So for the past two days I have been lecturing in London at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington on an MSc course in Systematics and Biodiversity.

The Natural History Museum is a real curiosity and a place full of history (ahem) and a few odd stories. If you want to get a better insight than this blog post, perhaps get yourself a copy of Richard Fortey’s book Dry Store Number 1.

Anyway, I am a scientific associate of the museum and quite proud to be one. I am entitled to a badge and keys to let myself in top mooch about for a look.

The first director of the museum was a guy called Richard Owen. Owen was a medical doctor and an anatomist, by training. At that time, dinosaurs were being found in quarries in England and he used his training in anatomy to reconstruct what these dinosaurs looked like. He became a household name in England as a result (scientists don’t become household names any more, unfortunately). Coinciding with his discoveries in palaeontology, the railway system developed in England and so he traveled the length and breadth of the country giving lectures for the middle classes and producing magnificent dinosaurs in the middle of the lecture in order to wow the audience. He was said to be a man of great flair. Newspapers wrote glowing reviews of his talks. They described him in terms that these days are reserved for people like Kofi Annan or Nelson Mandela or a king or queen. If he was to turn up at an event, it would guarantee a large crowd for that event. Owen, however, did not accept evolution as a process, instead he presented his work in the light of God’s creation.

He was also good friends with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria and he persuaded the prince to cough up the money to build the Natural History Museum. Naturally at the time it was being built in order to give praise to God for creation. The building was designed by Waterhouse and in my biased opinion, it is the most magnificent building in all of London.

What happened then must have devastated Owen.

Charles Darwin.

Darwin published his book On the origin of species by means of Natural Selection and in one stroke he eclipsed Owen as the most famous and important scientist in England. Owen hated Darwin. When Darwin offered his bird collection to the Natural History Museum, Owen refused it, saying that it was not a significant collection. When the Royal Society commissioned a white marble statue of Darwin and placed it on the great staircase in the main hall in the museum, Owen had it moved around the back where for years it overlooked the children’s play area (it now overlooks a coffee dock). Owen then commissioned a statue of himself and placed it on the great staircase, where it is still found today.

Owen coined the word Dinosaur.

Darwin changed the world.

Funny how one minute you’re a hero and the next you’re gone.

Owen died an old and broken man, by all accounts.

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