Preserving our wonders

A WHALE’S skull, a half human - half fish hoax skeleton and taxidermy animals.

These are just a few of the particularly intriguing exhibits on display at the Booth Museum of Natural History.

The Dyke Road centre marks 140 years since the second largest regional natural history museum in Britain founded by Edward Thomas Booth.

As well as housing his original collection of British birds, today it contains three quarters of a million natural history specimens in a collection designated of national importance.

The complete collection comprises over 600,000 biological and 50,000 geological specimens. In addition there are over 5,000 microscopic slides, 12,000 books, journals and periodicals dating back three centuries, and thousands of site records.

The museum has remained a fascinating and quirky celebration of natural history. The birds are displayed using the Victorian method of “environmental diorama” that sets them off in their natural habitats. There are also colourful butterfly collections with over 650 types on display. The fossil and bone collections date back to when dinosaurs and woolly rhinos roamed Sussex. Visitors have a chance to get hands-on with natural history with an interactive gallery and activities for children.

Booth was born in Buckinghamshire in June 1840, the only child of Edward Booth and mother Marianne – of the Beaumont family of Northumberland.

By 1850 the family had moved to Hastings, where the young Edward Booth was taught taxidermy by a man known as “Kent”, a bird stuffer and barber from St Leonards.

It is thought his lifelong enthusiasm for wildlife and hunting started at this point.

In 1854 the family moved to Vernon Place, Brighton, where Booth attended a private school.

He went on to Harrow and finally to Trinity College Cambridge. He was a keen hunter, starting in the marshes near Rye, increasing his range in later life to the Norfolk Broads and the Scottish Highlands.

With the first Mrs Booth – whose first name is not widely recorded – he moved to Dyke Road, Brighton, where he built their home, called Bleak House, and in 1874 he built his museum in the grounds.

At this stage the Booth Museum of British Birds was not open to the public but did hold fundraising events.

By then he decided his ambition was to exhibit one example of every species of British bird, all of which he had collected, and set about the task of building up his collection. He published diaries and books revealing his wisdom. His accounts of hunting expeditions are described as “dry” and he would record the names of his dogs, but not his wife.

There were a number of rumours about Booth – that he raised fledgling gannets in pens behind his house to enable him to kill them when they reached the level of plumage required for his display being one.

He is also said to have become an alcoholic, firing his guns at postmen in Dyke Road. But this has not been proven.

Mrs Booth became ill and died – but little is known about her condition or when this occurred. Her nurse, Bessie, became his second wife.

The collector died in February 1890 and was buried in Hastings cemetery.

Shortly after his death the young widow donated his gun collection to the museum and commissioned a pulpit made of Portland stone inscribed in his memory which was erected at St Andrews Church, Portslade.

The inscribed stone was given to the Booth Museum when the church was decommissioned.

He originally hoped to bequeath his museum to the London Museum of Natural History but instead it was looked after by the Brighton Corporation – now under the banner of Brighton and Hove Museums.

The museum is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10am to 5pm.

It is closed between noon and 1.15pm.

It is open on Sunday between 2pm and 5pm.

But is closed over the Christmas period.

Admission is free.

For information call 03000 290900.