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Professional fossil preparators at the British Museum
(Natural History), 1843–1990*
MARK R. GRAHAM
The Conservation Centre, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK (e-mail:
m.graham@nhm.ac.uk)
ABSTRACT: Since the inception of the British Museum (Natural History) in 1881 (now the Natural History
Museum, London), the collection, development and mounting of fossils for scientific study and public
exhibition have been undertaken by fossil preparators. Originally known as masons, because of their
rock-working skills, their roles expanded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when, at the
forefront of the developing science of palaeontology, the Museum was actively obtaining fossil material
from the UK and abroad to build the collections. As greater numbers of more impressive specimens were put
on public display, these preparators developed new and better methods to recover and transport fossils from
the field, and technical improvements, in the form of powered tools, enabled more detailed mechanical
preparation to be undertaken. A recurring theme in the history of palaeontological preparation has been that
sons often followed in their fathers’footsteps in earth sciences. William and Thomas Davies, Caleb and
Frank Barlow, and Louis and Robert Parsons were all father-and-son geologists and preparators.
KEYWORDS: palaeontology –palaeontological preparation –specimen collecting –restoration –field
techniques.
INTRODUCTION
This paper was inspired by the skills and knowledge of past workers in the field of fossil
preparation, both at the Natural History Museum, London (hereafter NHM), and elsewhere.
One such, the late Peter Whybrow (1942–2004), was a very talented preparator, who undertook
pioneering work on Archaeopteryx lithographica (Whybrow 1982). He first worked at the
NHM in 1960, and became the Chief Preparator at Yale University’s Peabody Museum from
1968 until 1972, before returning to London. He was Head of the Palaeontology Laboratory at
the NHM from 1981 until 1990. Whybrow (1985) published a paper entitled “A history of
fossil collecting and preparation techniques”in which, among many references to the likes of
Darwin, Huxley, Owen, Cuvier, de la Beche and other luminaries, he also made reference to
two rather less famous characters: “William Davies of the British Museum”and “Mr Barlow,
the Mason attached to the Geological Department”. These contemporaries, who were both
active in the 1860s, were involved in the recovery and preparation of some magnificent fossils.
Whybrow’s (1985) reference to their activities, and the author’s own work on several historic
*This paper was presented at the Society for the History of Natural History’s summer meeting “Bon Voyage?
250 Years Exploring the Natural World”held in association with the British Ornithologists’Club at the World
Museum Liverpool 14–15 June 2018.
Archives of Natural History 46.2 (2019): 253–264
Edinburgh University Press
DOI: 10.3366/anh.2019.0589
© The Society for the History of Natural History
www.euppublishing.com/anh
fossil specimens, prompted research in the Museum’s archives and elsewhere, to discover what
is known of these and other early UK preparation pioneers.
Although Robert John Parsons (born 1930) worked at the Museum rather too late (from
1945) to be considered an early contributor, he is also included here for completeness of the
‘familial theme’that pervades the early days of palaeontological preparation at the Museum.
This paper attempts to bring together, in a historical context, some of the highlights of their
collective works in palaeontology, fossil preparation, geology and mineralogy, but does not
cover either the contributions of other masons, for whom scant or no museum records exist, nor
those of later, notable innovators, such as Arthur Rixon (1913–1983) and Harry Toombs
(1909–1987), whose careers overlapped those of both Frank Barlow (1880–1951) and the
Parsons family. A timeline of the various staff referred to here (Figure 1) provides an indication
of who overlapped with whom, and who may have been providing training to others.
FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM TO THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
The institution in London now known as the Natural History Museum has a rich and
fascinating history of its own,
1
with origins that can be traced back to 1753 and the death of the
Figure 1. Timeline of key staff employed in the Palaeontology Workshop (later known as the Palaeontology
Laboratory, Palaeontology Conservation Unit and currently The Conservation Centre) from 1843 to the present
compiled from disparate Natural History Museum archives.
M. R. GRAHAM
254
wealthy physician Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), an avid collector of natural history
specimens. Sloane’s will enabled his remarkable collection (in excess of 71,000 items) to be
purchased for the nation for £20,000, which was significantly lower than its estimated worth.
Parliament not only enabled the purchase but also financed the construction of a “British
Museum”(BM) in Bloomsbury to display it to the public.
In 1856, Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892) took charge of the BM’s natural history
departments and convinced the Board of Trustees that a dedicated building was needed to
house the large and growing collections. The Department of Mineralogy was separated from
that of Geology in 1858. The natural history collections of the British Museum were removed
to South Kensington and, in 1881, the British Museum (Natural History), abbreviated BM
(NH), opened, with free admission, to the public. The BM(NH) officially remained part of the
British Museum until 1963, when it became established as an independent institution in its own
right, and was renamed the Natural History Museum in 1992. The Department of Geology, in
the meantime, was renamed the Department of Palaeontology in 1956. The palaeontological
collections were re-housed in a newly built extension to the east side of the main museum
building in 1977. Nine years later, the BM(NH) absorbed the adjacent Geological Museum of
the British Geological Survey and incorporated its collection of more than 30,000 specimens
on long-term loan.
What is now the Natural History Museum at Tring in Hertfordshire (between London and
Oxford) was built in 1889 to house the unique zoological collections of Walter Rothschild
(1868–1937), who opened his private museum to the public in 1892. Following Rothschild’s
death, the building and collections were gifted to the nation and became a satellite museum of
the BM(NH).
THE FAMILY TEAMS
William Davies (1814–1891) (Figure 2) joined the Geological Department of the British
Museum in 1843 and the Geological Survey in 1846 as a fossil collector. He was awarded
the inaugural Murchison Medal by the Geological Society of London in 1873 and made
an assistant at the BM in 1875, becoming responsible for the entire fossil collection.
He became a Fellow of the Geological Society two years later. Davies developed and
applied a field jacketing technique (described below) that was to become adopted as standard
practice, and worked closely with the mason (that is, the preparator) on the material he
collected.
In 1863, Davies was sent to collect Pleistocene mammal fossils from Ilford, Essex. During
these excavations, he jacketed a large mammoth skull in plaster and burlap, and reinforced the
plaster with iron bars –a technique that was to be adopted worldwide for securing larger
and heavier specimens from the field. A detailed account of the recovery of this specimen
(which was to become known as “the Ilford Mammoth”) was published by Henry Woodward
(1865: 93):
We sent down a one-horse spring-van, carrying a good supply of the best plaster of Paris (1 cwt. [51 kilograms]),
six pieces of ½-inch [1.3 centimetres] nail-bar-iron, 6 to 8 ft. long [1.8 to 2.4 metres], a bundleof splines, a box full
of hay and tow, some strips of old canvas, whitey-brown paper, two large earthen pans in which to mix the plaster,
spades, trowels, a saw, iron hammers. Spatula, &c., good stout cord and rope, deal planks, and a hand-barrow upon
which to remove the remains, and some largewooden trays in which all the loose portions were to be systematically
placed, and marked with pencil on separate papers to show the parts to which they belonged.
FOSSIL PREPARATORS AT BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY) 255
Another, and arguably even more significant recovery, made by Davies in 1874, was that of six
large septarian nodules, found at the Swindon Brick & Tile Company’s pit “situated at the foot
of Old Swindon Hill and adjoining the Wilts and Berks Canal”in Wiltshire (Davies 1876: 194).
The great jumble of bones contained in the largest nodule that he collected turned out to be a
pelvis, vertebrae and right femur of a large stegosaurian dinosaur, now called Dacentrurus
(but originally named Omosaurus by Sir Richard Owen). Attempts to lift the nodules in one
piece failed, and the resulting chunks of “stone, clay, plaster and bones weighing nearly 3 tons
[3,048 kilograms]”were packed in many cases and transported back to the Museum, where
Caleb Barlow undertook the slow and exacting process of reconstruction and preparation.
In a vivid account of the recovery and preparation of the Omosaurus material, Davies
(1876: 195) wrote that “[e]very block when first lifted from the clay broke into many pieces,
and every subsequent removal, in their transit from the pit to their final deposition in the
National Collection added greatly to their number.”Once delivered to the workshop of the
Department of Geology and into Barlow’s care, Davies noted that “the work of reconstruction
was at once commenced; the bones imbedded in the clay were divested of their plaster casing,
gelatinized and mended, for they were much decayed and broken.”And, in a sad refrain that
still echoes true today, goes on to observe that
had some competent person been present at the moment of its first discovery, a much larger portion of the skeleton
would have been secured; for undoubtedly many a fine fossil is lost to science through the general ignorance and
carelessness of the workmen, and the strong propensity on the part of the public to carry off portions of any
curiosity for the mantel-shelf!
Davies was promoted, in 1880, to Assistant First Class. In his diary entry for 1 October 1880,
2
he recorded that he “commenced duty at the new museum Kensington”and was engaged in
“unpacking fossils selected for description by prof. Owen”. On 16 October, he completed the
packing and removal of the fossils from Bloomsbury to South Kensington. He seems to have
been well connected to fossil collectors and dealers. In a letter of 7 September 1880
Figure 3. Thomas Davies (Natural
History Museum Archives DF33/12,
Mineralogy Department Photograph
Collection, 1870–1980).
Figure 2. William Davies (Natural History
Museum Archives DF33/12, Mineralogy
Department Photograph Collection, 1870–
1980).
M. R. GRAHAM
256
to Henry Woodward,
3
he wrote of having received details from “Mr Damon”(of R. F. Damon
& Co., fossil dealers and makers of anthropological and other casts of Weymouth, Dorset)
regarding a specimen referred to as the “Bridport saurian”, and said that “it will now be
necessary to write asking him to name his lowest price or to make him a direct offer.”
Thomas Davies (1837–1892), William’s son (Figure 3), was an assistant in the Department
of Mineralogy of the British Museum from 1858 to 1892, and was elected a Fellow of the
Geological Society in 1870. He became an excellent mineralogist, acquiring a remarkable
knowledge of characters distinctive of localities, as well as conducting admirable work in the
microscopic investigation of rocks and editing the Mineralogical Magazine. His obituary
published by the Mineralogical Society (Fletcher 1893) painted a wonderful picture of his
professional and private life:
His early education was of a very elementary character, and the period of his school-lifewas brief: finding town life
irksome, and yearning for freedom and adventure, he took to the sea at the age of 14, and during the next four years
led a roving life, visiting China, India, and various parts of South America. He was then prevailed upon by his
father to adopt a more settled mode of existence, and on the separation of the Department of Mineralogy from that
of geology, was appointed in 1858 a third class attendant at the British Museum under Professor Maskelyne.
During the next nine years (1858–1867), a major project to re-arrange, examine, clean and label
the minerals collection was undertaken, involving literally tons of specimens. According to
Fletcher’s obituary: “[T]he patient and intelligent aid of ‘young Davies’alone rendered it
possible to carry out the preliminary operations”, and thus Davies acquired an “eye-knowledge
of minerals, rarely if ever surpassed”.
Thomas Davies became expert in the microscopic characters of rock-forming minerals,
utilizing the then new technique of thin sectioning. He also studied at evening classes. He was
familiar with plants and fossils, knowledge passed on to him by his father, and, in 1862, he
gained promotion to Transcriber or Junior Assistant. This was followed by promotion to
Assistant First Class in 1880. As noted in Fletcher’s obituary, “by a remarkable coincidence,
his father, William Davies, obtained the same promotion on the same day.”In the same
year he was awarded the Balance of the Proceeds of the Wollaston Fund by the Council of
the Geological Society “as a testimony of the value of his researches in Mineralogy and
Lithology”(Fletcher 1893: 163). In 1889, a new mineral, Daviesite, was named in his honour,
recognizing his significant contributions to the field. Three years later, following his death
( just one year after that of his father), Fletcher (1893) recorded personal tributes to his
good nature:
He was a most excellent colleague, always cheerful, good tempered, and kind hearted, ever ready to help in any
direction, however much it might interfere with the particular work he had immediately in hand, ever willing to
learn, for any question that other side of which the possible existence might not have suggested itself to him. At
home he was an enthusiastic gardener: wet or fine, absolutely reckless of weather, he was at work from early
sunrise, and could boast the possession of one of the best managed gardens in the neighbourhood. His love of fresh
air and the bustling east wind never left him: even after recovery from the long illness which two years ago had
taken him to the verge of grave, and from which he never fully recovered, he did not hesitate to show his former
contempt for the protection of an umbrella, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of his friends might
occasionally be seen still enjoying the beating of the wind and rain on his unprotected face.
Caleb Barlow (1840–1908) (Figure 4) was the mason ( preparator) appointed by Sir Richard
Owen, and he worked at the Museum from 1874 to 1908. He is the first recorded person to
have been engaged in professional fossil preparation at the Museum, and was employed
on an annual salary of £101. 14s. 6d. Five other masons were employed in the BM’s
Department of Antiquities, where “presumably they conserved rather than created”(Whybrow
1985: 21).
FOSSIL PREPARATORS AT BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY) 257
In 1865, the Reverend William D. Fox (1813–1881) found the remains of the armoured
dinosaur Polacanthus on the Isle of Wight. John W. Hulke (1881: 657) later described the
specimen and, referring to the condition of its dermal armour, noted that: “It is now I fear
irreparably damaged and beyond reconstruction. Broken up into countless pieces through
hasty and incautious removal from the cliffs, these have in 15 years cracked and fallen
into numberless smaller fragments; the attempt to rejoin which would be a hopeless
undertaking.”
The specimen was entrusted into the care of Richard Hall (Figure 4),
4
an assistant mason,
and Caleb Barlow, who between 1881 and 1887 set about the “hopeless undertaking”of
re-assembling the shattered pieces. As a result of their skill and patience, Hulke (1887: 169)
was able to publish an update to his earlier description:
[T]he great dorsal shield …was represented by several hundred disconnected pieces, many of these being of less
size than one cubic inch [16 cubic centimetres]. It was also evident that many had been lost. In this mutilated
condition the reconstruction of the shield appeared hopeless, but at length, under the guidance of the heads of the
Palaeontological Department, this has been accomplished by Mr. Hall and Mr. Barlow (“Masons”), who brought to
the task a painstaking perseverance and skill worthy of the highest praise.
Figure 4. Geological Department Junior Staff photograph, 19 November 1900, including Caleb Barlow (front row,
second from right), Frank Barlow (back row, second from left) and Richard Hall (back row, centre) (Natural History
Museum Archives PH/2/5/1/8, Staff Portraits and Group Photographs 19th–21st Century).
M. R. GRAHAM
258
Caleb Barlow’s services had been needed earlier, in 1876, when the Omosaurus material
recovered by Davies required preparation. As with Polacanthus, it had been very badly
shattered during extraction and transport. Davies (1876: 196) noted that:
This was a work of much labour, patience and skill, for the matrix was hard and adhered firmly to the bone, which,
being much softer, rendered it almost impossible to remove the former, without also taking away the surface of the
latter. However, slowly but satisfactorily the work progressed, and bone after bone was brought to light, until a
grand group, comprising the iliac bones of either side with the sacrum entire and retaining their normal form and
position, an ischium, femur, dorsal, and caudal vertebrae, were projected on bold relief from a background of grey
stone: forming a magnificent fossil group unique of its kind. This work was skilfully executed by Mr. Barlow, the
Mason attached to the Geological Department, and occupied him several months. But happily the labour has added
much to palaeontological knowledge …and the results have been a source of gratification to those who took part in
its reconstruction.
Barlow was engaged in moulding and casting through his work with R. F. Damon & Co.,
supplying the BM on a commercial basis. He was also in contact, on behalf of the Museum,
with Lord Walter Rothschild, and spent time visiting and appraising Rothschild’s collections
at Tring.
A letter to Rothschild’s scientific assistant Ernst Hartert (1859–1933) from Caleb Barlow’s
son, dated 11 June 1908,
5
recorded that his father died as a result of “weakness & heart failure
following a severe operation for gall stones”.
Frank Oswell Barlow (1880–1951) (Figure 4) commenced as an unpaid apprentice in the
Department of Geology in 1896, aged 15. In 1899, he became a workshop attendant and
progressed to mason in 1908, re-titled as preparator in 1921. During 1903 and 1904, he spent
several months in Fayum, Egypt, excavating Cenozoic vertebrates with Charles William
Andrews FRS (1866–1924), and afterwards made restorations of the most important finds, such
as Arsinoitherium and various extinct proboscideans. He also worked on the collection of
Figure 5. Reconstructed dorsal shield of Polacanthus (Hulke 1887, plates 8 and 9) in dorsal (left) and ventral
(right) views.
FOSSIL PREPARATORS AT BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY) 259
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward (1864–1944) of Pliocene mammal remains from Pikermi, Greece,
and many other famous specimens. He was responsible for the casts of the Leatherback
Sea Turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) and the deep-sea anglerfish Ceratias in the Department
of Zoology. The younger Barlow also modelled Smith Woodward’s restorations of the
Piltdown skull.
In 1916, Frank Barlow commenced work further preparing an Archaeopteryx fossil,
exposing the pubes and right coracoid when, “[i]n order to expose the coracoid from below he
cut a window in the back of slab sometime before 1921”(Cornish et al. 2010: 143). This was a
delicate undertaking on the Museum’s most valuable specimen, and his having been entrusted
with the task was testament to his considerable skill and abilities. During the First World War,
he served as a Section Commander in the Royal Tank Corp and was stationed in France.
6
He went on to become Technical Assistant first class in 1929, and Technical Assistant
higher grade in 1930, retiring from the Museum in 1941. His last major work at the Museum
was to carry out the difficult task, over several years, of reconstructing in plaster-of-Paris
the skull of the Triassic amphibian Paracyclotosaurus from cavities within the ironstone
nodules which had contained the fossil. The reconstructed cast of the skull, lower jaws and
post-cranial skeleton were on display for many years, but were removed in 2017 as part of
the major overhaul of the exhibits in what is now Hintze Hall. David Meredith Seares Watson
(1886–1973), the former Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy,
University College London, recognized Barlow’s skill and patience in his publication on
Paracyclotosaurus, writing that “Barlow’s work covered many years, and I do not know of
any other man who could have done it; it was a technical triumph”(Watson 1958: 236).
“The development of the specimen, so skilfully carried out by the late Mr. F. O. Barlow,
required many years of patient work using laborious methods then available, and the
intervention of two wars much increased the delay in finishing the task of preparation”
(Watson 1958: 261).
Later in his career, Frank Barlow also became the proprietor of R. F. Damon & Co.
(the company for which his father had once worked in his spare time), and which he developed
on the anthropological side, supplying scientific institutions worldwide. He became well
known for his casts and restorations of fossil human skulls. Following his death in 1951, his
stock of moulds was taken over by the Wenner-Gren Foundation in order that his work might be
continued.
In an obituary in Nature, Wilfred Edwards (1951) wrote that Frank Barlow had worked
“with great distinction for 45 years”:
Mr Barlow will be remembered by all who knew him for his personality, his massively imposing figure, resonant
voice and courteous approach. He was a man of wide culture, as his conversation revealed. He had an extensive
knowledge of literature and, like his father, he was musical. His rich bass voice was for many years heard in male
voice choirs, and he sang at coronations and other special occasions in Westminster Abbey. He spent his last decade
in the pleasant half-timbered Old Parsonage at Merston near Chichester.
The following observation was removed from an earlier draft of the obituary: “Barlow was
sometimes mistaken for the Director of the Museum or, with even greater probability, for one of
the Principal trustees.”
7
Louis Emmanuel Parsons (1889–1964) won a scholarship to attend the Westminster Art
School in London, where he studied drawing and sculpture. During this time, he also made a
study of comparative anatomy and geology, and was sent to work, on the recommendation of
the Keeper of Geology, for four years (1905–1908) at Messrs W. Cubitt & Co., a supplier to the
geological community. There he gained knowledge of the cutting and handling of different
M. R. GRAHAM260
kinds of rocks. He was first employed in the Department of Geology in 1908 when aged 19 at a
weekly wage of 25 shillings, rising (on recommendation) by 1 shilling a week annually to
30 shillings a week. Promoted to preparator, he retired in 1954. He is credited with having first
introduced the pneumatic hammer (air scribe) to the palaeontology workshop sometime after
1911, which was when the Museum was connected to electricity. Like his contemporary and
colleague Frank Barlow, Parsons served in the Royal Tank Corp during the First World War
(1915–1919), stationed in France.
6
Of the early preparators, Louis Parsons had perhaps the most illustrious career, and the
specimens that he worked on included some of the most recognizable in the Museum
collections. He worked on Archaeopteryx, and developed and mounted a host of fossil
birds, reptiles and mammals, including the large bird Diatryma, the giant marine turtle
Protostega, the marine crocodile Steneosaurus and the plesiosaur Macroplata tenuiceps.
He also restored and mounted one of the finest known skeletons of the ichthyosaur
Ophthalmosaurus (until recently on public display), for which he was specially commended
by the palaeontologist Charles Andrews, author of A Descriptive Catalogue of the Marine
Reptiles of the Oxford Clay (1910).
8
His work with dinosaurs included mounting the
skeleton of Mantellisaurus atherfeldensis (currently displayed in Hintze Hall), the pelvic
girdle of the gigantic iguanodontid Barilium dawsoni, and two skeletons of Hypsilophodon
foxii (which were both displayed in the Dinosaur Gallery until their removal in 2016).
Undoubtedly however, his greatest challenge insofar as dinosaur preparation was concerned,
was that presented by the massive ankylosaur Scolosaurus. Sometime in 1915, before the
commencement of his military service, the Museum took delivery of several blocks of
sandstone containing the skeleton, which had been collected the previous year from Alberta,
Canada, by William Cutler (1878–1925). According to an account by Swinton (1929: 67):
“Mr L. E. Parsons, one of the geological preparators, had time only to unpack and look over the
specimen before leaving the museum on military service, and it was not until he returned in
1919 that he actually began to develop the fossil.”The work on this remarkable specimen,
which was found to preserve dorsal armour and detailed skin impressions, took six years to
complete. The new species was named Scolosaurus cutleri. Regarded at the time to be the
finest armoured dinosaur known, the discovery and preparation of Scolosaurus received much
press attention when it went on public display in 1925 (Figure 6). Parsons also received a
glowing letter of commendation in November 1926 from the Museum that reads:
Dr Bather has called the attention of the Trustees to your laborious and skilled work in preparing the specimen of a
large Armoured Dinosaur which was obtained by the late Mr. W. E. Cutler. I am very pleased to be in a position to
inform you that the Trustees appreciate the value of your work on this fossil and realise that the interest of the
specimen as now shown is largely due to the excellent work you have done in exposing the parts which have been
preserved.
The fossil mammals that Louis Parsons prepared and mounted include the primitive camel
Stenomylus, the early goat Myotragus, the rhinoceros Diceratherium (now called Menoceras),
the sabre-toothed tiger Smilodon and the famous “Chatham elephant”(Palaeoloxodon
antiquus), which he excavated, prepared and designed the mount for. The recovery and
preparation of this specimen was interrupted by his military service in France. When finally
completed in 1926, it was the largest mounted fossil in the public gallery and attracted praise
from King George V and King Alfonso XIII of Spain during a visit to the Museum, when
Parsons was introduced to the latter.
Another testimony to Parsons’s abilities was published by Clive Forster-Cooper
(1880–1947), then Director of the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology and later
FOSSIL PREPARATORS AT BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY) 261
(1938–1947) of the BM(NH). Referring to the work carried out on the skull of
Hyracotherium (now Pliolophus)vulpiceps, Foster-Cooper (1932) wrote: “I am indebted to
the keeper of Geology, Dr. Lang, for authorising the further development of this valuable
and interesting specimen. The resources of modern instruments and the skill and care of
Mr. Parsons have resulted in an almost perfect palate and lower jaw.”Clearly, Parsons’s
skills and experience meant that he was in great demand on a wide range of significant
projects, and he was also charged with the supervision of the unpacking and preparation
of fossils collected by the Museum during the East African expeditions to Tendaguru
(1924–1931).
Later in his career, while undertaking more analytical work, he became involved with the
study of the infamous Piltdown skull and took samples from the teeth of the chimera specimen
which he analysed in the laboratory, helping to establish that it was an elaborate fake. One year
prior to his retirement in 1954, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
In total he gave 46 years’service to the Museum (Maier 2003: 282).
Robert Parsons (Louis’s son) was appointed as an assistant in the Department of Geology in
1945, became a Higher ScientificOfficer in January 1973 and retired in 1990. A letter of
5 September 1944 confirmed that a grant of £75 was awarded for the employment of the young
Parsons temporarily in the department.
9
He seems to have had a much less auspicious career
than his father, and relatively little is recorded regarding his contribution, although he was a
Figure 6. Louis Parsons working on Scolosaurus:
Illustrated London News, 16 February 1924, p. 263
(Natural History Museum Archives TCC-ARC-1734a).
Figure 7. Robert Parsons and his father Louis Parsons
working together on the cast of Paracylotosaurus
(Natural History Museum Archives PH/2/5/4/7,
Photograph Collection, Staff Portraits and Group
photographs, R. J. Parsons and L. E. Parsons preparing
fossils, 1947).
M. R. GRAHAM
262
gifted replicator who specialized in creating moulds and casts of anthropological specimens.
According to colleagues who remember him, he seems, unlike his father, to have been rather
introverted, and preferred to go about his business quietly.
10
Robert Parsons was the last
recorded member of these teams of father-and-son preparators (Figure 7).
CONCLUSIONS
The naming and development of palaeontology as a science came about in the mid-nineteenth
century (Edwards 1967). Fossil collecting by the Department of Geology of the British
Museum and subsequently the British Museum (Natural History) created a need for specimens
to be expertly prepared for scientific study. In these early days, such expertise was provided by
masons –men with practical skills initially derived from stone-masonry, and who expanded
their knowledge to encompass an understanding of geology, fossils and specimen
conservation, modelling, casting and mounting.
In trades and industries, sons often followed the same careers as their fathers, and so it
was with the early fossil preparators. Long apprenticeships were served, with knowledge and
skills being passed down the familial line, and frequently followed by ‘jobs for life’in this
specialism. Little detailed information was routinely recorded about the techniques and
materials applied to individual specimens, for the processes were quite rudimentary, and useful
substances for specimen treatment were limited. Not until the early part of the twentieth
century, and with the advent of powered tools and experimentation into the use of industrial
resins and chemicals, did a written record of treatments begin to be established (Whybrow
1985). The first handbook to materials and techniques, published in 1976, was written by the
Museum’s retired preparator Arthur Rixon. Now obviously dated, it still remains an important
reference source.
To this day, the route into a career as a fossil preparator relies upon the acquisition of
disparate skills and knowledge, encompassing some combination of geology, anatomy,
palaeontology, conservation, materials science and communications, together with experience
of fieldwork. No single formal qualification can cover all these areas, and for most museum- or
university-based preparators, jobs are scarce and invariably follow on from a period of unpaid
voluntary work in a laboratory and/or fixed-term periods of employment on specific projects,
rather than the formal, paid apprenticeships of the past.
Yet the work of the fossil preparator, incorporating as it does many of the original
techniques as well as embracing modern technology, such as Computerized Tomography (CT)
and Three-dimensional (3D) surface scanning, continues to serve an important role in
facilitating palaeontological research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper would not have been possible without the diligent record keeping and publications of my colleagues,
past and present, in both the libraries and archives and the Conservation Centre (or ‘Workshop’/‘Palaeo Lab’/
‘Palaeontology Conservation Unit’, as it has been variously known over the years) at the NHM, and I thank them all.
The help of Laura Brown, archivist, and Bobbie Winter-Burke, librarian, in providing access to Museum records was
invaluable. Improvements to the paper were suggested by Earth Science colleagues Paul Barrett, Angela Milner and
Jerry Hooker, and by Lu Allington-Jones of the Conservation Centre.
FOSSIL PREPARATORS AT BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY) 263
NOTES
1
URL (accessed 15 December 2017): http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/history-and-architecture.html (Anonymous
201: History and architecture). See also Stearn (1981).
2
Natural History Museum Archives (hereafter NHM-A) DF106/10, Department of Palaeontology, Palaeontology
Staff Files and Diaries, 1848–1967.
3
W. Davies to H. Woodward, 7 September 1880: NHM-A DF120/1, Department of Palaeontology, early Members
of Staff, Correspondence and Papers, Davies, W: correspondence 1870–1890.
4
Richard Hall (1839–1925), from Raglan, Monmouthshire: commencement of service date unknown, but
worked as an assistant mason in the Department of Geology in 1885, and was appointed a mason in 1889: NHM-A
DF106/13–17. NHM-A, PX169, Department of Palaeontology, Geology Section, Staff Files, fl1889.
5
F. O. Barlow to E. Hartert, 11 June 1908: NHM-A TRI/1/29/40, Tring Museum Correspondence.
6
NHM-A, 1914 War Archive, and third supplementary list, January 1917.
7
NHM-A DF150/5, Department of Palaeontology, Geology Section: Correspondence and Papers 1940–1996,
Barlow, Frank Oswell, short obituary, mid 20th century.
8
“Brief outline of the services of Louis E. Parsons”: NHM-A TCC-DOC-1734c.
9
Hon. Treasurer, Godman E. Fund to W. N. Edwards, 5 September 1944: NHM-A TCC-DOC-0018.
10
A. Milner and J. Hooker, pers. comm., 10 April 2018.
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Received 13 February 2018. Accepted 1 June 2018.
M. R. GRAHAM
264
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