Re-inventing the Ashmolean. Natural history and natural theology at Oxford in the 1820s to 1850s

Abstract

During the period of the successive keeperships of John Shute Duncan (1823–1829) and his brother Philip Bury Duncan (1829–1854), the collections of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford were comprehensively redisplayed as a physical exposition of the doctrines of natural theology, specifically as propounded by William Paley. The displays assembled by the Duncans, overwhelmingly dominated by natural history specimens, were swept away with the opening of the University's new Natural Science Museum and with them went almost all recollection of an extraordinary chapter in museum history. From largely unpublished records in the Ashmolean, the Duncans' achievement is here reconstructed. The primary evidence is provided by contemporary reports prepared for the Visitors of the Museum and by surviving texts from the Duncans' museum labels. Additional perspectives are provided by an extensive body of correspondence from the collectors, explorers and others who contributed specimens to the new displays: their texts illuminate aspects of contemporary preoccupations with classification, broader research priorities, and problems associated with collecting, preserving and transporting specimens, as well as shedding light on individual exhibits which they contributed to the Museum. These correspondents include a number of significant figures in the nineteenth century history of natural history, including Andrew Bloxam, N. A. Vigors and William Burchell.