Grant's Museum of Victorian Zoology

Natasha McEnroe on the reopening of a fascinating but little-known collection.

To step into the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London (UCL) is to enter the world of a 19th-century professor and his students. The museum contains 70,000 specimens from across the animal kingdom, including skeletons, fossils and a modest collection of British butterflies and moths. Enormous skeletons of rhinos and tigers jostle with cases of fragile microscope slides, beautifully inscribed in tiny copperplate script. This collection plays a crucial part in both the history of UCL and the history of zoology and anatomy and how they were taught. The museum, which has moved several times over the centuries, has now relocated to a beautiful Edwardian library on University Street and is open to the public.

To continue reading this article you will need to purchase access to the online archive.

Buy Online Access  Buy Print & Archive Subscription

If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in.

Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems.