8.
NATURAL HISTORY AT SOUTHEND MUSEUMS
by J. F. Skinner, Keeper of Natural History
The present headquarters of Southend
Museums Service was opened as a library in
1906 and displayed the early bird collections.
These were transferred to Prittlewell Priory
in 1922 which for many years remained the only
museum in Southend. Recently the reference
collections have been moved back to the old
library, now the "Central Museum" although,
of course, there are still displays at
Prittlewell Priory.
Our main natural history display is
upstairs at Prittlewell Priory museum. We
have three "habitat displays" (garden, wood-
land and mudflat life) with a variety of
other items. We maintain an observation
beehive where, in summer, you can see the
dances of the worker bees, first described
earlier this century by Von Fritsch. Other
live exhibits are occasionally shown - last
year we have Stanley the Stag Beetle while
at the moment we have Phyllis the Gian Silver
Diving Beetle (Hydrophilus piceus).
Turning to the Central Museum, natural
history will be represented in the displays
that we are creating in the main hall. We
are dealing with man and environment in
South Essex by concentrating on specific
topics. For instance we may take "food and
drink" - we would deal with different crops
through the ages, the weeds that grew in
their fields, imported crop plants, early
animal breeds, butchery methods, recipes and
the plates on which the end result was eaten.
This is only an example but it shows how we
are hoping to bring natural history,