peitsch, T. W.; and Anderson, W., eds (Lawrence, Kansas: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 1997), pp. 183-205. Details
• Whitley, G. P.; Rutledge, Martha, 'Krefft, Johann Ludwig (Louis) Gerard (1830-1881), zoologist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 5: 1851 - 1890 K-Q, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1974), pp. 42-44. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A050051b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• 'Australian Museum and its Activities', Australian Natural History, 14 (1962), 116-129. Details
• Branagan, David F., 'Samuel Stutchbury and the Australian Museum', Records of the Australian Museum. Supplement, 15 (1992), 99-110. Details
• Chalmers, Oliver, 'Minerals in the Australian Museum - 1901 to 1945', Records of the Australian Museum, supplement, 15 (1992), 111-28. Details
• Chalmers, R. O., 'The A. D. Combe mineral collection', Australian Museum Magazine, 9 (5) (1974), 147-8. Details
• Chalmers, R. O., 'The history of the Department of Mineralogy, Australian Museum, part 1, 1827-1901', Journal of the Mineralogical Society of New South Wales, 1 (1979), 13-21. Details
• Davies, Susan M., 'Andrew Goldie: His Ethnological Collecting and Collections', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Culture, 6 (2012), 129-61. Details
• Etheridge, R., 'The Australian Museum. Fragments of its Early History', Records of the Australian Museum, xi, xii (1916), 67-79; 339-399. Details
• Kaus, David, 'It is a Treat at Any Time to Study Nature: an Introduction to the Collections of Herbert Basedow', Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter, 138 (2009), 7-18 . Details
• Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory, 'Australian Museums of Natural History: Public Priorities and Scientific Initiatives in the 19th Century', Historical Records of Australian Science, 5 (4) (1983), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9830540001. Details
• Lahn, Julie, 'The 1836 Lewis Collection and the Torres Strait Turtle-Shell Mask of Kulka: From Loss to Re-engagement', Journal of Pacific History, 48 (2013), 386-408. Details
• Leeuwen, Michael Van, 'This Plan of a Museum: Alexander Macleay's Proposal for the Australian Museum', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 78 (3-4) (1992), 39-51. Details
• McMichael, D. F., 'Scientific Research at the Australian Museum', Australian Natural History, 14 (1963), 165-168. Details
• Pogson, Ross, Sutherland, F. Lin and Webb, Gayle, 'The mineralogical collection of the Australian Museum', Australian Journal of Mineralogy, 6 (2) (2000), 51-8. Details
• Rainbow, W. A., 'Brief History of the Australian Museum', The Australian Museum Magazine, 1 (1922), 167-170. Details
• Stephens, Matthew, 'From Lost Property to Explorer's Relics: the Rediscovery of the Personal Library of Ludwig Leichhardt', Historical Records of Australian Science, 18 (2) (2007), 191-227, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR07008. Details
• Stephens, Matthew, '"A scientific library of some value": an early history of the Australian Museum Library', Australian Library Journal, 56 (3/4) (2007), 302-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049670.2007.10722424. Details
• Strahan, Ronald, 'The Dog that Did Not Bark: Alexander Macleay and the Australian Museum', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 75 (3) (1989), 224-229. Details
• Turnbull, Paul, '"Ramsay's regime": the Australian Museum and the procurement of Aboriginal bodies, c. 1874 - 1900', Aboriginal history, 15 (2) (1991), 108-21. Details
• Turnbull, Paul, 'Australian museums, Aboriginal skeletal remains, and the imagining of human evolutionary history', Museum & society, 13 (1) (2015), 72-87. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v13i1.318. Details
• Van Leeuwen, Michael, 'Simon Rood Pittard (1821-1861), Curator of the Australian Museum', Archives of Natural History, 25 (1) (1998), 9-24. Details
• Ville, Simon, 'Researching the natural history trade of the nineteenth cenury', Museum history journal, 13 (1) (2020), 8-19. Details
• Ville, Simon; Wright, Claire; and Philip, Jude, 'Macleay's choice: transacting the natural history trade in the nineteenth century', Journal of the history of biology, 53 (3) (2020), 345-75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-2020-09610-9. Details
• Whitley, G. P., 'The late W. E. J. Paradice and the Australian Museum', Australian Museum magazine, 3 (5) (1928), 169-70. Details
• Whitley, G. P., 'The Life and Work of Gerard Krefft', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (1958), 21-34. Details
• Whitley, G. P., 'William Holmes the Australian Museum's First Custodian', The Australian Museum Magazine, 13 (1961), 306. Details
• Whitley, G. P., 'The First Hundred Years', Australian Natural History, 14 (4) (1962), 111-115. Details
• Whitley, G. P., 'John Lhotsky and the Australian Museum', Australian Natural History, 15 (3) (1965), 92-96. Details
• Whitley, G. P., 'William Sheridan Wall and the Australian Museum', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (1965), 42-44. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q769416. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/143064566. Details
• Reverend George Brown Pacific islands phhotographs, Australian Museum, Sydney, 2018. https://australian.museum/learn/cultures/pacific-collection/photographic/reverend-george-brown-pacific-islands-photographs/. Details
• Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-458429. Details

See also

• Dr Frank Hamilton Talbot, Director 1966-1975, 2019. https://australian.museum/about/history/people/dr-frank-hamilton-talbot-director-1966-1975/. Details
• Allen, Joyce K., 'Shells in the Waterhouse collection', Australian Museum magazine, 5 (2) (1933), 29-43. Details
• Anon, 'The Elston entomological collection', Australian Museum magazine, 6 (3) (1936), 104. Details
• Anon, 'Charles Anderson', Records of the Australian Museum, 21 (6) (1945), 279-82. Details
• Bridges, Peter; McDonald, Don, James Barnet, colonial architect (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1988), 144 pp. Details
• Chalmers, R. O., 'Thomas Hodge-Smith', Records of the Australian Museum, 21 (7) (1946), 377-9. Details
• Coltheart, Leonore ed., Significant sites: History and public works in New South Wales (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1989), 192 pp. Details
• Hodge-Smith, T., 'The late George Smith', Records of the Australian Museum, 21 (6) (1945), 283-5. Details
• Howes, Hilary; Jones, Tristen; and Spriggs, Matthew eds, Uncovering Pacific pasts: histories of archaeology in Oceania (Canberra: ANU Press, 2022), 577 pp. http://doi.org/10.22459/UPP.2021. Details
• Pelayo, Francisco, 'Hermann Klaatsch and his photographic representations of Australian aborigines during his scientific trip through Australia (1904-1907', Culture & history digital journal, 12 (1) (2023), 14. https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2023.008. Details
• Pybus, Cassandra, A very secret trade: the dark story of gentlemen collectors in Tasmania (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2024), 318 pp. https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Cassandra-Pybus-Very-Secret-Trade-9781761066344. Pages 225, 254. Details
• Stehlik, Brigitte, 'Hermann Klaatsch and the Tiwi, 1906', Aboriginal history journal, 10 (1986), 59-77. http://doi.org/10.22459/AH.10.2011.06. Details
• Vallance, T. G., 'Arthur Bache Walkom 1889-1976 (Memorial series No.25)', Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 102 (3) (1978), 148-55. Details