Geological Museum

The Geological Museum was opened on the 3rd of July, 1935 as the new Museum of Practical Geology. Its opening coincided with the Centenary of the Geological Survey.

Extract from E.B. Bailey. 1952. Geological Survey of Great Britain.

To South Kensington

In April, 1923, it was found that the roof of De la Beche's Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street required repair. The damage was due to settlement of the foundations. It is quite possible that the trouble started with a German bomb, dropped near at hand in Piccadilly on the 19th October, 1917. Had not some plaster fallen from the roof, it might have escaped notice for some years to come. As it was, to quote from Flett's First Hundred Years of the Geological Survey: ' The Museum was at once closed to the public as dangerous, but the staff continued to work in it as usual.'

The Geological Survey Board, in view of all the circumstances, revived a recommendation that had been made by a Departmental Committee in 1912, and pressed for transfer of Survey Headquarters to South Kensington, where a site was available on land purchased from the proceeds of the 1851 Exhibition. Next year, 1924, the Government decided, at least in principle, to adopt this procedure.

As a temporary measure elaborate timber supports were erected in the Museum, and thin sheets of wood were inserted to replace glass in its one-time transparent roof. At last, on the 4th of August, 1925, the building was reopened to the public. To quote again from Flett 'The interior now presented a spectacle such as no other museum in the world could furnish.'

Meanwhile, plans were made for removal, in so far as this matter lay in the hands of the Survey. In 1925 Flett, accompanied by McLintock,. visited museums at Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, BudaPesth, Munich, Frankfurt on the Maine, Strasbourg, Brussels and Paris. They found that those which had been built as museums showed a progressive and advantageous development of plan. They were particularly impressed with the design and furniture of the Riksmuseum at Stockholm and the Deutsches Museum at Munich ; and generally speaking they learnt much of value regarding display, labelling, and illustration of exhibition material, and storage of reference specimens. All the recent museums had abundant ancillary accommodation for storage and research, including laboratories and libraries.

Financial stringency prevented the Office of Works from making any provision in their estimates for 1926-27, and again 1927-28, for the building of the proposed new Offices and Museum. It even came to be questioned whether the Survey required a museum of its own, since paleontology and mineralogy are principal features of the British Museum (Natural History) already at South Kensington. However, in July, 1927, a Royal Commission was appointed to consider and report on the condition and organisation of national museums in London and 'Edinburgh ; and in November it took evidence from Flett, who put forward the Survey case in cogent terms.

After this there was little delay. On the 22nd December the Under Secretary of State for the Home Office announced in the douse of Commons that the Royal Commission had advised the transfer of the Geological Museum to South Kensington at the earliest convenient moment, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer hoped to give effect to this recommendation as soon as financial circumstances permitted. One last quotation from Flett: ' The period of suspense was over.'

Fortunately the financial difficulties of transferring the Survey from Jermyn Street to South Kensington, when properly faced, proved of much the same obliging character as those which have helped Columbia University in a succession of migrations from the centre of New York. The Government leased the Jermyn Street-Piccadilly site for £11,000 a year, which more than recoups it for the £245,000 expended on new buildings and furniture at South Kensington, on a site, it will be remembered, inherited from the 1851 Exhibition.

This site, situated on Exhibition Road, in what might fitly be called Princeconsortland, adjoins the British Museum (Natural History) on the west, and the Science Museum on the north ; while to the east it faces the Victoria and Albert Museum, north of which stand the Huxley Buildings, the first to be occupied of a great series housing the Imperial College of Science.

Plans for the new buildings were prepared by Sir Richard Allison and Mr. J. H. Markam, of H.M. Office of Works, and the furniture was designed by other officers of the same department. There was, of course, constant consultation, in which Flett and McLintock played a very prominent part, assisted by Grant Ogilvie. The latter had been successively Director of the Royal Scottish (Edinburgh) and Science (S. Kensington) Museums, before becoming Principal Assistant Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and, concurrently until 1930, Chairman of the Geological Survey Board.

A start was made at actual building in 1929. By 1931 progress was such that several members of the field staff were diverted to co-operate with their museum colleagues in developing the exhibitional detail of the master plan, since successfully put into operation. According to this, the basement of the new Museum is devoted to workshops and storage; the main floor and two galleries to the display of exhibits (main floor to illustrate principles, first gallery, regions, and second gallery, economic resources); while the top floor, with a superficial area of 16,000 square feet, houses ' reserve and study collections,' and is furnished with tables for the benefit of research workers. Alongside, and with easy communications, stand the library, laboratories, and staff working rooms.

Flett arranged that the regional displays of the second gallery should be made the subject of eighteen Regional Guides illustrating the geology of the whole United Kingdom. The preparation of these Guides proved very stimulating to their selected authors; and their appearance has been welcomed by a wide public, much wider than that which has easy access to the Museum. The Guides rank, in fact, among the Survey's best-sellers.

Building proceeded so satisfactorily that the Summary of Progress for 1932 foretold a transfer to be completed in stages during 1933. The prophecy seemed safe, since it was penned in the early months of 1933. Suddenly, however, the Government installed an International Monetary and Economic Congress, thus delaying the entry of the Survey until the beginning of 1934.

On the 3rd of July, 1935, the new Museum of Practical Geology was opened to the public by a great-grandson of the Prince Consort, no less a person than H.R.H. the Duke of York, since crowned George VI. The ceremony was attended by over 1,200 guests.

In the evening of the same day the Geological Society held a reception of delegates and guests in its rooms at Burlington House in Piccadilly. The occasion was particularly happy, for the opening of the new Museum coincided with the Centenary of the Geological Survey. Next day this latter event provided the subject of a special assembly in the lecture theatre of the Royal Geographical Society at Kensington Gore. Lord Rutherford presided, as Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. He pointed to the large and representative gathering of scientists drawn from all parts of the world (some 130 from overseas); and found in it a striking testimony to widespread respect and admiration surrounding the British Geological Survey. He might, perhaps, have added affection, for the Survey, with all its faults, still occupies a warm corner in the heart of international Geology.

Flett entered into the spirit of the harvest thanksgiving, and furnished an appropriate resume of the long day's work. He was followed by speakers from abroad. Other festivities came later in the day.

After that, Museum and indoor functions were deserted in favour of the field. Three well attended excursions spent a week visiting South Wales, the Isle of Wight and Edinburgh, as the case might be.

Mention of Edinburgh recalls that Flett, in spite of his London preoccupations, succeeded in securing greatly improved Headquarters for Scotland in the form of a mansion in Grange Terrace, Edinburgh, which was occupied in 1927.

Quote from Bailey:

For my own part I never enter the extraordinarily successful new Museum of Practical Geology without a feeling of gratitude to Flett, to whom above all, with the whole-hearted support of his colleagues, the nation owes this great achievement. Very fittingly, having reached the goal of his latter years, he retired on the 3oth September, 1935. He had already been knighted ten years previously.