Ipswich Museum. 67 



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 Hon. and Rev. F. De Grey, the Rev. A. B. Power, the following 

 Fellows of the Linneean, 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 I am 

 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 



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