Bristol Museum & Art Gallery’s Natural History collection is made up of about 650,000 specimens including taxidermy, skeletal material, shells, pinned invertebrates, pickled specimens and beautifully preserved pressed plants.
These are complemented by a rare books library, field note books, archive documents and photographs.
Built up by donations from local people, curators, and groups including the University of Bristol and Bristol Naturalists’ Society, the collection represents the wildlife found in Bristol and the South West of England over the last 200 years. Specimens from around the world reflect Bristol’s history of trade and exploration, including many from Bristol Zoo Gardens.
Only 5-10% of the collection is on display. The rest forms a research collection comprising approximately: 400,000 insects; 150,000 shells; 55,000 plants; 30,000 birds; 5,000 birds eggs; 2,000 mammals.
The collection is used daily by researchers, artists, students, scientists and television production companies.
The oldest specimens we care for in the Natural History department are a collection of beautiful pressed plants collected by Dr Arthur Broughton, a local physician, in the 18th century. Composed of four volumes, these herbaria record plants collected from Bristol in the 1770s and Jamaica between 1780 and 1790. As a boy, Arthur studied […]
His lively personality included a habit of throwing snowballs, wearing woolly jumpers, and a dislike of bearded men and aeroplanes. Stories of Alfred even made the press in America during World War II as US Army troops stationed in Bristol sent stories and postcards of him home. On March 10, 1948, Alfred died after 18 […]
