Abstract
THE comparatively few specimens of natural history in the olden time were stored in the Library of the University or in other rooms, and though Dr. McVicar, the first lecturer on the subject of natural history, commenced a new collection, about 1826, in the old dining hall of the United College, the results were small. It was not until 1838, the date of the foundation of the Literary and Philosophical Society, that Sir David Brewster pressed forward the formation of a museum for the University; indeed, this was one of the main aims of the society. Under the fostering care of the distinguished principal just mentioned, active progress was made, and by and by the Government provided a hall and adjoining rooms, with the necessary cases for the collections. The specimens have gradually accumulated since that date, and to such a degree after 1882 that the crowded condition of the shelves renders the museum at present mainly a store for the preservation rather than the exhibition of its contents. The need for extension was felt as early as 1884, when the architect of the Board of Works made plans for the extension of the museum on the present site-plans which met with the approval of everyone in the University. These included an aquarium and a marine laboratory on the ground floor, laboratories and class-rooms over them, whilst another large hall and accessory rooms formed an extension of the present museum to Butts Wynd, these filling up the northwestern corner of the quadrangle. Unfortunately, though sympathetic, Mr. Gladstone's Government could not afford the funds, and ever since the condition has been clamant. It is true the University might have provided the funds, for it has built large additions in the shape of new class-rooms and a physical laboratory, and appropriated 5000l. of the Carnegie grant for endowing the chemical research laboratory, the munificent gift of Prof. Purdie. The department of zoology, however, had to wait. Thus it happened that, after the death of Prof. Pettigrew, his widow resolved to erect a memorial to him in the form of the spacious new museum at the Bute Medical Buildings, a site which in itself is full of reminiscences of the long-continued efforts of the deceased professor and a colleague-supported by the late Lord Bute and the medical graduates of the University-for securing two anni medici at St. Andrews, the other three years being intended for Dundee. Moreover, as he was a former custodian of the old museum, the gift of this memorial of Prof. Pettigrew is peculiarly appropriate.
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M., W. The New Bell-Pettigrew Museum of Natural History in the University of St. Andrews . Nature 88, 177–178 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/088177a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/088177a0