Taking Stock of the World: Foundations of Shropshire Museums and Nineteenth Century Collecting

Shropshire Museums has commissioned a series of short films exploring Shropshire Museums’ Natural Science Collections with Emma-Kate Lanyon (Curator).

This film explores the foundations of Shropshire Museums and how it reflects the nineteenth century interest in collecting. Victorian scientific collectors started to form societies to compare their collections and discuss their research and debate their findings. Many of Shropshire’s most important collectors were both contemporaries and colleagues of Charles Darwin, sharing his educational background and passions.

Over time societies opened their collections for the instruction and education of all. These new museums were at the cutting edge of science and were key for sharing the latest developments with the public. Our museum collections are still a vital source of historic data for research and are used today in ways that the museums’ founders could never have imagined.