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[Music]

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oxford university museum of natural

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history is home to an internationally

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significant natural history collection

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including the first dinosaur fossils to

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be scientifically described

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and the only surviving soft tissue from

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a dodo anywhere in the world

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but it is also one of the most

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remarkable buildings of the gothic

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revival

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a treasure house of victorian sculpture

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and design

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my name is john holmes i'm professor of

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victorian literature and culture at the

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university of birmingham and an honorary

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associate of the museum

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over this series of podcasts i want to

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introduce you to the art and

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architecture of oxford university museum

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of natural history

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and to give you a virtual tour of this

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extraordinary and beautiful building

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so far in this series we've looked at

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how the art and architecture of the

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museum was designed to teach its

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visitors and students about science

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the museum's gothic style and the angel

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above its main entrance

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told them that in victorian oxford

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science was the study of god's creation

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in this last episode i want to look at

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how the museum responded when this

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conception of science

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known as natural theology came into

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conflict with the new

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evolutionary and revolutionary ideas of

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charles darwin

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when oxford university agreed to build a

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museum of natural history in the

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mid-1850s

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the scientists who had campaigned for it

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reassured the other dons that this would

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be

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an overtly christian enterprise not

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everyone was convinced

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in high anglican oxford suspicion of

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science remained high

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in may 1855 a month before the

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foundation stone was due to be laid

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a last ditch attempt was made to stop

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the building of what one popular

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pamphlet called

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the babylon of a new museum in an

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allusion to the personification of sin

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in the book of revelation the dons who

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warned against the dangerous materialism

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of science may well have felt vindicated

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five years later

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when the museum celebrated its opening

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by hosting the british association for

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the advancement of science

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the british association meetings were

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large public gatherings

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drawing in crowds of amateur as well as

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professional scientists

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and anyone else interested in new

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knowledge and the development of

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scientific ideas

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on the 30th of june 1860 several hundred

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people gathered for a debate

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on the validity and implications of the

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theory of evolution by natural selection

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which had been proposed by charles

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darwin at the end of the previous year

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in his book on the origin of species the

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meeting was held

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in the large reading room on the first

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floor of the museum the room has since

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been partitioned by a mezzanine

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but the original painted ceiling remains

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giving a sense

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of how grand and imposing the

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architecture must have been

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the great debate as it has come to be

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known has been much mythologized

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darwin himself was not present according

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to popular legend the leading

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antagonists were samuel wilberforce the

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bishop of oxford

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known as soapy sam for his habit of

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bringing his hands together while he

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spoke as if he was washing them

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and the rising naturalist thomas henry

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huxley

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wilberforce notoriously asked huxley if

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he had any particular predilection for a

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monkey ancestry

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and if so on which side whether he would

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prefer an ape for his grandfather and a

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woman for his grandmother

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or a man for his grandfather and an ape

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for his grandmother

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huxley's reply to the bishop's smutty

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joke was that

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if the alternative were given to him

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being descended from a man conspicuous

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for his talents and eloquence

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but who misused his gifts to ridicule

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the laborious investigators of science

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and obscure the light of scientific

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truth

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or from the humble origin alluded to he

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would far rather choose the latter

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than the former a report of the debate

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in the little-known local paper called

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the oxford chronicle

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and berkshire and buckinghamshire

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gazette discovered by the historian of

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science richard england in 2017

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shows that this exchange certainly took

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place much to the enjoyment of a rather

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raucous crowd

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though there were many other speakers

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for and against darwin and the debate

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was far from a simple clash between

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science and religion

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wilberforce was a bishop not a scientist

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but he spoke for many scientists

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nonetheless

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including several of those involved in

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building the museum when he questioned

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darwin's ideas

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and huxley was not attacking religion

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per se but the subordination of

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scientific inquiry to christian

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revelation

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that was implicit in natural theology

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what was at stake here then was not just

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human evolution

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but the whole question of what science

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was

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the study of god's creation or a method

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for investigating the properties of a

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material world

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the great debate initiated a conflict to

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the museum between natural theology

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and methodological materialism or

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scientific naturalism as it came to be

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known

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this conflict played out in the museum

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science but also in its art

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and in a growing tension between the two

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the angel above the door to the museum

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is a clear sign of the museum's initial

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commitment to natural theology

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while the only hints at darwinian

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evolution in the early carvings of the

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museum

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are equivocal at best one of the windows

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carved by james o'shea in the spring of

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1860

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around six months after diamond's book

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was published features some curious

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grotesques

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unlike most of the carvings at the

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museum these are not actual animals but

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hybrids

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the four quarters like those of a large

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carnivore the hindquarters

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and eel-like tail the most likely

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explanation is that they're an allusion

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to a notorious passage in the origin of

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species

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where darwin imagines that over time

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natural selection might turn a species

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of bear that swims around with its mouth

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open

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catching insects into a creature as

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monstrous as a whale

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the suggestion to include them was

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probably made to ashay by either henry

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ackland or charles dorbany

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both of them were oxford scientists who

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worked on the construction of the museum

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and they were both skeptical towards

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darwin at least initially

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ackland and dorbany shared o'shea's

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mischievous sense of humor

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and the oxford bear whales seemed more

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like a parody of darwin than a homage to

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him

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there's another joke perhaps at darwin's

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expense perhaps at huxley's perhaps even

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at wilberforces

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in the central court in the next bay

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round

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from a carving of a monkey puzzle are

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two decidedly puzzled looking monkeys

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they look like they've been repurposed

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from a sketch that james has shaded for

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some carvings of monkeys around a window

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which may have been the original design

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for what became the cat window

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the architectural historian frederick

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o'dwyer suggests that o'shea was

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probably back carving in the central

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court by mid-august 1860

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so he may well have added these monkeys

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as a direct reference to the debate

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which had taken place in the museum only

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a few weeks before

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if the museum's initial response to

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darwin was parody

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it did change its tune the older natural

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theologians retired or died

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while ackland and his younger colleagues

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such as the anatomist george rollerston

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soon came to see that the best way to

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sustain both their faith and their

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science

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was to distinguish them from one another

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rather than to look to nature

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to corroborate religion by the 1880s the

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museum had abandoned natural theology

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and become instead one of the leading

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centres for researching and teaching

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evolution on the principles of

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scientific naturalism

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there was however one recently appointed

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professor at the museum who held out

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against darwin

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in 1869 john ruskin who had been

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actively involved in the design of the

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museum in the 1850s

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was appointed the first slade professor

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of fine art at oxford university

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throughout the 1870s and for another

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brief term in the 1880s

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ruskin taught art at oxford principally

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lecturing in the museum itself

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ruskin was appalled by the materialism

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of darwin's theories

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for him they reduced human morality and

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the god-given beauty of the world

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to mechanical processes of survival and

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sex

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ruskin wanted the museum to celebrate

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life but its displays of skeletons and

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human skulls

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including specimens of genetic

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deformities seem to him to call to mind

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death and disease instead

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he increasingly hated the methods of

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science too

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having championed art and science

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together in the 1850s he now declared

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that portraits of great men and even

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pictures of ducks and drakes

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could teach more than the scientific

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collections in the museum

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ruskin resigned his professorship in

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1884 in protest against the use of

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vivisection in scientific research

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at the museum which he had helped to

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found fifteen years later

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a statue of charles darwin carved by

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henry hope pinker

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was unveiled at the museum in the

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central court only a few feet away

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from o'shea's teasing monkeys almost 40

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years after the great debate

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oxford university museum of natural

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history had at last made its peace with

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darwin

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it honoured him publicly in the way that

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its founders had always honored science

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through art

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[Music]

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you