Visit to the Lapworth Museum of Geology,
University of Birmingham
A group of 20 members visited the Museum at the invitation of the curator Prof. Jon Clatworthy.
In the morning we were given a lecture by Jon in which he presented an overview of the origins and development of the museum and its current collection and archive. The museum is nearly 130 years old and currently contains the largest and finest geological collection in the Midlands comprising ~250,000 specimens of national and international importance.
The museum is named after the Charles Lapworth the first professor of Geology at Mason College in Birmingham, the forerunner of the University of Birmingham.
Charles Lapworth was one of the most important and influential geologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He followed directly on from the early Victorian geology pioneers like Sir Roderick Murchison and made major contributions to geology in a period of massive change.
After lunch we split into two groups in order to view the archives and the minerals and fossil collections.
The archives contain much of the early teaching material used by Charles Lapworth himself including large coloured geological cross section maps hand drawn onto cloth ‘mats’ which could be laid out on the floor as a teaching aid. We also saw many of Lapworth’s hand written lecture notes which were clearly intended to be read verbatim as they had many delivery ‘prompts’.
The archive also contains details and photos of all the undergraduate years. One of our party had graduated in 1950 at Birmingham and Jon was able not only able to find photograph of his year but also his final year project! Our member commented that he couldn’t even remember doing it!
The mineral archive contains many examples from the traditional mining areas of the UK. In particular it has the original 18th century mineral collection of William Murdoch who worked with James Watt and Matthew Boulton.
The museum has some of the finest collections from the Wenlock Limestone of Dudley, famous for its Silurian (~420 MYA) fossils. It also has rocks from the old Midland coalfields which contain fossilised plants, fish, insects, arachnids, footprints and animal tracks. From further afield there are preserved fish, dragonflies, crabs and pterosaurs from the Solnholfen Limestone in Germany and fish collections from Brazil, Italy, Lebanon and USA. There are also examples of 510 million year old animals from the famous Burgess Shale of British Columbia.
At the end of the visit the future plans for the development of the Museum were explained. The Museum is expecting to receive a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund which will enable a major redevelopment during the remainder of 2014 and into 2015. The aim is to make the Museum more accessible to the general public. The revamped museum will be based on four key themes:
Dick Harris
June 2014