scientific name was
Dinornis maximus. Ornis
is a bird in Greek, as in the word ornithology;
Dino-
= terrible as in “dinosaur,” “terrible lizard”
maximus
hardly requires explanation. His judgement rarely faltered when it came to appraising what a sample of bones meant in terms of its closest zoological neighbours. Yet he was no evolutionist. He opposed Darwin vigorously, even after the latter’s theory of evolution had won the day among the intellectual class in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Owen’s vision of a natural history museum was as a kind of paean to the Creator, a magnificent tribute to the glory of His works, a roll call of the splendid species created by His munificence and love for mankind. The words that I used to sing as a child put it thus: “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small / all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.” The cathedral-like entrance to the great new museum, the nave-like main hall, those columns with their decking of leaves or biological swirls, they all had a message. Here was a temple to nature that was also a shrine to the Ancient of Days.
Owen was an establishment figure par excellence. He knew Prime Minister William Gladstone very well in the 1860s, and had even been a tutor in natural history for the royal children at Buckingham Palace. No museum figure of modern times has been so close to the seat of power. Owen knew how to make things happen, and his persistent lobbying eventually yielded dividends in the form of Alfred Waterhouse’s vivid new building. Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s beloved husband, was sympathetic to housing natural history collections in his developing cultural “theme park” in Kensington, and opposite the industrial crafts of the “V& A” along Exhibition Road. The Prince’s effigy, covered in gold, still broods over the Albert Hall a few minutes’ walk north of the Museum on the edge of Kensington Gardens. Owen was trusted to design a museum with sufficient seriousness to satisfy the Victorian sense of self-improvement through knowledge, or as the Keeper of Mineralogy put it in 1880: “the awakening of an intelligent interest in the mind of the general visitor.” Owen certainly intended to display in the main hall what he called an “index museum” of the main designs of animals in nature, intended to be a kind of homage to the fecundity and orderliness of the Creator. However, by 1884, when the Museum formally appointed its first Director, William Flower, the principle of evolutionary descent seemed to be the only acceptable way to organize nature for explanatory purposes. The cathedral had been hijacked for secular ends, and the temple of nature had become a celebration of the power of natural rather than supernatural creativity.
Richard Owen in old age with the skeleton he helped to reconstruct of the extinct New Zealand moa, the world’s largest bird
There are large marble statues of both Charles Darwin and his famous public champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, on display in the Natural History Museum. There is also a bronze of Richard Owen. Few visitors seem to notice them, or pause to read their plaques. Darwin and Huxley look out over a refreshment area on the ground floor, so the great men contemplate a clutter of tables rather than the grandeur of nature. A seated Darwin is in the splendour of his old age, every inch the bearded patriarch; Huxley, seated nearby, is brooding and imperious. Richard Owen stands around the corner, in academic dress, halfway up the main flight of stairs facing the main entrance. His hands are slightly outstretched, and at least to my eye there is something clerical about him, as if he were offering a blessing rather than a specimen, although his face is still fierce and commanding. The formality and equality of white stone have somehow ironed out the differences between Darwin and Huxley; it is their enquiring spirit that pervades the Museum.
Dinornis maximus. Ornis
is a bird in Greek, as in the word ornithology;
Dino-
= terrible as in “dinosaur,” “terrible lizard”
maximus
hardly requires explanation. His judgement rarely faltered when it came to appraising what a sample of bones meant in terms of its closest zoological neighbours. Yet he was no evolutionist. He opposed Darwin vigorously, even after the latter’s theory of evolution had won the day among the intellectual class in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Owen’s vision of a natural history museum was as a kind of paean to the Creator, a magnificent tribute to the glory of His works, a roll call of the splendid species created by His munificence and love for mankind. The words that I used to sing as a child put it thus: “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small / all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.” The cathedral-like entrance to the great new museum, the nave-like main hall, those columns with their decking of leaves or biological swirls, they all had a message. Here was a temple to nature that was also a shrine to the Ancient of Days.
Owen was an establishment figure par excellence. He knew Prime Minister William Gladstone very well in the 1860s, and had even been a tutor in natural history for the royal children at Buckingham Palace. No museum figure of modern times has been so close to the seat of power. Owen knew how to make things happen, and his persistent lobbying eventually yielded dividends in the form of Alfred Waterhouse’s vivid new building. Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s beloved husband, was sympathetic to housing natural history collections in his developing cultural “theme park” in Kensington, and opposite the industrial crafts of the “V& A” along Exhibition Road. The Prince’s effigy, covered in gold, still broods over the Albert Hall a few minutes’ walk north of the Museum on the edge of Kensington Gardens. Owen was trusted to design a museum with sufficient seriousness to satisfy the Victorian sense of self-improvement through knowledge, or as the Keeper of Mineralogy put it in 1880: “the awakening of an intelligent interest in the mind of the general visitor.” Owen certainly intended to display in the main hall what he called an “index museum” of the main designs of animals in nature, intended to be a kind of homage to the fecundity and orderliness of the Creator. However, by 1884, when the Museum formally appointed its first Director, William Flower, the principle of evolutionary descent seemed to be the only acceptable way to organize nature for explanatory purposes. The cathedral had been hijacked for secular ends, and the temple of nature had become a celebration of the power of natural rather than supernatural creativity.
Richard Owen in old age with the skeleton he helped to reconstruct of the extinct New Zealand moa, the world’s largest bird
There are large marble statues of both Charles Darwin and his famous public champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, on display in the Natural History Museum. There is also a bronze of Richard Owen. Few visitors seem to notice them, or pause to read their plaques. Darwin and Huxley look out over a refreshment area on the ground floor, so the great men contemplate a clutter of tables rather than the grandeur of nature. A seated Darwin is in the splendour of his old age, every inch the bearded patriarch; Huxley, seated nearby, is brooding and imperious. Richard Owen stands around the corner, in academic dress, halfway up the main flight of stairs facing the main entrance. His hands are slightly outstretched, and at least to my eye there is something clerical about him, as if he were offering a blessing rather than a specimen, although his face is still fierce and commanding. The formality and equality of white stone have somehow ironed out the differences between Darwin and Huxley; it is their enquiring spirit that pervades the Museum.
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