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What's in the BRLSI Collections?

The Online Museum contains a selection of items from the much larger BRLSI Collections, which are housed at the BRLSI in Bath, UK.

The BRLSI Collections are best described by first splitting them into the divisions: Library, Geology, Natural History and Humanities. Each of the main collection categories can be sub-divided and that is how they are described below.

If you have any enquiries regarding the BRLSI collections please contact the curator, Matt Williams, at curator@brlsi.org.

For news regarding current work in the BRLSI collections click here for the curator's page.

Library

Natural History Collection
The libraries of the Rev. Leonard Jenyns [later Blomefield] (1800-1893) and Christopher Edmund Broome (1812-1886) amount to almost half the library collection, the former covering most aspects of science and natural history, the latter botanical, especially the lower plants, fungi and algae.

Over 3000 volumes, including a number of 17th and 18th century English works by Erasmus Darwin, John Evelyn, John Gerard, Thomas Johnston, Thomas Martyn, John Ray, and important works by European authors such as Agassiz, Bonnet, Cuvier, De Candolle, Elias Fries, Lamarck, and the obligatory Linnaeus.

Parliamentary Collection
Includes runs of the House of Commons and House of Lords Journals, reprints of Domesday Book, Rotuli Hundredorum, Valor Ecclesiasticus, and other ancient documents, reports of the Poor Law and Health of Towns Commissioners, Woodfall's and Hansard's 'Parliamentary Debates', William Cobbett's 'State Trials' etc. ca. 370 volumes.

Local Collection
Includes the libraries of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club and the Bath District of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society. These were organisations based at the Institution and their libraries were predominantly working reference libraries with much information on local history and antiquities. ca. 700 volumes.

General Collection
A varied collection acquired by the Institution itself and including a large number of scientific works and periodicals that complement the libraries of Jenyns and Broome, including Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, the Geological Society of London, the Statistical Society and the Bath & West of England Agricultural Society.

Theology and Church history are well represented and English translations of the scriptures include Coverdale, Barker, Geddes, the 'Bath Bible' of Bishop Wilson (King James version compared to other translations). Many books on eastern religions were presented by Major Charles Stewart, Professor of Oriental Literature at the East India Company's college.

Among the reference works are Diderot's Encyclopaedia (1751-1780), Samuel Johnson's dictionary, Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon and foreign language dictionaries, and Le Monde Primitif, which examines the origins of many languages and scripts. European history is well represented and the collection includes a number of historic world atlases and English county atlases. Magazine runs, topographical works, biographies and runs of obituaries provide an insight into 19th century society. ca. 2300 volumes.

Geology

Moore Collection - view Fossils gallery
Charles Moore (1814-1881) was a prominent geologist and collector who deposited his collection at the BRLSI from the 1854 onwards. Moore’s collection was purchased from his widow by the Institution in 1882 for £1,200 (as valued by the British Museum), it includes 32 complete and partial Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs mounted in wooden frames, on loan to the National Museum of Wales, where they were transferred for research and conservation purposes during the 1960’s.

Over 5000 macro-fossils are housed in the Institution, approximately two-thirds of which were collected by Moore. Of international importance are an exquisitely preserved collection fish, crocodilomorphs, ichthyosaurs and cephalopods from the Upper Lias of Ilminster, Somerset.

His fine collection of Carboniferous coal measure fossils from Radstock, Somerset, is also noteworthy. A very large number of microfossils (probably over a million), predominantly vertebrate teeth and foraminifera, are stored in glass tubes, and some are being actively researched and published today. Amongst the type and figured material are some very rare early mammal teeth from the late Triassic, now referred to the family Haramiyidae. The collection includes a large number of Type specimens and specimens figured in scientific papers by Moore and his contemporaries.

General Collection
Includes the fossil and rock collection assembled by William Lonsdale (1794-1871), the Institution's first curator and later a highly respected secretary to the Geological Society of London. Among these are specimens originally arranged in a cabinet by William Smith. A plaster cast of a fully articulated specimen of a Plesiosaur, Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni, is mounted on the wall of the Lonsdale room of the Institution. Other items include cave deposits from Banwell Cave, Wookey Hole and Kent's Hole on the Mendips.

Mineral Collection - view Minerals gallery
Includes reference specimens of all the commoner minerals and many rarer ones. They were collected at worldwide locations but the collection is particularly strong in material from south west England. Most of these collecting sites, as with many of Charles Moore’s fossil sites, are no longer accessible.

Over 2300 specimens have been checked or redetermined by Mrs. S. Cowdry of the Russell Society, who has also compiled a computer catalogue of the collection. Contributors include Lonsdale, Martineaux and many others in the 19th century and a Somerset mineral and ore-bearing rock sequence from Merehead Quarry donated by Christopher Alabaster in the early 1980s.

Natural History

Botany
The Jenyns herbarium of British plants, ca. 3000 specimens, is in 42 folio volumes in quarter-bound leather, as also is a volume entitled 'Plantae Bathonienses', which includes a number of local collectors, and probably constituted the herbarium of Bath Field Club.

The Broome herbarium contains ca. 6600 British and European specimens, including European exsiccatae of cryptogamic plants useful for reference purposes and probably includes a number of 'syntype', or 'paratype' specimens, especially those in Rabenhorst's Bryotheca Europaea. Based purely on the number of specimens, Dr. T.C.G. Rich of the Botany section at the National Museum of Wales would classify the collection as 'Regionally Important'.

Specimens were collected relatively early in the history of botanical study and many specimens were collected or identified by distinguished men of the time, e.g. J.S. Henslow and C.C. Babington, Professors of Botany at Cambridge; W.H. Harvey, Professor of Botany at Dublin; J.H. Balfour, Professor of Botany at Edinburgh, and H.C. Watson.

The library also contains many of the books referred to by the collectors. This makes the herbaria very useful for historical research and the exsiccatae add to their usefulness for taxonomic research.. Other herbaria include: H.H. Rich, ca. 1320 Mediterranean and Alpine plants; Miss Magdalena Turner, ca. 1500 British and Channel Isles algae; W.C. Young, ca. 800 Wiltshire plants. Specimens are well mounted and most in very good condition. There are also a large number of unmounted and unidentified exotic ferns.

The geographical coverage is as follows: Vascular plants, ca. 10000 (Britain, Europe, Azores, some N.American; ferns also from India and China); Non-vascular, ca. 4000 (British and European mosses, liverworts, stoneworts, algae, lichens and diatoms, some exotic algae, lichens and clubmosses).

Shell Collection
There are over 3,700 specimens in our collection of land, freshwater and marine shells. The latter include many exotic specimens, some quite rare. They have been worked on and labelled by Charles Copp and cleaned and supplied with better storage. The Jenyns collection of British shells is still housed in his cabinet and has been cleaned and catalogued by Rear Admiral Tracy. Jenyns described several new species, so his collection probably includes some that are scientifically important.

Other Invertebrates
The collection has come from a number of sources and has yet to be fully assessed. Some material has deteriorated through past insect damage but much of the collection remains in good condition. The beetles are well represented, and Roger Vaughan (1993) considered that they would make a reasonable reference collection. He assessed the total number at 12000, including 8529 Coleoptera, 3060 Lepidoptera, with the remainder being mostly Hymenoptera. Other material includes several shelves of corals from the Great Barrier Reef and a small collection of British Bryozoa.

Vertebrates
Only a small remnant of a once extensive collection remains. There are 33 cases of mounted birds and mammals, some cases in a poor condition, and 19 unmounted birds. Specimens number about 140 birds, including 2 specimens of the extinct Passenger Pigeon, and 12 mammals. There are a number of bird and animal skulls and a quantity of horn and ivory. A collection of some 700 birds' eggs has recently been cleaned and supplied with better storage. There are also 3 swiftlet nests (of bird's nest soup fame).

Humanities

British Archaeology
A large collection of British material, mostly Roman period from the vicinity of Bath, but ranging from Neolithic to Mediaeval in age. Most of this has been described in the proceedings of Bath Field Club and of the Bath District of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society. The majority is currently on loan to the Roman Baths Museum and Abbey Vaults Museum, Bath. A small amount is held at the Institution. Transfer to these museums in the 1960s and 1970s was not very well documented but much work has been undertaken to clarify the situation and in 2008 a new loan agreement was made with the Roman Baths Museum.

Foreign Archaeology
Antiquities from other continents include artefacts from the excavation of a Swiss lake village, encaustic tiles from Iran, a collec6tion of Egyptology on loan to Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery and pottery from Central America donated by Adela Breton.

Social History
An important collection, representing the art and culture of many lands. Many items were collected well before the era of tourism and others reflect early 'tourist art'. Many coins and tokens are on loan to the Roman Baths Museum, Bath. Those ethnological items held at the Institution number: 359 African, 303 American (North and South), 269 Asian, 128 Oriental, 204 Oceania and Australasia, 84 weapons additional to those counted amongst the regions listed above (mostly European, including 49 Firearms) and 22 Models (buildings, boats, carts, etc.).

There are 3761 items of European origin including a good collection of coins, tokens, medallions, seals and intaglios. Over 440 coins and tokens, 70 medallions, and 408 casts (in wax, sulphur, plaster or electrotypes) are held at the Institution. These include some rare and important ecclesiastical seals. There are 912 wax or plaster intaglios and a boxed set of wax casts of mounted cameos and intaglios totalling 2080 pieces that may date from the end of the 18th century. In addition there are 130 Miscellaneous (place of origin unknown), 207 with no data (many coins, medals, tokens, seals etc. are identifiable) though meticulous work involving correlation of the old catalogues and more general research is gradually reducing this number.

Fine Art
Four ceiling paintings by Andrea Casali, originally at Beckford's 'Fonthill Splendens', were purchased by Hastings Elwin for the Institution in 1823. The Casali paintings were conserved in 2002 and can be seen on the ceiling of the Institutions grand Elwin Room. Over 80 paintings, drawings, prints, etc. on loan to the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. A small number of prints, busts and statues are housed at the Institution. The busts include famous Bath residents: Hastings Elwin (carved by prominent geogian sculptor Francis Legatt Chantrey), Caleb Hillier Parry, Isaac Pitman, Jerom Murch, and Roderick Impey Murchison.

Photographic Collection
An important collection of early calotypes by Francis Lockey depicting scenes in and around Bath has been well documented and catalogued. Other early photographic material includes an album of photographs of the home counties and other localities by Hilditch, and albums of photographs from 19th century China and Japan presented by the Vacher family.

Archives
Archives include those of the Institution and of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, founded by Jenyns, Broome and Moore. The correspondence of 'men of science' with Leonard Jenyns was bound into four volumes by him, and transcriptions of these and other items of correspondence have been made. Correspondents include Charles Darwin, William Jackson Hooker and Joseph Dalton Hooker, John Stephens Henslow and many other influential men of the 19th century. The Jenyns Correspondence is registered with the National Register of Archives.

Other items include early catalogues of the Institution's library and collections. William Lonsdale's ms. catalogue includes a paper on the geology of the Bath Oolite, which he later published in the Quarterly Transactions of the Geological Society. Other archives include a copy of William Smith's 1815 geological map of England and Wales, drawings and watercolour illustrations of natural history subjects by Jenyns, some large scale drawings used by Broome and Moore in their lectures, and drawings and photographs of quarry sections and archaeological excavations.