scholarly journals The Triassic insects of Denmark Hill, Ipswich, Southeast Queensland: the creation, use and dispersal of a collection

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 217-242
Author(s):  
Alan Rix ◽  
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Fossil Insects ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Australian Museum ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site ◽  
Insect Fossils ◽  
Southeast Queensland

Type and additional fossil insects from the Late Triassic Denmark Hill locality in Southeast Queensland, Australia, are held in the collections of the Queensland Museum (Brisbane), the Australian Museum (Sydney) and the Natural History Museum of the United Kingdom (London). The history of these collections shows that they were the product of a concerted effort in the first two decades of the twentieth century to extract the fossils by Benjamin Dunstan, Queensland’s Chief Government Geologist, and to describe the fossils by Dunstan and Robin Tillyard, the foremost Australian entomologist of the time. They collaborated closely to document the late Triassic insects of Australia, at the same time as Dunstan carefully curated and organised both the official government collection of these insects for the Geological Survey of Queensland, and his own private collection. The death of the two men in the 1930s led to the sale by his widow of Dunstan’s private fossil collection (including type and type counterpart specimens) to the British Museum, and the donation of Tillyard’s by his widow to the same institution, in addition to some material that went to the Australian Museum. This paper documents the locations of all of the published specimens. The history of the Denmark Hill fossils (a site no longer accessible for collection) highlights the problems for researchers of the dispersal of holdings such as these, and in particular the separation of the part and counterpart of the same insect fossils. It also raises ethical questions arising from the ownership and disposal of private holdings of important fossil material collected in an official capacity.

ROBERT BEDFORD (1874–1951), THE KYANCUTTA MUSEUM, AND A UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGY

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 416-443
Author(s):  
BARRY J. COOPER ◽  
JAMES B. JAGO
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
South Australia ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
World War ◽  
History Museum ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Flinders Ranges

Robert Bedford (1874–1951), based in the isolated community of Kyancutta in South Australia, was a unique contributor to world geology, specifically in the field of meteorites and fossil archaeocyatha. Born Robert Arthur Buddicom in Shropshire, UK, he was an Oxford graduate who worked as a scientist in Freiberg, Naples, Birmingham and Shrewsbury as well as with the Natural History Museum, Kensington and the Plymouth Museum in the United Kingdom. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, 1899–1910. In 1915, Buddicom changed his surname to Bedford and relocated to South Australia. During the 1920s, Bedford expanded his geological interests with the establishment of a public museum in Kyancutta in 1929. This included material previously collected and stored in the United Kingdom before being sent to Australia. Bedford was very successful in collecting material from the distant Henbury meteorite craters in Australia's Northern Territory, during three separate trips in 1931–1933. He became an authority on meteorites with much Henbury material being sent to the British Museum in London. However, Bedford's work on, and collecting of, meteorites resulted in a serious rift with the South Australian scientific establishment. Bedford is best known amongst geologists for his five taxonomic papers on the superbly preserved lower Cambrian archaeocyath fossils from the Ajax Mine near Beltana in South Australia's Flinders Ranges with field work commencing in about 1932 and extending until World War II. This research, describing thirty new genera and ninety-nine new species, was published in the Memoirs of the Kyancutta Museum, a journal that Bedford personally established and financed in 1934. These papers are regularly referenced today in international research dealing with archaeocyaths.

scholarly journals In Memoriam Indoor Fountains: Promenade Concerts and the Built Environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-48
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Concert Hall ◽  
Potted Plants ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
In Memoriam ◽  
A Site ◽  
Political Negotiation

Discussions of promenade concerts, at least in the United Kingdom, tend to run along one of two lines: either the format is emblematic of attempts to popularize classical music or (in the famous case of the Last Night of the BBC Proms) it is symptomatic of a contested cultural nationalism. An alternative line of inquiry is to consider promenade concerts as part of the built environment. Until 2010 the fountain at the Royal Albert Hall was a mainstay of musical promenading; it had been so for over a century and a half. Such fountains, often accompanied by potted plants and Arcadian décor, were said to cool the concert hall and freshen the air, especially when their sprinkles were supplemented with blocks of imported ice. They occupied a prominent place in a concert architecture that encouraged mobility and informality, drawing on a long tradition of outdoor promenading that had gradually moved indoors. The history of concert hall suggests that the promenade phenomenon constituted not only a site of social and political negotiation (as it has typically been described), but also a staging post in the enclosure of hitherto open spaces and an example of the Victorian desire to control the climate of public assembly.

scholarly journals Professional fossil preparators at the British Museum (Natural History), 1843–1990

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-264
Author(s):  
Mark R. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Public Display ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Fossil Material ◽  
Mechanical Preparation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Public Exhibition ◽  
Father And Son

Since the inception of the British Museum (Natural History) in 1881 (now the Natural History Museum, London), the collection, development and mounting of fossils for scientific study and public exhibition have been undertaken by fossil preparators. Originally known as masons, because of their rock-working skills, their roles expanded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when, at the forefront of the developing science of palaeontology, the Museum was actively obtaining fossil material from the UK and abroad to build the collections. As greater numbers of more impressive specimens were put on public display, these preparators developed new and better methods to recover and transport fossils from the field, and technical improvements, in the form of powered tools, enabled more detailed mechanical preparation to be undertaken. A recurring theme in the history of palaeontological preparation has been that sons often followed in their fathers' footsteps in earth sciences. William and Thomas Davies, Caleb and Frank Barlow, and Louis and Robert Parsons were all father-and-son geologists and preparators.

Zoological material for John Lawson's “Compleat History” of Carolina (1710–1711): specimens recorded in Hans Sloane's catalogues

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-345
Author(s):  
Marcus B. Simpson ◽  
Sallie W. Simpson ◽  
David W. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Natural History ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Untimely Death ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Museum Staff

As part of his plan for a “Compleat History” of the region, John Lawson, Surveyor-General of North Carolina, collected plants and animals in 1710 and 1711 from Virginia and North Carolina and shipped them to James Petiver in London. After Petiver's death in 1718, his collection was acquired by Hans Sloane and subsequently incorporated into the natural history collections in the British Museum. The Sloane herbarium, now at the Natural History Museum, London, contains more than 300 previously reported botanical specimens attributed to Lawson, but details of his zoological collecting have not heretofore been documented. Two of Sloane's manuscript catalogues of “Fossils” include at least 34 specimens that appear to have been among those sent by Lawson to Petiver. These Lawson specimens were probably discarded or destroyed by British Museum staff in the 1700s or early 1800s. The Sloane catalogues nevertheless provide evidence that Lawson had begun work on his ambitious plan for a natural history of Carolina. Lawson's untimely death in September 1711 brought an abrupt end to the project, and Petiver apparently never used the zoological material he received from Lawson.

The response of insect faunas to glacial-interglacial climatic fluctuations

1994 ◽  
Vol 344 (1307) ◽  
pp. 19-26 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Fossil Insects ◽  
Objective Data ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
Climatic Oscillations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Extinction Rates ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insect Fossils

The extinction of species of small invertebrates is difficult to recognize. However, in deposits that date from the past few million years, insect fossils are remarkably common and provide objective data on the history of the organisms that constitute the biotic communities of the present day. It might have been expected that the great climatic oscillations of the glacial-interglacial cycles should have caused widespread extinctions, if their effects on the large vertebrates is taken as our model. Yet the record of Quaternary fossil insects shows no high extinction rates during this period. Constancy of species and communities of species can be demonstrated to be the norm for at least the last million or so years (= generations). The enigma of how such constancy was sustained in the face of large-scale climatic fluctuations remains a puzzle though several possible solutions are suggested. These solutions carry implications for our estimates of present and future extinction rates.

‘African Curiosities’ from the voyage of HMS Avon, 1845–1846: historiographical notes on a forgotten collection

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-237
Author(s):  
Jeremy Coote
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
West Africa ◽  
British Museum ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
National Archives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Detailed Nature

Abstract Thanks to the detailed nature of the sketches accompanying an article published in the Illustrated London News in 1846, it has proved possible recently to trace the history of some objects in the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum to the voyage of HMS Avon (Commander Henry Mangles Denham) to the coast of West Africa in 1845–6. Drawing on archival materials that survive at the Pitt Rivers Museum, the British Museum, the National Archives, and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, historiographical notes are provided on the nature and content of the collection, along with an account of its post-voyage history, including its recent ‘rediscovery’.

Late Triassic fossil insects from the Laohugou Formation of northern China (Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province)

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIYING HUANG ◽  
JIAN GAO ◽  
CHONG DONG ◽  
YITONG SU ◽  
YANZHE FU ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Jurassic ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Sedimentary Environment ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Upper Triassic ◽  
Hebei Province ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Fossil Insects ◽  
Stratigraphic Sequence ◽  
Insect Fossils

Triassic insect fossils from China are very limited. Here we report on numerous insect fossils discovered in the Upper Triassic Laohugou Formation at Heishanyao, Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province. These fossils are represented mainly by forewings of cockroaches and coleopteran elytra. The insect assemblage is most similar to that from the Upper Triassic Momonoki Formation of Japan. Fossils of the Laohugou Formation have been poorly known, so our discovery of new fossil insects bear significance for understanding the biota and sedimentary environment of this formation. The Mesozoic stratigraphic division in the Liujiang Basin has been controversial, and the usage of stratigraphic units has been inconsistent. Here we refine the stratigraphic sequence, from the bottom to the top, of the Upper Triassic Laohugou Formation, the Lower-Middle Jurassic Yaopo Formation, the Upper-Middle Jurassic Longmen Formation, the Upper Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation, and the Lower Cretaceous Zhangjiakou Formation. The Laohugou Formation is scattered in various basins in western Liaoning and northern Hebei, with the lower part mostly characterized by thick layers of complex conglomerates, suggesting a regional tectonic uplift. There is a sedimentary discontinuity between the Laohugou Formation and the Yaopo/Beipiao Formation, reflecting the uplifting activities during the late Late Triassic-early Early Jurassic in eastern China. The Laohugou Formation is overlaying on various ancient strata, representing the first regional unconformity of the northeastern margin of the North China Craton.

History of political and civil rights of women in the United Kingdom

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (11) ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Maria Zhukova ◽  
Elena Maystrovich ◽  
Elena Muratova ◽  
Aleksey Fedyakin
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of

Charles de Gaulle and European Community

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10-3) ◽  
pp. 70-81
Author(s):  
David Ramiro Troitino ◽  
Tanel Kerikmae ◽  
Olga Shumilo
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
European Community ◽  
World War ◽  
Charles De Gaulle ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Post War ◽  
De Gaulle

This article highlights the role of Charles de Gaulle in the history of united post-war Europe, his approaches to the internal and foreign French policies, also vetoing the membership of the United Kingdom in the European Community. The authors describe the emergence of De Gaulle as a politician, his uneasy relationship with Roosevelt and Churchill during World War II, also the roots of developing a “nationalistic” approach to regional policy after the end of the war. The article also considers the emergence of the Common Agricultural Policy (hereinafter - CAP), one of Charles de Gaulle’s biggest achievements in foreign policy, and the reasons for the Fouchet Plan defeat.

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