Zoology collection overview

Unlike many local authority museums, Bolton museum was not preceded by a literary or philosophical society and so did not inherit any collections on its foundation. In addition, the museum collections were at first only housed with the library between 1852 and 1884 and, as a result, grew only slowly. Some important parts of the natural science collections were acquired during this time however, especially collections of shells and fossils.

Once a purpose-built museum was finally opened (the Chadwick) in the late 19th century, new efforts were made to develop the collections. The core of the Bolton museum natural science collections were formed at this time, especially with the purchase of parts of the private collections of P.B. Mason between 1904 -11. These, along with other donations, meant that by the 1920s, Bolton Museum had a fairly complete natural history reference collection. The exceptions to this were animals and birds. These parts of the Mason collection were not purchased by Bolton (the Natural History Museum acquiring the most important parts).

Serious efforts to rectify this gap began after the Second World War. Hazelwood, the post war curator, was responsible for initiating this development and it continued under Eric Gorton. There have been further additions to the animal and birds collections in more recent times. An important acquisition was around 200 bird mounts transferred from the collections of Salford Museum in the early 1990s. Other material was also added through public donations (road kills etc) or collected by Kath Berry, the former Zoologist.