«J 
Ipswich Museum. 6 
IPSWICH MUSEUM. 
On Thursday the 13th December was celebrated the second Anni- 
versary of this very promising Institution. By half-past twelve there 
was a very numerous and respectable assemblage, when the Rev. 
Samuel Hinds, D.D., Lord Bishop of Norwich, entered, accompanied 
by the Rev. Robert Eden, M.A., F.S.A., his Lordship’s Chaplain, 
the Revds. the Professors Sedgwick and Henslow, the Rev. E. Sidney, 
the Hoa. and Rev. F. De Grey, the Rev. A. B. Power, the following 
Fellows of the Linnean, Geological, Astronomical and Zoological 
Societies, Mr. G. Ransome, Mr. May, Mr. John Gould, Mr. Richard 
Taylor, Capt. Ibbetson, Mr. G. Waterhouse, Mr. J. S. Bowerbank, 
Mr. L. Reeve and other gentlemen, several of whom were most hos- 
pitably entertained during their stay in Ipswich by G. Ransome, Esq., 
and C. May, Esq. 
The Bishop of Norwich having taken the chair addressed the 
meeting as follows :—Mr. Kirby, the time-honoured President of 
this Institution, being unable to attend as usual, it has fallen to my 
lot to occupy the chair. Before entering on the business of the day, 
however, permit me to express the great gratification I feel at the 
opportunity which this meeting has afforded me of introducing myself 
to some sort of acquaintance with a great number of those among 
whom my lot is now cast, and whose welfare it will be my duty 
henceforward, as well as, I assure you, my earnest desire, to pro- 
mote in every possible way. I may be permitted to express, at the 
same time, my sympathy with the sadder feeling which, no doubt, 
my occupancy of this chair today will have awakened in the minds of 
many, who remember their connection with one who is now no more ; 
one who was not only a zealous friend of the Ipswich Museum, but 
an ardent supporter and patron of every enterprise which had for its 
object the intellectual advancement and the moral elevation of his 
fellow-men. I regret that my habits and pursuits but ill qualify me to 
- contribute to this meeting the enlivening anecdote and the interesting 
information which he, on these occasions, always had at command, from 
the stores of his own observation, and from his researches in a parti- 
cular branch of Natural History ; but I wish to assure you that Iam 
not the less alive to the value of this Museum and of Museum meet- 
ings, especially a Museum which is the resort and the property of the 
humbler classes, of the artisan, the mechanic, the mere day work- 
ing man. That I believe is the distinctive feature of this Institu- 
tion. I know of no other characterized in the same manner. Now, 
I conceive this to be a very interesting point of view. No question, 
perhaps, at this moment, is more important, socially and morally, 
than the question, how the humbler classes of our brethren, those 
who have to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow,— 
how they are to employ their little leisure time, so as at once to 
make it available for the relaxation and recreation that are necessary 
for them, and, at the same time, to be improving themselves? A 
museum appears to me to combine the two objects most excellently ; 
it is amusing and it is instructive. The objects which they find in 
the Museum, together with the instruction which they derive from 
Bx 
