The Library and Archives are holding an open day in the Earth Sciences Library.
Friday 20 March 2026, 11.00 - 15.00.
Lasting Impressions Gallery (Free).
☝️Full details in our bio link.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #WomensMonth #WomenInScience #WomenInStem #IWD26 #ExploreYourArchives #MuseumArchives
The Library and Archives are holding an open day in the Earth Sciences Library.
Friday 20 March 2026, 11.00 - 15.00.
Lasting Impressions Gallery (Free).
☝️Full details in our bio link.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #WomensMonth #WomenInScience #WomenInStem #IWD26 #ExploreYourArchives #MuseumArchives
Can you help make our December?? 🎁🎄🎉
We are a smidgen away from 14,000 followers, please share and help us get there ready for the big HO HO HO!
#NaturalHistoryMusuem #Library #Archives #Art #SpecialCollections #MuseumArchives #MuseumLibrary #Nature #NaturalHistory #Books #Science
A man stands proudly upright in his smart uniform. It has two rows of buttons down the front of the jacket, with details on the cuffs and collar. Behind him is a bricked building.
Moustachioed #NaturalHistoryMuseum messenger Ashton John Jones, photographed by Sir J. Benjamin Stone (1838 - 1914) in the colonnade at the back of the Waterhouse Building (1907).
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #Movember2025 #MuseumArchives
An event advert. The image is a mash up of five images including artwork, a photograph and sketch. The wording reads: Library & Archives Open Day, free, 5 December 2025 10.00 - 16.00. Location: Lasting Impressions Gallery (Red Zone).
Visitors to the Museum will have the exciting opportunity to enter our beautiful Earth Sciences Library.
A rare occasion to see treasures from the collection and learn about the Museum’s work as shown through the collections we care for.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #SpecialCollections #MuseumArchives
A black and white photo showing a group of sixteen men gathered outside on grass, wearing matching plain dark uniforms and caps. They are in three rows, those at the back are standing, the middle sit on chairs and the front sit on the ground. A hose pipe snakes on the ground between them to the man on the far right who stands holding the nozzle as water shoots out of it.
From opening day in 1881 until 1971, Natural History Museum staff included fireman warders who patrolled the buildings and grounds day and night.
Moustaches encouraged, but not compulsory.
#Movember2025 #NaturalHistoryMuseum #MuseumArchives
British Museum, Montagu House
Design for new Museum building, 1838
Round Reading Room plan, 1857
The quadrangle of #britishmuseum was part of the 1st Museum building in Montagu House, & the same feature was included in the new building in the 1830s. Built on in the 1850s when the Reading Room was added, it was covered over in the 1990s when the Great Court was built. #archives #museumarchives
The Library and Archives are closed to external visitors and enquiries 10 - 14 November.
Our team are auditing the collections and having a whale of a time…🐋
#Audit #MuseumLibrary #MuseumArchives #ModernCollections #SpecialCollections #Teamwork
A black and white photograph of a group of 16 Victorian firemen posed in three rows. All men are in buttoned uniforms and wear a cap. The man on the furthest right holds a gushing fire hose.
From 1881 until 1971, firemen warders patrolled NHM buildings and grounds day and night. The Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade made regular inspections of the equipment, which were recorded in a logbook. #MuseumArchives #ArchivesOfInstagram #NaturalHistoryMuseum #ThrowbackThursday
Sepia-tinted photograph of a man in late-Victorian dress. The man has a large moustache. He is pictured with a table of taxidermied animals including birds, one of which he is touching.
For #ThrowbackThursday, we thought we'd share this, uh, intriguing picture of ornithologist and former Director of Tring Museum, Ernst Hartert (1859-1933). #Birds #Ornithology #MuseumArchives @nhm_tring
Photographs in the museum archives show club members engaged in various activities, from constructing dioramas to sketching specimens.
Do you have memories of visiting the Museum as a child?
#EYAEducation #NaturalHistoryMuseum #MuseumArchives #ThrowbackThursday
🎞 Another Reel Adventure! 🎞
This new 16mm film transfer order is Order #3 of film for a museum. We have helped them preserve over 75,000 feet of film… and they keep finding more treasures in their archives!
#16mmFilm #FilmTransfer #PreserveHistory #MuseumArchives
Postcard of a pair of Red Backed Shrikes held up on the stairs of Hintze Hall
Postcard of a Fulmar held up on the stairs of Hintze Hall
The Museum's 1974 exhibition "British Birds by British Artists" was a celebration of British birds. These postcards of a butcher bird and fulmar, produced to accompany the exhibition, are two of fifty now in our Archives. #NaturalHistoryMuseum #BritishBirds #Ephemera #NatureInArt #MuseumArchives
A forgotten “copy” of Magna Carta, bought for $27.50 in 1946, was authenticated as a 1300 original—one of only eight known. Found in Harvard Law’s digital archive, it’s a powerful reminder of the treasures waiting in collections. #MuseumArchives #MagnaCarta #CollectionsMatter
🔎Learn about how the Museum coped during World War Two.
🔎Discover what the Archives can tell us about how the Museum has adapted to make provisions for blind people and people with visual impairments since 1927.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #MuseumArchives #Special Collections #ExploreYourArchives
Person sitting at a reading room table. In front of them is a bound volume of newspaper cuttings and a mounted artwork.
Item reference: DF/PAL/100/113/15.
⬆️To search our Archives Catalogue or learn more about visiting us, see the link in our bio.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #MuseumArchives #Archives #Ephemera #Suffrage #Suffragettes #VotesForWomen #ExploreYourArchives
A newspaper cutting showing a sketch of Mr Carnegie delivering a speech at Dippy’s unveiling. Professor E. Ray Lankester, Lord Avebury and Dr W.R. Rollands are also depicted. The cutting is from The Daily Graphic, Saturday, May 13, 1905.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), who owned the original skeleton on which the cast was largely based, was the guest of honour.
Dippy was an instantaneous hit. The public flocked to see the new exhibit, generating excited headlines, newspaper articles and cartoons.
#ExploreYourArchives #MuseumArchives
Photograph showing a someone reading panels in front of the Giant Sequoia in 1971.
Felled in 1891 (from Kings Canyon National Park, Sierra Nevada), a slice of the ‘Mark Twain’ tree first went on display at the Museum in 1894, installed in one of the bays of the Central Hall (now Hintze Hall).
#MuseumArchives #GiantSequoia #EYAEarth
A photo of a blank gate column and a decorated gate column, combined into one image. Each column has three large square panels. The decorated column depicts a monkey (top), owl (middle) and fox (bottom).
Spot the difference?
Our iconic building is famous for its decoration and symmetrical design, so why are there some blank columns and only one lodge standing outside the main entrance?
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #MuseumArchives #Architecture #AlfredWaterhouse #WorldWarTwo #SpecialCollections #WW2
Our first few Beyond the Galleries Tours have been brilliant!
If you love the @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social, our unique building, history and archives, sign up and come along.
www.nhm.ac.uk/events/beyond-the-galleries-tour.html
#MuseumArchives
Ancient Bird’s Missing Skull Found Hidden in Museum Archives #Science #Biology #Paleontology #AncientBird #MuseumArchives
This image is from our Museum Archives, Gallery Photograph Album 1: Skeleton of spider monkey.
www.nhm.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx
#MuseumArchives
A sepia photograph showing a skeleton of a monkey standing on all fours on a plinth. It's tail is curled. Under the photograph is handwritten '151. Skeleton of black-handed spider monkey'.
Spider Monkey.
In the early years of the @nhm-london.bsky.social, it was policy to only allow visitor photography on the condition that a copy was then given to the museum.
Miss Katherine M. Reynolds (1860-1932) took this photo during a visit in 1892.
#WhoseTailIsItAnyway #MuseumArchives
The name of this beautiful animal could fool you into thinking it has eight legs 🤔
Now that would be a sight!
#WhoseTailIsItAnyway #MuseumArchives
A watercolour showing two white stoats with dark brown tips on the end of their tails. They are depicted on snow with a base of a tree trunk behind them and behind that snow covered bushes.
Stoat (Mustela erminea)
Watercolour by Florence R. Mold (1904-1990), who was employed by the museum as an artist. She was based in the Entomology department, and alongside postcard designs, provided illustrations for the Insect gallery.
#WhoseTailIsItAnyway #MuseumArchives
The British Museum started selling Christmas cards in the 1930s - here’s a list of designs you could choose from & one of the designs.
#BritishMuseum #archives #MuseumArchives #HappyChristmas
An open book lies on a cradle structure, lined with black velvet. There is a material strap across one side of the book to hold it in place. Next to the book is a red and white toy elf, with sunglasses on. The elf is held in place by the same strap, giving the impression it is sunning itself. Above is a camera and to the left is a bright rectangular light source.
No Owen, this is not your personal sun bed! This is our book cradle for photographing Special collections and Archives - our digitiser is wearing his 'unimpressed' face!
#ElfOnTheShelf #DigitisedCollections #SpecialCollections #Archives #MuseumArchives #Preservation #NaturalHistoryMuseum
View inside a glass display case. A tea cup, saucer and teapot are at the back. Sticking out of the teapot are the stripy legs of an elf toy. These are surrounded in the case are surrounded by copies of documents. In the foreground is a printed sign headed, The Museum Archives.
How on earth did Owen get into our Reading Room display case? Well, he does have good taste: this #Dunelm tea set was inspired by our iconic #NaturalHistoryMuseum Waterhouse Building and from building plans and records held in our Museum Archives.
#ElfOnTheShelf #MuseumArchives
