I70 



NATURE 



[December 20, 1894 



" ' Mr. Owen ' was put up on our door-plate to- 

 day. Looks most imposing," records Mrs. Owen, 

 under the date of July 22, 1S36, and it was in 

 June 1S56 that he entered upon his duties as Super- 

 intendent of the Natural History Department of the 

 British Museum. These twenty years were, perhaps, 

 the fullest of Owen's life. The boy who had begun his 

 anatomical studies in Lancaster at sixteen years of age, 

 was, some sixteen years afterwards Hunlerian Professor, 

 lecturing before brilliant audiences of grown-up men, and 

 with material to lecture about such as has seldom fallen 

 to the lot of any other man. Numerous were the works 

 published during these years, and numerous were the 

 honours conferred on him. Fully detailed lists of both, 

 occupying many pages, will be found at the close of 

 volume ii. The time was not all spent in tiresome 

 work ; Owen's social qualities were of a well-developed 

 order. We are permitted, by his wife's records of their 

 daily lives, to know of days and evenings spent in gay 

 and festive scenes. 



In chapter ix. we have a fuller account than, we think, 

 has to this been published about the daring thoughts that 

 were at one time in Owen's mind (1846) about the zoolo- 

 gical collections of the British Museum. He calls them 

 " speculations on a concentration of all zoological illus- 

 trations — living, dead, exterior, and anatomical— in one 

 great connected establishment"; but, failing such a 

 realisation, he would be satisfied if " all the recent and 

 fossil zoology of the British Museum would come to this 

 (College of Surgeons). The mineralogy would naturally 

 be transferred to the Government Museum of Economic 

 Geology," and " the British Museum would then be left 

 free for the full extension of the departments which con- 

 cern intellectual man." The last sentence was unfortu- 

 nately expressed; and within ten years, Owen's ideas— 

 possibly affected by lapse of time and change of scene- 

 had vastly changed. He thought, in 1846, Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields as central a position as Great Russell Street ; 

 afterwards, in 1856, though he liked the position in 

 Great Russell Street well, yet for the sake of space he 

 went out into the country. Perhaps, in taking note of 

 this episode, we ought also mention that in 1S48 he 

 strongly urged on his friend. Dean Buckland, the im- 

 portance of the great collection of shells, made by Hugh 

 Cuming, being purchased for the British Museum. 



At the close of the first volume there is an interesting 

 letter, dated July 17, 1854, from Charles Darwin, which 

 we do not remember to have seen before. He thanks 

 Owen for his kind appreciation of his work on the Cir- 

 ripedia. " I got so frightened at the thoughts of all the 

 seaside species, that I have not illustrated and given in 

 detail nearly enough my anatomical work, which 

 is the only part of the work which has really 

 interested me. 1 find the mere systematic part 

 infinitely tedious. 1 can, however, honestly state that 

 all I have said on the males of Ibia and Scalpellum is 

 the result of the most careful and repeated observation. 

 If i am ever proved wrong in it I shall be surprised." 



On May 26, 1856, Owen was appointed Superinten- 

 dent of the Natural History Department of the British 

 Museum, and he entered on his duties on June S follow- 

 ing. We presume that he resigned his position at the 

 College of Surgeons at the end of May, as the letter of 

 NO. 131 2. VOL. 51] 



I 



the Secretary of the College, forwarding the regrets of 

 the Council, is dated June 12, 1S56. Lord Macaulay's 

 letter to the Marquis of Lansdowne, urging that the post 

 should be made for Owen, was written in February 1S56 ; 

 so that the one scene of labour was exchanged for the 

 other almost wiih the rapidity of a transformation scene, 

 and before the end of June, Owen was examining the 

 "two collections of Mr. Hawkins— those of Dr. Mantell 

 and Mr. Koch " — in the British Museum, which in 1S46 

 he had believed to be so much out of place there. For 

 the next twenty-seven years the interests of the wonderful 

 collection were always very dear to him, and no diffi- 

 culties, no rebuffs, stopped him from carrying out his 

 plans about them to their uttermost. 



Chapter ii. of vol. ii. is devoted to the history of Owen's 

 connection with the British Museum of Natural History 

 at South Kensington. This account " is given as nearly 

 as possible in his own words, the substance being taken 

 from his address to the British Association at York in 

 18S1." It would have been well if this chapter had been 

 revised by some one with a personal knowledge of the 

 state of things existing in the Natural History Depart- 

 ment of the British Museum prior to Owen's appoint- 

 ment, or, failing this, of some one up to the traditions of 

 the place ; for though, undeniably, space was sadly wanted 

 for the proper display of the specimens, this department, 

 as a department, was scarcely " the most neglected 

 branch of the institution," nor could the condition of 

 affairs be described as "chaos. ' However, in February 

 1S59, Owen submitted his views in a report to the 

 Trustees,asking for space to display the existing specimens 

 and those that might be expected to come for a genera- 

 tion. Organised and crystallised forms, all were to be 

 now included. This report, with plans, was presented to 

 Parliament by the Trustees ; the space demanded rec|uired 

 the removal of the collections from Bloomsbury, the lime 

 had not come for so great a change, and Mr. Gregory, 

 afterwards Sir William Gregory, here referred to as an 

 "Irish Member," asked for a Committee of Inquiry, 

 which, after a pretty vigorous debate on July 22, 1S61, 

 was granted. In May 1862 there was a second stormy 

 debate in the House of Commons, led by Lord Beacons- 

 field, and the Government were refused leave, by a large 

 majority, to bring in a Bill for the removal of portions of 

 the Trustees' collections in the British Museum. Things, 

 however, changed in 1863; Sir William Gregory had 

 been made Governor of Ceylon (it is difticult to see 

 what effect this could have had on the matter), and in 

 June of that year leave was obtained by a majority of 132 

 to purchase five acres for the required Natural History 

 building. Between 1880 and 18S3 Owen was engaged 

 in superintending the removal of the specimens from 

 Bloomsbury to South Kensington, and at the close of the 

 latter year he retired from his post, the realisation of his 

 idea being attained. 



When Owen gave up the charge of the Museum of the 

 College of Surgeons, he also surrendered the Hunlerian 

 Chair ; he was thus enabled to accept the Lecturersliip on 

 Palaeontology at the Royal School of Mines, in 1857. He 

 gave his first lecture on February 26, concluding the course 

 on April 2. Mrs. Owen notes in her diary, Richard's " de- 

 sign has been clear throughout in these lectures— to show 

 the power of God in his creation." Towards the end of 



