Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixit, (191 7) No. 3 



III. The Organisation of Museums and Art Galleries 

 in Manchester. 



By Hon. Professor W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S. 



( Read October 30th, 1917. Received for Publication November 5th, igij.) 



I. Introductory. II. Prof. Huxley and Manchester. 

 III. The Museum Idea. IV. The Manchester 

 Museum and its Work. V. Art in Manchester at 

 the Present Time. VI. Organisation of Collec- 

 tions for New Art Gallery. VII. Museum of 

 Technology. VIII. A New Centre of Music. 

 IX. Conclusion. 



I. — Introductory. 



The place of Museums and Galleries of Art, and Technology, in 

 our system of education is a fitting subject to bring before a Society 

 devoted to the advancement of science and learning; and especially 

 at this time when our eyes are opened by the War to the necessity of 

 overhauling all the other sections of national life. The Society, itself 

 the outcome of the intellectual movement in Manchester, in the last 

 quarter of the eighteenth century, offered the favourable conditions 

 under which Dalton and Joule made the discoveries that form the 

 basis of modern chemistry and physics. It also set an example of 

 the value of association in promoting research, that was swiftly 

 followed, in the first half of the 19th century, by the foundation 

 of the Natural History and Geological Societies of Manchester, for the 

 study of nature as it is now, and as it was in the past, as well as the 

 Royal Institution for the encouragement of Art and Literature. x 



To the collections made by these two Societies, co-ordinated and 

 arranged into one whole, we owe the Manchester Museum, and to the 

 Royal Institution the gift to the Corporation of the Art Gallery site, 

 building and collections, in Mosley Street. 



1 Nearly all the founders were members of the Society. 



