CHAPTER XIII - Natural History Museum
In 1858 the zoological, botanical, geological
and mineralogical collections of the British
Museum were kept at Bloomsbury with the
collections of antiquities, books and manuscripts.
In July of that year the most eminent British
naturalists signed a memorial to the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Disraeli. This proclaimed that
'as the chief end and aim of natural history is to
demonstrate the harmony which pervades the
whole, and the unity of principle, which bespeaks
the unity of the Creative Cause, it is essential that
the different classes of natural objects should be
preserved in juxtaposition under the roof of one
great building'. Their immediate purpose was to
avert the dispersion of the collections, or even
their removal from Bloomsbury, where easy
access to the great library was highly valued. (ref. 1) But
the congestion of the museum imperatively
demanded relief, and when it became apparent
that the Conservative Government was unlikely
to authorize the further enlargement or reconstruction
of the newly expanded building the
entire removal of the natural history collections
was an attractive alternative. (ref. 2) The construction
of 'one great building' on a new site was to take
nearly a quarter of a century. Accidental causes
were, however, responsible for much of the delay,
and the enterprise was sustained by the ardour of
Victorian polemic, the boldness of Victorian
exploration and the zest of Victorian curiosity.
It was by no means immune from official economizing,
but it did not suffer so profoundly from
governmental indifference as did scientific collections
less relevant to current controversies or
less appealing to the popular capacity for wonderment.
The museum eventually raised in 1873–81
was very big and expensive, symmetrical and
consistent in its main aspect, and the work virtually
throughout of the architect commissioned
to execute it. Yet Alfred Waterhouse's building
was intended merely as part of a larger whole
that alone would have matched the first aspirations
of its chief instigator.
This was (Sir) Richard Owen (1804–92),
whose voice can probably be heard in the memorial
of 1858. In 1856 he had moved to Bloomsbury
from his post as professor of comparative anatomy
at the Hunterian Museum in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, to become superintendent of the natural
history departments. He was to retain this position
until the new museum was opened. Its completion
owed much to his vigour, but the attendant
difficulties also owed something to his
combativeness. (For this chapter see plans b,c,d
between pages 54–5, and Plates 60–65, 66a,b,c.)
Preliminary plans by Owen: the
Queen's Gate site
Early in 1859 Owen made a report to the Trustees
of the British Museum on the removal of the
natural history collections, accompanied by a
rough plan for a new building to house them. (ref. 3)
The plan did not purport to suggest the architectural
form, but shows that he envisaged a very
extensive assemblage of single-storeyed galleries
ranged at right angles to longitudinal galleries at
front and rear. The lighting was to be from the
top, not directly overhead but from the junction
of walls and roofs, as in the Hunterian Museum
and the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn
Street. In these respects some elements of Waterhouse's
final design were already adumbrated.
Owen's chief desideratum in a museum was
space, (ref. 4) and a striking aspect of this project was
the great area of ground it would have covered in
solid building. By reason of its single-storey
arrangement, it would have occupied some ten or
eleven acres—that is, three times more than the
museum as built. Owen's conception was that a
museum should be a proportionate microcosm of
nature itself, and large enough to exhibit the
varieties and developments of life on earth; to
show, for example, 'how the type of the class
may have risen from that of a lower, or may be
mounting to that of a higher class', and to give a
'comprehensive, philosophic and connected view'
of its subject-matter. (ref. 5) He did not scorn the direct
demonstration of physical fact: he would show
the 'largest examples' of elephant to exhibit 'the
maximum of mass that can be supported and moved
on dry land by a living animal', and a well-stuffed
whale 'as an example of the power of the Creator
as manifested by the hugeness of the creature'. (ref. 6)
The expository and public-oriented role that
Owen desired for the museum led him to advocate
the exhibition of a high proportion of the collections:
'the intelligent wageman, tradesman or
professional man . . . comes in the confidence of
seeing the series of exhibited specimens so complete,
and so displayed, as to enable him to identify
his own specimen with one there ticketed with its
proper name and locality'. (ref. 7) He planned to include
a lecture theatre where heads of departments
should explain their collections 'in short, elementary,
and free Courses of Lectures', and for a
central apartment containing two special displays.
One was to be of 'specimens selected to show the
type-characters of the principal groups of Organized
Beings: it would form an Epitome of
Natural History, and would convey to the eye,
in the easiest way, an elementary knowledge of
living Nature'. This very characteristic expression
of Owen's concern with the relation of
actual to archetypal forms came to be called the
'Index Museum'. The other display was to show
such illustrations of each 'Class, Order and Genus'
as were afforded by the native species of the
British Isles (the 'British Natural History
Museum'). (ref. 3)
A potential area for the museum was the 1851
Exhibition Commissioners' estate (ref. 8) and late in
1859 the Trustees considered the cost of an
addition to the site in Bloomsbury compared
with the removal of the natural history collections
to South Kensington: the area in mind had
dwindled to eight or possibly five acres. The
estimated costs of land and building ranged between
£600,000 and £1,280,000 for various
schemes, in all of which the South Kensington
alternative was the cheaper by sums ranging from
£210,000 to £415,000. (ref. 9) In January 1860 the
Trustees decided by a narrow majority to remove
the collections (ref. 10) and negotiations proceeded
with the 1851 Commissioners for the purchase of
a five-acre site on the east side of Queen's Gate.
The boundary of the Royal Horticultural Society's
intended garden would have made it long
and narrow—about 1,100 feet by 200 feet—but
closely built-over, mainly in two storeys (as was
now proposed), it would have given a great floorarea.
The Trustees hoped to get it for £5,000
per acre but the Commissioners asked £10,000
per acre, which they thought only half its market
value. (ref. 11) In August, however, a Select Committee
of the House of Commons reported adversely
on the scheme. It noted that apart from Owen
'the whole of the scientific naturalists examined
before your Committee, including the Keepers
of all the Departments of Natural History in the
British Museum, are of opinion that an exhibition
on so large a scale tends alike to the needless
bewilderment and fatigue of the public, and the
impediment of the studies of the scientific visitor'. (ref. 12)
Divergence of opinion was to recur when
the new museum came to be built, between
Owen's inclination towards a comprehensive
public display and the preference of others for a
more selective exhibition attached to a studycollection.
Owen's ambitions were severely
criticized in the House of Commons in 1861, but
he enjoyed the general support of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer of the day, Gladstone, who was
himself a Trustee. A personal friendship developed,
based in a common concern with the
relations of science and religion. (T. H. Huxley
distrusted both of them.) This meant that in
contrast to other enterprises at South Kensington
the Trustees' building plans had more frequent
support from the Treasury, which sometimes
figured in the unusual role of a goad to departmental
activity on behalf of the Trustees' project. (fn. a)
Following friendly correspondence between
Owen and Gladstone in August 1861 (ref. 14) the
Treasury reopened negotiations with the 1851
Commissioners, who early in the following year
again offered the Queen's Gate site (then temporarily
appropriated for the Western Annexe of the
impending International Exhibition, plan a
between pages 54–5), on the same terms as
before. (ref. 15) In May 1862 (Sir) Henry Hunt, consultant
surveyor to the Office of Works, and also
the Commissioners' surveyor, prepared plans for
Owen's scheme, to cover the five acres at a building
cost of £500,000. (ref. 12) The character of the
scheme is shown in the frontispiece of Owen's
publication of 1862, On the Extent and Aims of a
National Museum of Natural History. At the
front were two-storeyed longitudinal galleries.
Behind them, the centre of the building was
occupied by a circular lecture theatre, with the
Index and British Natural History Museums
over it: on either side, two-storeyed galleries
were ranged at right angles to the front but
alternated with lower and narrower top-lit
galleries. This centre-and-wings arrangement was
to survive in the building as finally executed, and
so did the alternation of main and subsidiary
galleries at the rear. Attached at one end was a
library and official residences.
In the same month Gladstone introduced a
Bill to authorize the removal of the collections. (ref. 16)
The recently widowed Queen was anxious that
this step towards the realization of the Prince's
plans for South Kensington should be taken. (ref. 17)
But there was much hostility in Parliament to
the removal of collections from central London
to the new suburb, as well as to Owen's expansive
ambitions; (ref. 18) Gladstone's estimate of £600,000 or
£700,000 as the total cost made him seem a spendthrift;
and enough members on the Government
side of the House of Commons voted with the
Opposition to defeat the Bill. The Queen was
extremely annoyed. (ref. 19) Owen was, however, encouraged
by Gladstone to persevere, and prepared
a more modest scheme, drawn out by Hunt
in September, to cover four acres for £350,000. (ref. 20)
The present site: Fowke's competition design
Later in the summer of 1862 Gladstone, in his
triple capacity as Trustee of the British Museum,
1851 Commissioner and Chancellor of the Exchequer,
was turning to another scheme—to
relieve the Commissioners of the embarrassing
1862 Exhibition building, and at the same time
give the natural history collections (with other
museum collections) an economical home, by
the Government's purchase of the Exhibition
site. Some thought the great nave of the building
'a grand and imposing space for the exhibition of
specimens of the largest sized animals'. Owen
consented, although he considered the exhibition
spaces too lofty. (ref. 21) The House of Commons
rather doubtingly approved the purchase of the
land in June 1863. Buying out the contractors'
interest in the building itself, however, required a
further Parliamentary vote. This was the heyday
of the independent Member, the building was
much disliked, and in July (as has been seen in
Chapter IX) the back-benchers of both parties
combined to veto the acquisition of the building.
The contractors proceeded to pull it down, and
with it the prospective home of the natural history
collections.
But the Government now had at its disposal
the spacious site where the museum was eventually
to be raised (the Commissioners making it over
to the Office of Works in September 1864 (ref. 22) ). In
January 1864 the First Commissioner of Works,
W. F. Cowper, announced an open competition,
with prizes of £400, £250 and £100, for the
design of a museum-complex here that understandably
but rather confusingly became known
as the South Kensington museums competition.
A natural history museum and a museum to
house the collection of the Commissioners of
Patents were to occupy the eastern half, and outline
plans were also to be submitted for the whole
site. Competitors were referred to Hunt's realization
of Owen's second Queen's Gate plan of
1862 for the space-requirements of the natural
history collections. (ref. 23) The Trustees promptly
complained to the Treasury that they had not
been consulted by the Office of Works, and reprimanded
Owen when it emerged that the Office
of Works had referred directly to him (ref. 24) —an
intimation that the museum might prove to be
many-voiced. However maladroit the handling of
this announcement, the Office of Works improved
upon previous practice in the choice of
judges. The Government Offices competition in
1856 had attracted a large number of eminent
architects but failed to provide a convincing
professional judgment upon them. The five
judges chosen in April 1864—(Sir) William
Tite, (Sir) James Pennethorne, James Fergusson,
the painter David Roberts and Lord Elcho,
M.P. (ref. 25) —were likely to give a clear and reasonable
verdict. Considering the magnitude of the prospective
commission it was disappointing that few
of the more eminent architects of the day competed. (ref. 26)
(fn. b)
According to The Builderonly two of
the thirty-three entries were 'Gothic'. Two were
'Greek', but even Alexander 'Greek' Thomson's
had 'no chance of selection', The Builder
thought. (ref. 27)
Tite, Fergusson and Elcho had been advocates
of the demolition of the Exhibition building, but
when the awards were announced in May it was
found that the judges had given the first prize to
none other than that building's architect, Captain
Francis Fowke. It may be doubted whether they
were ignorant of the authorship of the pseudonymous
design, but Fergusson later spoke of their
'surprise' and the well-informed Henry Cole
seems to have thought that Tite's surprise, at least,
was genuine. (ref. 28) The second prize went to Professor
Robert Kerr and the third to Cuthbert
Brodrick. (ref. 29) Unlike Fowke's and Kerr's designs,
Brodrick's seems not to have been illustrated in
periodicals.
Figure 31:
Plan of Francis Fowke's winning design for South Kensington museums competition. A, Natural History Museum
top-lit gallery. B, Patent Museum. a, area or light-well
Fowke's design (Plate 60a; fig. 31) had been
worked out with the help (privately employed by
him) of his architectural office in the Science and
Art Department at South Kensington, a fact of
which the contentious second prizewinner complained. (ref. 30)
One member of that office, John
Liddell, who later in 1864 became Fowke's chief
draughtsman, subsequently grew discontented.
He had contemplated competing himself and after
Fowke's death in 1865 publicly claimed to have
originated the external treatment of the winning
design, citing the undeniable fact that Fowke had
shared the premium with him. On these grounds
he assailed successive First Commissioners of
Works in 1866 with demands for employment to
carry out the design, which were roundly rejected
by W. F. Cowper from 'respect for the memory
and character of the late Captain Fowke'. (ref. 31) As
late as 1879 Liddell was writing to the press of his
'sole authorship of the external design'. (ref. 32)
(fn. c)
Fowke's participation had evidently been at the
urging of Henry Cole, the Department's secretary, (ref. 35)
and although the Department was not
officially associated with the design some feared
that Fowke's success might jeopardize the museum's
prospects by attracting to it the suspicions
nursed against Cole and his Department. (ref. 36)
Fowke would have placed his natural history
museum on the north side of the site and incorporated
the buildings (of his own designing)
on the south side of the Royal Horticultural
Society's garden. In the centre a very grand sequence
of apartments included a circular staircase
hall and a large lecture theatre. He provided the
essential galleries in an east wing, but envisaged
the museum's expansion into a balancing west
wing. (ref. 37) His design for the entire site, despite its
symmetry, was so arranged that it could be executed
piecemeal. (ref. 38) It was, on the whole, well
received. The Builder, identifying the style as
Bramantesque, liked it with some reservations.
The Building Newsthought it unchaste but effective.
The Companionto the Almanacfound the
façade rich and striking and discerned 'a feeling
for largeness of style and brilliancy of effect':
The Athenaeum, on the other hand, while calling
it an 'effective and splendid design', noticed 'a
certain smoothness and smallness of grace . . . a
lack of emphatic powers . . . [and] characteristic
art'. (ref. 39) Fergusson himself later defended the judges'
choice of this 'very beautiful design' which was
'thoroughly nineteenth century' and would have
'marked an epoch in the history of architecture
in this country'. (ref. 40)
Fowke's natural history museum alone would
have cost some £431,000 and the whole complex
some £1,895,000, at 9d. to 1s. per cubic foot. (ref. 41)
Unlike Kerr, and unlike his own practice at the
South Kensington Museum, Fowke followed
Owen's plan in covering the whole area of the
natural history museum with building, and observed
Owen's precept that lighting came best
from the angle of wall and roof: his management
of this feature was close to Waterhouse's in the
museum as built. (ref. 42) He did not, however, alternate
his main galleries with subsidiary galleries of
smaller dimensions, as Owen's scheme of 1862
had done, and was in this perhaps liable to offend
museum opinion. (ref. 43)
Kerr additionally protested to the First Commissioner
of Works that Fowke had not observed
some of the conditions of the competition. (ref. 44) It
seems that the protest was referred to the Council
of the Institute of British Architects and rejected
by them. (Kerr was sufficiently annoyed to
blackball Fowke's subsequent application for
membership of the Institute, to the disgust of
Street and other members. (ref. 45) ) Kerr had, however,
better acquainted himself than Fowke with prevailing
opinion within the museum on its planning,
and in March 1865 the Trustees told the
Treasury that they preferred Kerr's design, (ref. 46)
though the departmental heads were evidently
not uniformly dissatisfied with Fowke's planning. (ref. 47)
Owen went to Edinburgh to look at
Fowke's newly built natural history museum
there; (ref. 48) and Fowke was instructed to adjust his
plan in consultation with the Trustees. (ref. 49) But his
health collapsed and in December he died.
The appointment of Waterhouse and his
plan of 1868
Scenting danger to Fowke's design Cole immediately
appealed to the Queen, who was
grieved by the death of someone so closely associated
with the Prince's aims in South Kensington, (ref. 50)
to protect it from mutilation: (ref. 51)
The Builder,
on the contrary, called for the commission to be
given to Kerr. (ref. 52) Cowper championed Fowke's
design to the Treasury, (ref. 53) and in February 1866
appointed an architect to execute it.
He was Alfred Waterhouse, then thirty-six
years old and about to enjoy the fullness of professional fame.
The Assize Courts in Manchester
had demonstrated his skill in planning, which no
doubt recommended him to a department becoming
conscious that the arrangement of the
museum might present unexpected difficulties.
But as an executant of Fowke's elevational design
his selection was implausible. (ref. 54)
(fn. d)
However, Waterhouse followed Owen to
Edinburgh, (ref. 57) and examined Fowke's buildings
and plans at South Kensington. (ref. 58) Then in June
1866 the Liberals went out and Cowper was
succeeded as First Commissioner of Works by
Lord John Manners. The vote of funds for the
building was postponed, (ref. 59) and it was early in
1868 before the work was taken up again. (ref. 60) By
then the 'patent' and other museums had disappeared
from the scheme. Waterhouse's avowed
role at South Kensington had also now changed
significantly. He was commissioned to prepare
plans but was also explicitly empowered to revise
Fowke's elevations if necessary. Except as an important
influence on Waterhouse's style this was
the end of Fowke's design, and any lack of
'character' in the architecture was now sure to be
remedied.
In March 1868 Waterhouse submitted plans,
sections and perspective views to the Office of
Works. At the Clydesdale Bank in Lombard
Street (1864–5) and at Strangeways Prison, then
just completing, he had used quasi-Romanesque
motifs, and at South Kensington he now proposed
a more comprehensive essay in 'the roundarched
style common in Southern Germany so
late as the 12th Century'. He thought it would
'afford both the grandeur and simplicity which
should characterize a building of this description'. (ref. 61)
The repetitive round arches of the recent
museum and garden buildings nearby may also
have been a factor. So too, more specifically, must
have been the composition of Fowke's design
with its coupled round-headed windows in roundheaded
arches. The adoption of an early rundbogenstil
rather than Fowke's Renaissance style
Waterhouse later explained also by his wish to
use a facing of terra-cotta blocks, presumably
because it better assimilated any irregularities of
laying, (ref. 62) but a contributory reason may have
been Owen's advocacy of 'objects of natural
history' as ornamentation. Owen had already
suggested this to Fowke, but the idea may have
appealed to Waterhouse particularly in a Romanesque
context. (ref. 12)
Compared with the complex problems posed
by his monumental designs for Manchester and
London, the arrangement of a museum must have
seemed to promise Waterhouse a relatively simple
task. His 1868 plan in fact owed much to Fowke's
and to the Owen-Hunt scheme that lay behind it
(Plate 60b, 60c; fig. 32). (ref. 63) Like Fowke's, Waterhouse's
building was at that stage still anchored
to Fowke's southern Horticultural garden range,
where Waterhouse placed departmental and
general libraries. South of this the new building
was to cover nearly three and a half acres, the
same area as the museum as finally built. It stood
back some 340 feet from Cromwell Road, Waterhouse
visualizing an open quadrangle in front of
it. Like all the other plans it was symmetrical. In
the centre a grand circular staircase hall led, as in
Fowke's design, to a lecture theatre. Waterhouse
departed from Fowke in the direction required
by the museum's officers, however, by introducing
subdivisions to reduce the size of his compartments
and increase the wall-space. On the ground
floor the top-lit transverse galleries were bisected
and the alternate subsidiary galleries were reintroduced.
Basement workshops were placed
along the sides. (ref. 64) How Waterhouse handled the
elevations is unknown, but as well as angletowers
there were twin towers flanking a great
entrance evidently rather like that built. Over the
staircase hall was a pointed dome. (ref. 65) When Cole
saw this or a closely related design in January
1869 he called it 'a manufacturing sort of thing.
Byzantine.' (ref. 66)
In April 1868 the Trustees approved the plan
with some modifications. (ref. 67) But the prospect of
progress was illusory. Waterhouse had estimated
that his scheme would cost about £495,000, (ref. 61) and
this was probably too much. Lord John Manners
said the size would have to be reduced, and in
July suggested alterations to the design: either the
diminution of the angle towers on plan 'to give
them a more elegant proportion', or the elevation
of the dome to make it 'the grand feature of the
composition' at the expense of the entrance
towers and angle towers, which would have been
omitted. The vote of funds was therefore deferred. (ref. 68)
Then in December the Conservatives
went out and the Liberals came back under
Gladstone. This should have been helpful,
particularly with Henry Layard at the Office of
Works. But unfortunately for the South Kensington
scheme Layard preferred a superb site on the
Embankment between Hungerford and Waterloo
Bridges, as part of an intended riverside sequence
of public buildings, and nearly eighteen months
were taken up with the study of this attractive
scheme (Plate 61a). Virtually everyone was in
favour of it, including Cole. But the difficulty of
reconciling it with plans for the Embankment
Gardens was a factor against it, and eventually
it was found to be impracticable. (ref. 69)
Figure 32:
Plan of Alfred Waterhouse's design for the Natural History Museum attached to the south side of the Royal
Horticultural Society's garden, 1868
The development of plans 1870–2
In May 1870 attention reverted to South
Kensington. By then Layard had given way as
Gladstone's First Commissioner of Works to
A. S. Ayrton, whose zeal for economy was a hard
fact in the situation for the next four years.
Waterhouse's estimate for a building on the
Embankment had been about £500,000. (ref. 70) Back
at Kensington Ayrton had the limit reduced to
£330,000. (ref. 71) In August 1870 Waterhouse produced
a design to fit this figure. The museum was
to be detached from the buildings of the Horticultural
Society's garden and placed further
south. (ref. 72) The new site was some five feet below
the level of Cromwell Road and the very expensive
task of remedying this was not attempted:
instead Waterhouse placed his basement storey of
workshops partly above ground level. (fn. e) The
length of frontage was increased to some 750
feet, compared with a length around 680 feet in
the 1868 design and as built. Despite this and the
detached position the estimated cost was reduced
because the project was limited to the avowedly
unfinished part of a greater whole. The side and
rear architectural elevations were omitted. So it
was to be built, and so it has remained.
In place of the elaborate Fowkesian entrance,
staircase hall and lecture theatre, the centre was
less compartmented and approximated to the
present arrangement. The lecture theatre had
vanished from the scheme, although it appears to
have been some years before Owen himself fully
realized this. When he did, he seems to have been
less complaisant than was implied by a statement
of the Trustees (who had been asked to explain
this 'important omission' in 1873 by the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe). Possibly
Owen was more eager that his colleagues should
lecture than they were themselves. (ref. 74)
The function of a lecture theatre was partly
fulfilled by the central hall. This was henceforward
dedicated to Owen's exemplary Index
Museum.
Another significant omission was of any compartment
designed to house a general library.
Owen's wish for the transference of the Banksian
Library from Bloomsbury (ref. 75) was frustrated by the
Trustees: a library had to be built up anew, (ref. 76) and
accommodation was provided specifically for it
only after the 1939–45 war.
A further economical simplification removed
the cross-walls from the transverse galleries,
which became even longer (200 feet) than in
Fowke's design. The alternate subsidiary galleries
were reserved for study. The whole covered
about the same area as the executed version. The
Treasury agreed to a vote of funds (ref. 77) and in
September 1870 Waterhouse was added to the
prominent architects then under contract to the
Office of Works when he was officially appointed
architect of 'the portion of a Building to meet the
present wants of the Natural History Museum
consisting of a Front, to the south . . . the Fronts
of the Building to the East, West and North being
altogether omitted'. His fee at 5 per cent of
£330,000 was to be £16,500. (ref. 78)
Early in 1871 he produced full plans. (ref. 79) Two
steps nearer the eventual arrangement were taken.
The length of front was reduced, and a 'gallery of
communication' was introduced between the front
ranges and transverse galleries, which were again
reduced in length. (ref. 80) But one feature of the interior
was causing particular trouble. T. H. Huxley
(when professor of biology at the Royal School of
Mines) had been chief proponent of a scheme to
exploit the alternation of public and reserved
galleries by placing between them display cases
permanently closed on the public side but
accessible to students and staff. He had urged this
on Layard in 1868, suggesting that on the public
side the glass fronts should be 'like one long shop
window'. (ref. 81) Waterhouse had planned for it in
1870–1 by reducing the walls between the public
and reserved galleries to piers only. But the
provenance of the suggestion did not recommend
it to Owen, and Waterhouse soon found that, apart
from this, the museum authorities rejected the
arrangement for student access as unpractical. (ref. 82)
The Duke of Devonshire's Royal Commission on
Scientific Instruction, which was susceptible to
Huxley's influence, tried to have a say in the
planning of the museum, (ref. 83) and in 1874 and again
in 1877 gave some support to the 'Huxley'
arrangement. (ref. 84) But the museum authorities were
unmoved, bringing criticism upon themselves for
their supposed indifference to students' needs. (ref. 85)
On the utility of the alternate reserved galleries
opinion in the museum was in fact becoming
divided: probably J. E. Gray, the keeper of
zoology (destined for the west wing), was mainly
in favour, and G. R. Waterhouse, the keeper of
geology (east wing) mainly against. The latter
wanted particularly extensive alterations to
Waterhouse's plan: he would have divided every
gallery in two or three and altered the area between
the front and transverse galleries. (ref. 86) The natural
history departments had considerable autonomy
that Owen could not over-ride, and the museum
authorities asked the Office of Works for the two
wings to be planned differently. (ref. 87) The Office
resisted this rather sensible suggestion, which it
thought arose merely from the inability of the
keepers to agree among themselves and to be unbefitting
'a public museum of this importance'. (ref. 88)
Waterhouse's reaction is not recorded, but his
design had committed him generally to symmetry.
Later in 1871 a Parliamentary vote of £30,000
was made for the commencement of the museum (ref. 89)
and by early in 1872 Waterhouse had made
another set of plans. The chief development was
that the site had been moved still nearer Cromwell
Road, to its present position. (ref. 90) Inside the museum
some difference between the two wings appeared,
chiefly in the manner of separation of the front
and transverse galleries, which still survives in the
present building. The east, geological, wing was
less subdivided than its keeper had wanted, but the
openings between the public and reserve galleries
there were now to be closed. In the rear central
compartment Owen's British Natural History
Museum is shown. On the elevation the central
entrance was finished by a straight balustrade, and
this, in harmony with Owen's conception of the
museum, was to be surmounted by figures of
Adam and Eve. Generally the elevational treatment
was as executed, with some elements of
Fowke's composition discernible in the wings and
end pavilions (ref. 91) (Plates 60a, 61c).
Nevertheless, for some time Cole had been
making a nuisance of himself on behalf of
Fowke's original design, and his sympathizers in
the House of Commons, George CavendishBentinck
and Lord Elcho, tried belatedly to get
rid of Waterhouse's 'abomination'. (ref. 92) (Cole
received no co-operation, however, from his
son-in-law, Fowke's son Frank, who saw the
campaign chiefly as an attempt to put yet another
commission into the hands of his father's successor,
General Scott. (ref. 93) ) The party made no headway
against Gladstone, and Fergusson's ridicule of
Waterhouse's 'period' style in Macmillan's Magazine
in January 1872 was equally ineffectual. But
then the development of the design was thrown
into reverse, and it was an action of Waterhouse
himself that was the proximate cause. In July
1872 specifications were being prepared for
invitations to tender. In the two years since the
limit of expenditure had been set trade had revived
and costs were going up. Wages in particular had
been rising. Waterhouse therefore told the Office
of Works that tenders might be 10 or 20 per cent
over the 1870 estimate. If he supposed that this
would be inertly received he misjudged Ayrton.
The First Commissioner of Works held the
£330,000 limit to be inviolable and deduced that
the design should be cheapened by the requisite
proportion to allow for cost-inflation. Some
alarmed reassurance by Waterhouse was ineffective
and he found himself obliged to cut down
his design. (ref. 94) In September tenders were submitted:
the lowest was £395,000. Waterhouse
was once more set to work on reductions, and in
December the Office of Works, under some
pressure from the Treasury for work to begin,
reluctantly accepted a revised tender of
£352,000. (ref. 95) The contract with the builders,
George Baker and Son of Lambeth, was concluded
in February 1873. (ref. 96) By September the foundations
were up to ground level. (ref. 97) <In his successful application for the post of District Surveyor of Finsbury in 1908 Wilfred J. Hardcastle said he had been articled to Alfred Waterhouse in 1872-6 and that at the Museum had had 'the general supervision ... for the whole course of its construction' (see LMA, LCC/AR/BA/2/37, 1908).>
The building of the museum 1873 onwards
To economize, some granite was replaced by
Portland stone in the containing and approach
walls. Slates replaced lead on the roofs, and brick
replaced terra-cotta in the internal courts. Inside,
plaster ceilings replaced wooden, and the decoration
was both reduced and postponed. These
changes are perceptible in the museum as built.
But the most conspicuous reduction in the design
was the intended replacement of the twin entrance
towers by low spires. The two ventilation towers
at the back were also for a time intended to be
replaced by one lower tower. By 1876 the
Conservatives were back in office, and the First
Commissioner of Works, Lord Henry Lennox,
was not unwilling to improve upon his Liberal
predecessor's taste: (ref. 98) the museum officers also
wanted the space afforded by the entrance
towers. (ref. 99) Waterhouse was hopeful, exhibiting a
view of the building with the entrance towers
restored (Plate 61c). (ref. 100) But because of financial
restrictions it was January 1878 before the
Treasury authorized this, at a contract price of
£13,778. (ref. 101) Waterhouse later said that this
abortive economy of Ayrton's had increased the
final cost of the building by £3,000. (ref. 102)
Between the towers, Waterhouse redesigned
the centre of his façade to rise to the present
gable. (ref. 103) In early photographs this is shown
surmounted by the single figure of Adam.
Other alterations to the design internally had
been made soon after building had begun. Having
decided against the 'Huxley' display scheme, the
museum authorities in December 1873 asked
for the openings between the transverse galleries
to be closed in the west wing as well as the east. (ref. 104)
The dividing walls can hardly have been raised to
any height by then, but an 'in-filling' between the
proposed piers was determined upon and the blind
arches between the transverse galleries still appear
in the present building as pseudo-vestiges of an
unimplemented scheme. Soon afterwards regard
for the demands of public display caused the
abandonment of the whole idea of the reservation
of the intermediate galleries for students' use.
Some of Waterhouse's arrangements for access to
basement workshops were thus upset, and he seems
to have been irritated. (ref. 105) Other alterations,
perhaps associated with restiveness by departmental
keepers against Owen's superintendence,
were agreed to in August 1876, bringing the
openings and partitions in the rear galleries nearly
to their present state. (ref. 106)
The idea of a large ground-floor Refreshment
Room had been abandoned in 1871 and an intended
Dining Room at the rear of the first floor
was now, in 1876, also given up, the apartment
being redesignated the Trustees' Board Room,
which it still is. (ref. 107) The austerely sparse accommodation
for refreshment, contrasting with that
in the South Kensington Museum, was criticized
in 1883. (ref. 108)
In the same month of August 1876 an ominous
note was struck in Waterhouse's correspondence
with the Office of Works, when he refused to
certify a payment to the contractors. They were
involved in difficulties over the unreliable supply
of terra-cotta, (ref. 109) and had had to send a representative
to live at the makers' works in Staffordshire. (ref. 110)
The construction of the museum was in fact to
have a very unhappy history. One basic reason
was Waterhouse's decision to face the museum
entirely with a material not normally employed so
extensively. This had limited the possible choice
of suppliers, and when the invitation to tender
had been in contemplation in November 1871
Waterhouse had wanted a separate competition
and contract for the terra-cotta. The Office of
Works preferred to maintain the contractors'
over-all responsibility. (ref. 111)
In September 1872 the lowest tender of
seventeen had been put in by George Baker and
Son, who had possibly been invited to compete on
Waterhouse's direct recommendation. (ref. 112) As has
been seen, they had finally been employed on the
basis of a revised tender (at £352,000). The high
level of the tendered prices was attributed largely
to the lack of competition among the subcontracting
terra-cotta makers. (ref. 113) The firm
chosen was Gibbs and Canning of Tamworth.
Later, the Office of Works' consultant surveyor,
Hunt, said that Waterhouse had virtually forced
them upon Baker and Son: this he denied, but it is
at least clear that he was an active intermediary in
the arrangement. (ref. 114) The terra-cotta makers were
given the privilege of monthly payment by the
Office of Works on the certificate of the contractors.
By the beginning of 1876 when the contractors
should have completed their work the building
was only half finished. At that stage Hunt and
Waterhouse agreed in blaming the terra-cotta
deliveries. (ref. 115) The main roofs were covered-in
early in 1878. (ref. 116) Then in the summer of 1879,
when the museum was nearly finished, the contractors
failed, although their creditors notified
the Office of Works that they would complete the
contract. (ref. 117) In October 1881 Hunt was commenting
on 'the total and absolute ruin of the
contractors, two of whom have recently died'. (ref. 118)
The cause of their failure was by then being hotly
disputed. The official explanation was rising
costs, (ref. 119) which, it seems, may have procured for
Baker and Son some concession of increased payment
soon after the signing of their contract. (ref. 120)
Waterhouse now attributed Baker and Son's
failure to their lack of 'generalship', and more
specifically to delay in the supply of iron, not
terra-cotta. (ref. 121) The very high price of iron in 1872
had contributed to the high cost of tenders. (ref. 122) In
the end, all the iron was reported to have come
from Belgium—'a fact well worth pondering over
by British workmen', as The Buildersaid. (ref. 123) The
trustees of Baker and Son's estate continued to
blame the terra-cotta supply, but now chiefly laid
blame on the long history of alterations in the
design. (ref. 124) It is evident that what was meant was
not so much the changes of plan and composition
already mentioned, as manifold changes in the
architectural detailing.
Figure 33:
Natural History Museum, plan and section in 1883.
1, 2, Bird Gallery; 3, Central Hall; 4, S.E. Gallery; 5, Geology and Palaeontology; 6, Fossil Mammalia; 7, Fossil Mammalia and Birds; 8, Fossil Reptilia; 9, Coral Gallery; 10, Bird Gallery for study; 11, Shell Gallery; 12, Students; 13, Star Fish Gallery; 14, Reptile Gallery; 15, Insect Gallery; 16, Fish Gallery; 17, Reserve Gallery; 18, Library and Geological Department 19, Fossil Fishes, Cephalopoda and Pteropoda; 20, Geographical Collections; 21. Fossil Gasteropoda, Crustacea,
and Ichnites of Birds and Reptiles; 25, British Natural History Museum (Zoology)
One cause of this lay in Waterhouse's attempt
to give a two-colour effect to the mainly buff
façade. Difficulty in obtaining a supply of sound
blue-grey terra-cotta led him to reduce the
quantity of this variety used externally, but, in
order to achieve the intended vivacity of effect,
to increase the modelling of the surface in
compensation. (ref. 125) (Another revision was the
reduction in the size of the individual blocks to
improve firing, although Waterhouse thought this
facilitated handling. (ref. 126) )
The outstanding feature of the detailing was
that it was illustrative, portraying the subjectmatter,
existing and extinct, of the museum
(Plates 62c, 62d, 63a, 63b; figs. 34, 35). Examples
were suggested to Waterhouse by Owen, (ref. 12) whom
Waterhouse asked to inspect the first plaster
models before manufacture in terra-cotta. (ref. 127) The
plaster models were made by Monsieur Dujardin
of the firm of architectural modellers, Farmer and
Brindley, (ref. 128) from careful pencil drawings by
Waterhouse himself. (ref. 129) The decoration of the east
and west wings of the museum was with extinct
and living species respectively, corresponding to
the distribution of the geological and zoological
collections. Sorting the terra-cotta into the right
category was to be an item in a large claim for
extra payment by Baker and Son's trustees. (ref. 130)
Waterhouse had insisted throughout that his
alterations would in sum reduce the building
costs. (ref. 131) Taking additions and subtractions together,
however, the alterations were valued at
upward of a quarter of a million pounds, (ref. 118) and the
question who should pay for the surveyor's costing
of this 'gigantic puzzle' became itself an issue
between Waterhouse and the Office of Works. (ref. 132)
The Office's consultant surveyor, Hunt, was very
condemnatory of Waterhouse. In June 1881
Baker and Son's trustees, arguing that the alterations
amounted to a breach of contract, claimed
some £80,000 beyond the agreed price, and refused
an offer of £10,000. (ref. 133) Hunt, with the
support of the Office's solicitor, reported in
October that an appeal to arbitration on behalf of
the contractors might be successful. (ref. 134) An offer of
£25,000 was made and accepted in July 1882. (ref. 135)
Hunt attributed some of Waterhouse's difficulties
to the demands of 'the professors' but told him
that the added expense caused by his alterations
was 'a scandal and a shame'. (ref. 136) To the Office of
Works Hunt suggested that they should proceed
against Waterhouse for 'a serious dereliction of
duty' and 'negligence or indifference to his moral
and as I humbly think, his legal obligation to the
Board'. He raised the question whether the Board
should in future use only architects over whom
they could exercise more control. (ref. 137)
The final cost of the building itself was
evidently some £412,000 compared with the
original limit of £330,000. To this was added
Waterhouse's commission of 5 per cent on that
smaller sum, the additional cost of the towers,
some but not all of the finishings and some but
not all of the costing-surveyor's charges: his
remuneration totalled £19,730. (ref. 138)
Figure 34:
Natural History Museum, gate lodge
There was also the expense of the furniture and
cases. By reason of the nature of the collection
they required (and still require) exceptional care
and expense. In December 1877 the Treasury
had accepted an estimate of no less than £177,045
for these, and Waterhouse had been directed to
design the fittings. (ref. 139) Throughout the following
year he produced designs for wall-cases and other
furnishings. (ref. 140) Financial difficulties, however,
were overtaking Disraeli's Government. The
country's imperial status had helped the growth
of the collections, but economies at home were
now required to sustain overseas involvements. (ref. 141)
(fn. f)
Late in 1879 the Treasury pronounced the
expenditure of 'the enormous sum' of £137,570
outstanding from the earlier estimate to be 'quite
out of the question', (ref. 143) and the public opening of
the museum was delayed by lack of funds for
fittings. (ref. 144) In the end, the benches and chairs
were of Waterhouse's designing (many are still in
use) but some at least of the cases were made to
the design of (Sir) John Taylor, the Office of
Works' surveyor, who later claimed the credit for
them although they were compared unfavourably
with Waterhouse's furniture. (ref. 145) And the final
cost was still nearly £137,000. (ref. 146)
With this exception Waterhouse's hand was
seen throughout. The plaster ceilings were
painted, less elaborately than first intended, by
Best and Lea of Manchester. (ref. 147) The stained-glass
windows of Waterhouse's designing were made
by F. T. Odell of Finsbury. (ref. 148) Burke and Company
of Newman Street made the mosaic pavements,
which were confined to the central
compartments from regard for the comfort of the
curators, despite a stately plea by Cole for the
general use of tiles or mosaic. (ref. 149) The ornamental
ironwork was made by Hart, Son and Peard of
Wych Street. (ref. 148) The slating of the roofs, where
Waterhouse showed his niceness of touch, was by
T. Stirling. (ref. 150)
The building was handed over to the British
Museum by the Office of Works in June 1880
and opened to the public in three of its four departments
in April 1881: the last (zoological) gallery
was opened in 1886 (Plates 63c, 64–65, 66a, b, 66c;
fig. 33). (ref. 151) Owen at last had his great museum,
oriented mainly towards public display. (Waterhouse
had told him in 1878 that the floor-space
devoted to exhibits amounted to 4¾ acres, to
workshops rather more than ½ acre and to storage
space 1½ acres. (ref. 8) ) He also had his 'British Natural
History Museum' although the 'Index Museum'
in the Central Hall was less elaborate than he
wished: its development largely awaited his
successor, Sir William Flower. (ref. 152) Gladstone had
Owen given his K.C.B. in 1883. He also sent
Owen a copy of his forthcoming article directed
against T. H. Huxley, the 'Proem to Genesis', to
which Owen replied with E. P. Ramsay's paper
on the egg of the porcupine ant-eater. (ref. 153)
In his account of the museum to the Biology
Section of the British Association in 1881 Owen
reaffirmed his preference for top-lit galleries of
modest height: the transverse galleries represented
a 'developmental advance' over the Central Hall
and side-lit galleries, which expressed the 'character
of the primitive and now extinct museum'. (ref. 12)
The reception of Waterhouse's building was
on the whole favourable. (ref. 154) Its transfusion of a
period style into something unmistakeably of its
own day was liked, and the Companionto the
British Almanacwent so far as to call it 'forwardlooking'
contrasted with the 'backward-looking'
Law Courts. (ref. 155) The use of terra-cotta was
praised for commonsense reasons, but the refinement
of its handling was also noted. In a particularly
appreciative article in 1881 E. Ingress
Bell stressed the museum's picturesque or
painterly qualities—in fact it was 'a Victorian
building, and no other'. (ref. 156) Ten years before, The
Timeshad feared that it might prove to be 'a
violent and dangerous contrast' to the Huxley
Building. (ref. 157) But this objection seems not to have
been revived.
Inside, the lighting of the exhibits had been
carefully studied. But Cole was implacable,
thinking the building greatly inferior to his South
Kensington Museum in such practicalities:
'design begotten in sin has produced a crippled,
dark, foolish building, most inappropriate, illlighted,
badly ventilated'. (ref. 158) Owen on the contrary
spoke of the 'flood of light' in the Central Hall, (ref. 12)
and in places experience showed that Waterhouse's
lighting was actually too abundant. (ref. 159) Nowadays
only limited use is made of Waterhouse's arrangements
for natural lighting. Originally, the central
section alone was artificially lit, by gas. (ref. 108)
Soon, too, exhibition space was being converted
to study and storage purposes and this shift from
Owen's approach made Waterhouse's plan seem
inconvenient. The radical separation of zoological
and palaeontological material was criticized and
soon seemed out of date. (ref. 160)
Waterhouse's reputation suffered nothing from
the builders' difficulties. Even in the official mind
Hunt's strictures had no permanent effect, and
eight or nine years later the Office of Works gave
Waterhouse an honoured place in the South
Kensington Museum competition.
At the Natural History Museum Waterhouse
was asked in June 1881 to make plans for a separate
building to house objects preserved in spirit.
He estimated that his design would cost £7,350
exclusive of fittings, and fortunately an acceptable
tender was offered (by George Shaw) at £7,200.
The detached building at the rear of the museum
(Plate 74b) was finished by March 1883. (ref. 161)
This does not survive, but another ancillary
building, the residential Lodge, designed by
Waterhouse in 1883 to accommodate an engineer
and messenger in semi-detached houses, still
stands near Queen's Gate (fig. 35). Mowlem and
Company's tender was accepted at £2,300. The
Lodge was composed to look well if the ground
level was lowered some 5½ feet when the museum
should be enlarged and the existing garden level
extended northward. (ref. 162)
By 1884 the total expenditure on the museum
buildings and fittings was some £602,000. (ref. 146)
Later developments
When extension became a live topic c. 1911 it was
involved in an attempt, originating mainly outside
the museum, to secure physical links between it
and the two other museums being planned to the
northward, the Science Museum and the
Geological Museum. In 1911 the British
Museum agreed that the latter should be built in
the Natural History Museum's grounds, and as
part, physically, of an extension to that museum. (ref. 163)
A design to realize this by a continuation of the
front range in Waterhouse's style, with a duplication
of his angle towers at each end, was prepared
by Sir Henry Tanner of the Office of Works in
1911–13. (fn. h) By 1914, however, Tanner's successor
(Sir) Richard Allison, had prepared plans in the
classical style. (ref. 164) But the war of 1914–18
prevented anything being done (although the
Science Museum was begun in 1914). In c.
1920–3 a new 'spirit museum' was built to the
design of J. H. Markham of the Office of Works,
extending west from the north-west corner of the
museum. (ref. 165) Happily, the advance of science had
not quenched an enthusiasm for whales, and in
1929–32 the same architect had the pleasing task
of designing a Whale Hall on the north side of the
museum, to house the model and skeleton of
Balaenoptera musculus. (ref. 166) Its location accorded
with the recommendation of the Royal Commission
on National Museums and Galleries in
1927–8 that any extension should be northward,
over an area of 'ugliness and squalor'. (ref. 167) At that
time the idea of a junction between the three
museums was revived by the authorities of the
newly building Geological Museum but the
Natural History Museum did not approve of it
and no connexion was then made although the
Geological Museum was placed adjacent to the
museum's geological wing (see page 258). Between
1935 and 1938 an entomological block was built
on the west side, and between 1949 and 1952 it
was extended by W. Kendall of the Ministry of
Works to meet the new spirit museum (which was
also extended westward in the same period). (ref. 168)
In 1955–8 the first stage of a major northern
extension of the museum was built to Kendall's
design on the site of the old spirit museum. This
was in conjunction with the central section of the
Science Museum, to which it gave public access.
A General Library and a Lecture Theatre were
included, so fulfilling Owen's scheme. (ref. 169)
Figure 35:
Natural History Museum, engineer's and messenger's lodge
In 1973 the second stage of this northern
extension was completed and an L-shaped east
wing designed by G. A. H. Pearce of the Department
of the Environment was under construction,
to house the palaeontological department
and be linked to the Geological Museum (plan d
between pages 54–5).
Inside the museum the botanical gallery,
damaged during the 1939–45 war, has been
reconstructed, in 1962, over the geological
gallery. (ref. 170) Other galleries (including British birds,
insects, African mammals and meteorites) have
been thoroughly masked to give more effective
displays. In the side-lit galleries along the front
only the west wing on the ground floor preserved
in 1974 the relationship between the pier-cornices
and display-cases intended by Waterhouse.