30
ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS.
made, more or less systematically by students of natural history,
though such collections might never rise to the dignity of a
museum. Our great Essex naturalist, John Ray, must surely
have possessed a collection. His friend and benefactor, Francis
Willughby, we know collected extensively and secured the
advantage of Ray's curatorial assistance. In a letter to Martin
Lister, dated June 18, 1667, Ray says: "The most part of the
winter I spent in reviewing and helping to put in order Mr.
Willughby's collection of birds, fishes, shells, stones, and other
fossils; seeds, dried plants, coins, etc."37
It is clear therefore that the Willughby collection was of a
very comprehensive character. Ray, being a man of restricted
means, could hardly indulge in a similar manner, however wide
his sympathies may have been ; but that he had some kind of
collection is clear, for we are told that "whatever he had
preserved relative to any branch of natural history he gave
before his death to his neighbour, Mr. Samuel Dale."38 The Ray
collection therefore passed to his executor, and the herbarium
was presented by him to the Physic Garden at Chelsea, but
ultimately found an appropriate resting place in the British
Museum.
One of the earliest, and still one of the best, natural history
museums ever founded by a local society in this country is the
museum at Saffron Walden. Soon after the foundation of a
Natural History Society in that town, in 1832, it was resolved
"that a museum be founded to include specimens in the several
departments of natural history, with antiquarian remains and
such other articles as might be of general or local interest."
The collections were accommodated at first in the house of Mr.
Jabez Gibson, who had been mainly instrumental in organizing the
society, but in 1834 they were removed to the building specially
erected for their reception by Lord Braybrooke. This museum
was opened on May 12th, 1835.
That the special value of a local collection was recognized
at that time is evident from a statement circulated before the
building was opened, in which it was said that "the con-
centration of Specimens peculiar to the District in which
the Museum is established will form a leading feature in its
37 Dr. Derham's Life in Memorials of John Kay. Edited by Edwin Lankester, Ray Society:
1845, p. 17.
38 Sir J. E. Smith in the Ray Society's volume, p. 85.