Moving the old to prepare for the New – Museum!

Katherine Veness's blog | Created 10 years ago

History of the mammal collection

The Mammal Gallery has been an icon of the Western Australian Museum – Perth for many years. Anyone who has visited the Museum, no matter how long ago, remembers the amazing bulk of ‘Big Bill’ the Bison, and many other examples of skilful taxidermy. We are currently performing conservation and treatment works on this exhibition ready for the New Museum, which opens in 2020.

Some early specimen conservation works have already commenced.

Tucked away out of sight below the Mammal Gallery is a corridor and offices in which, until recently, hung over one hundred old mammal trophy heads and skulls. Many are now under treatment at Welshpool, except for one very large Indian Buffalo trophy head – we need some scaffolding and a few strong staff to tackle that one.

A number of the specimens in the corridor were found here in Australia, including two feral Indian buffalo skulls from the Alligator River in the Northern Territory. Museum collector John Tunney collected these in 1903.

Other specimens are from much further afield.

One unexpected contributor to the Museum’s mammal collection was Sir Arthur Lawley, 13th Governor of Western Australia (1901-1902).

Senior Preparator at the Western Australian Museum, Kirsten Tullis, researched the Museum's old accession books, and found that Lawley donated 31 African specimens to the mammal collection in 1902, including six partial horned skulls.

[…] before being our Governor, [Lawley] was Administrator of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Afterwards, Lawley was Lieutenant Governor of the Transvaal and Governor of Madras.

All of Lawley’s specimens are from Africa, four of which were collected by […] Frederick Courteney Selous.

Selous, born in 1851, was a well-known British explorer and big game hunter active in southeast Africa.

Selous wasn’t the only contributor to Lawley’s collection, however. Henry Bryden, famous rugby union player and natural historian, also presented two specimens to Lawley, who then donated them as part of his collection to the Museum during his stint as Governor of Western Australia.

The role of taxidermy companies

The art and science of taxidermy is still relevant to Museums today, for both preparing and maintaining specimens. It is important that specimens are well prepared, in order for them to survive in good condition for as long as possible.

The Western Australian corridor collection contains examples of taxidermy from two taxidermy companies. Kirsten Tullis explains what she has discovered within the collection.  

I also came upon two taxidermy companies from Mysore in southern India: Theobald Bros and Van Ingen & Van Ingen.

The former prepared a pair of Nilgiri tahr heads and the latter two Indian muntjac or barking deer heads.

Van Ingen & Van Ingen  was a highly regarded company that operated from 1900 until 1998, and prepared animals for a wide range of clients, including Maharajas and foreign royalty.

Little information is available on the history of Theobald Bros, however many examples of their work still exist.

The peak of rampant big game hunting and the subsequent taxidermy of many animal species has slowed significantly in recent years.

During its peak, Van Ingen & Van Ingen were processing in excess of 400 tigers a year. Such ‘trophies’, however, have slipped out of fashion, due to increasing concerns regarding environmental protection and conservation. In most modern cases, taxidermy is reserved for scientific collections, not mass production. As such, companies like Van Ingen & Van Ingen have become increasingly obsolete.

Packing up the corridor heads and skulls

These images feature conservator Carmela Corvaia and volunteer Gabby O’Halloran cleaning and packing deer and tahr heads for safekeeping. This is a procedure that must be repeated many times for a variety of different objects. After all – there are thousands of precious items on display at the Museum that need to be packed away!