eS eee eeeEt- 

Bulletin 
of the 
Liverpool Museums 
UNDER THE CITY COUNCIL. 

Edited by H. O. Forbes, LL.D., Director of Museums. 

Vou. I. OCTOBER, 1808. Nos. 3 AND 4. 

The New Museums Extension Buildings. 
Laying of the Foundation Stone. 
THE present Museums Buildings were erected in 1860 by the late Sir W. 
Brown for the splendid Natural History collections bequeathed to the City 
of Liverpool by the XIIIth Earl of Derby in 1851. These were so extensive 
that the accommodation they required necessitated the building of what was, 
at that time, one of the largest Museums in England outside the Metropolis. 
Since that date the collections have been constantly added to, not so much 
by purchases, as by gift—some of them of the highest value—from donors 
possessing an interest in Natural Science, and appreciating, in advance of their 
time, the importance of that subject as a means of education, with the result 
that, to-day, every available foot of space in the Museums has long been occu- 
pied—every cellar even being stored to its utmost capacity—so that any 
intelligible arrangement of their contents has now become well-nigh impossible. 
Within the past decade, also, the change in the public attitude has been 
growing very rapidly towards an appreciation of Museums as institutions of 
high educational value and importance. This is due, no doubt, to the rapid 
increase of scientific and technological knowledge, and to the advocacy of 
no one in Europe so specially as Sir William Flower, who, by his writings, 
and, perhaps, principally by the methods, inaugurated by him, of displaying 
and labelling the specimens in the Natural History Museum in South 
Kensington, has made manifest, not the interest only, but the educational 
value of, the study of natural objects. The Corporation of Liverpool has 
been one of the first to recognise this advance in opinion in raising the City’s 
Museum to the position of a first-class scientific Institution, by voting the 
necessary funds for its proper support, and keeping the collections abreast 
of the stream of discovery. 
The additions—chiefly by purchase—to both the Derby and Mayer 
Museums have been within the last three or four years so specially numerous 
that since 1893 it has been evident to the Museums Sub-Committee of the 
Libraries, Museums, and Art Committee of the Council that increased space 
was urgently necessary. 
F 
