20th Century Collection

Take something home with you from the Natural History Shop
General Museum poster. Drawing of a child leading a dinosaur out of the Museum, with the slogan Take something home with you from the Natural History [Museum] Shop, South Kensington, London

Scleromochlus were bipedal reptiles that grew to around 3 feet long. They lived around 200 million years during the end of the Triassic period. Illustration by Neave Parker

Diplodocus
Weighing around 20 tonnes & reaching up to 26 metres in length Diplodocus is one of the longest-known dinosaurs. It lived 155 to 145 million years ago during the Upper Jurassic

Polacanthus
This dinosaur was from the family of armoured skinned dinosaurs, the Ankylosaurs. It was around 14 feet in length living around 125 million years ago. Fossils have been found in the Isle of Wight, UK

Triceratops
The three-horned dinosaur which lived during the Upper Cretaceous period, 67 to 65 million years ago. It grew up to 9 metres in length and fossils have been discovered in USA

Ornithosuchus
An illustration by Neave Parker of the Ornithosuchus, a thecodont, an extinct bipedal reptile closedly related to the dinosaur. It lived around 185 million years ago

Scene in Wealden Times
Scene from the Wealden times, during the Cretacous period. Painting, oil on canvas, by Eli Marsden Wilson (1877-1965), before 1935. Original held at the Natural History Museum, London

Archaeopteryx had the same number and arrangement of primary and secondary flight feathers as modern birds. Watercolour on paper by John Doncaster

Pterodactyl
Drawing of a Pterodactyl, an extinct flying reptile that lived during the Mesozoic era from around 251 millon years ago to 65 million years ago during the time of the K-T extinction

Proconsul africanus
An illustration of the extinct primate, Proconsul africanus. Like Dendropithecus, they mostly lived in tropical forests in East Africa during the Miocene about 50 million years ago

Basidiomycota: filamentous fungi
Coloured lithograph by Ernst Haeckel from Kunstformen der Natur, 1899-1904. Date: 1904

Iguanodon
This dinosaur was a large bipedal herbivore which stood 14 feet high and 30 feet long. It lived during the Lower Cretactous around 140 to 110 million years ago

20th Century Art: Weevil (Rhopalomesites tardyi), 1998 by Ma
Watercolour. Russell is an example of a scientist turned artist. Trained initially as an entomologist his combined love of beetles and art resulted in a series of exceptional drawings of weevils

Hominid reconstructions in chronological order
From left to right: Australopithecus, Early Homo erectus (Java Man), Late Homo erectus (Peking Man), Homo heidelbergensis (Rhodesian Man), Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon)

Australopithecus afarensis
Illustration by Maurice Wilson of extinct African hominids (Australopithecus afarensis) living 3-4 million years ago. They walked upright, although they retained the ability to climb trees

Acanthophracta, radiolarians
Coloured lithograph by Ernst Haeckel from Kunstformen der Natur, 1899-1904. Date: 1904

Giant Ground Sloth, Natural History Museum
Photograph of a Skeleton of the Giant Ground Sloth (Megatherium Americanum). July 1902. Archive ref: PH/173/244 Date: 1902

Stuart Stammwitz working on blue whale model, 1938, The Natu
Stuart Stammwitz is shown here working on the whales eye, before the model was painted

Megalosaurus
This was a carnivorous dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago during the Middle Jurassic. It grew up to 20 feet long and fossils have been discovered in the English Midlands and in Southern England

Acanthopholis
A 12 foot long herbivorous armoured dinosaur which lived around 90 million years ago. Fossil evidence has been discovered in England. Painting by Neave Parker

Paracyclotosaurus was a large prehistoric amphibian that lived during the Triassic period around 235 million years ago. It grew to over 2 metres in length. Illustation by Neave Parker

Cetiosaurus
A sauropod dinosaur which grew up to 60 feet long. It lived about 160 to 170 million years ago in the Midlands and Southern England, during the Upper Juassic perid. Painting by Neave Parker

Plesiosaur
An illustration by Neave Parker of the extinct marine reptile, Plesiosaur. These lived throughout most of the Mesozoic (MZ) era becoming extinct 65 million years ago at the time of the K-T extinction

George the elephant, 1935
Two attendants brush down the African elephant George in the Central Hall in one of several shots of Museum staff taken by Weekly Illustrated photographers for an article that appeared in February

Augustus H. Bishop with elephant tusks, May 1912
Augustus Bishop arrived at the Museum in 1904, aged 23, after three years training as a taxidermist

African elephant in Central Hall, February 1910
Photographed in 1910 just three years after his arrival, the African elephant later nicknamed George, was obtained from the taxidermists Rowland Ward Ltd

Portable seismometer in use, 1973
A modern model of Zhang Hengs apparatus for detecting earthquakes. The model is from the Science Museums collections

Mastodon in Geological Gallery, December 1919
The Guide Lecturer, John Henry Leonard, took this shot of two girls inspecting a primitive elephant or mastodon (Mammut americanus), in December 1919

Firemen, c. 1910 at the Natural History Museum
In 1906, telephonic fire alarms were installed that linked ten points around the Museum with the Firemens Room in the basement and the local Fire Brigade station

Scaffolding in Central Hall, 1925
This photograph, taken in February 1925, marked the cleaning and redecoration of the North and Central Halls by the Office of Works

George in the entrance, April 1927, the Natural History Mus
The removal of George the African elephant from the Central Hall in April 1927 for remounting

New Guard House Tower of London
The illustration was drawn due to a great outcry which was raised about the new guard building just erected beside the south-west corner of the beautiful White Tower on the ground of its vandalism

Aegyptopithecus zeuxis
Illustration of an Egyptian Ape by Maurice Wilson. The forerunners of both monkeys and apes. These small arboreal primates lived 35-32 million years ago in the tropical rain forests of northern Egypt

Walter Rothschild Bird skin collection, 1933
Packed for shipping. The majority of Rothschilds (280, 000 items) bird skin collection was sold the AMNH in New York after he ran into financial difficulties

Walter Rothschild & collecting party, Algeria
Rothschild (second from right) undertook three separate ornithological collecting expeditions to Algeria in 1908, 1909 and 1911, along with Ernst Hartert

Moreton Bay chestnut seed pod
Castanospermum australe, Moreton Bay chestnut seed pod collected in Queensland, Australia in 1909 Date: 1909

Lacertilia, lizards
Coloured lithograph by Ernst Haeckel from Kunstformen der Natur, 1899-1904. Date: 1904

Aquilegia vulgaris, Columbine
Ink drawing by Arthur Harry Church, 1903 Date: 1903

Sketchbooks of Lepidoptera, Margaret Fountaine
Various larvae and pupae watercolours with descriptions, 1933-35 Date: 1933

Paris to Bordeaux Race 1895
The first car driving on Michelin tyres to win the Paris to Bordeax race in 1895. Ceramic tile picture ftom the Michelin Building in Fulham Road, London Date: 1905

20th Century Art: Wildlife sketch no. 28, by David Measures
Ball point pen and watercolour. Not wishing to follow traditional methods of scientific illustration, Measures chose to develop a technique which enabled an immediate method of recording his

Martin Alister Campbell Hinton (1883-1961)
Portrait of Martin Alister Campbell Hinton, a zoologist and keeper of zoology at the British Museum (Natural History). From Piltdown, A Scientific Forgery

Homo sapiens, Cro-Magnon man
A model head of Homo sapiens, Cro-Magnon man. Cro-Magnon man, an anatomically modern human lived around 30, 000 years ago in the Dordogne region of France. This model was created by Maurice Wilson

Homo neanderthalensis
A model head of Neanderthal man (Homo neanderthalensis) created by Maurice Wilson. Neanderthal man is believed to have lived between around 130, 000 and 35, 000 years ago

Homo sapiens, Cro-Magnon man head
A reconstruction of the head of Cro-Magnon man by Maurice Wilson, c. 1950. Cro-Magnon man is possibly Western Europes most famous anatomically modern human

Upnor elephant, 1926, the Natural History Museum, London
In 1911 a party of Royal Engineers cut a practice trench on Tower Hill, Upnor, Kent and disturbed several large bones

Boys approaching the entrance of the Natural History Museum
Reports on the first few months of the Childrens Centre concluded that the majority of the children were under 11, often sent out after breakfast with nothing to do

Aepyornis maximus, elephant bird
Painting by Maurice Wilson from his drawings collection (1950)

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