THE OLD MUSEUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 282, 28 November 1929, Page 10

THE OLD MUSEUM.

A FAMILIAR LANDMARK. WELL-KNOWN EXHIBITS. HOW THE INSTITUTE STAETED. The origin of the Auckland Museum can be traced back to 1854, when a modest collection of specimens was assembled as a result of the enthusiasm of the late Dr. Sinclair, a keen student of natural history. This rudimentary museum was housed in a small building in Grafton Boad. A few years later the collection came into the possession of the Provincial Government, which found room for it in one of the Government offices in Princes Street.

The Auckland Institute was founded on November (5, 1867, at a public meetI ing, and on May 4, 1868, it began its first L session. At the close of its first year it had a roll of 68 members, its revenue amounted to £68 15/4, and its expenditure to £61 18/9. At that time it was a wanderer without a settled home. Its handful of books, and is embryo museum found ample room in what is now the smoking-room of the Northern Club in Princes Street. It was in that room that the society held its first meetings. The objects of the institute were the promotion of science, literature and art by means of a museum and a library, by lectures, and meetings of members at which papers on topics of interest were discussed. A site for a museum and library was obtained from the Government through the persistence of the late Mr. Justice Gillies, then Superintendent of the Province, who was actually the founder of the institute. He was three times the institute's president, and donated £500 towards the cost of erecting the first part of the building in Princes Street where the museum was situated for so many years. It was in 1576 that the Marquis of Normanby, Governor of the Colony, opened the Princes Street building, which for that period was a remarkably fine structure. Between 1869 and the opening of the new building the museum had found a temporary home in an old building in Princes Street that had done duty as a post office.

Old.Aucklanders remember with feelings of interest what we must call ;the "old museum," in the congeries of buildings which have been turned into flats and a garage. In the days of their childhood there were no picture shows, very few entertainments, and the standing treat for the youngsters was to "go up to the museum." Country people invariably dragged their offspring to the top of Shortland Street and turned them loose in the rather gloomy balls with the bare board floors, the faint smell of dried skins; and many a country child will remember the awful clatter his country boots made in the almost cathedral stillness that used to reign in the place.

3 The exhibits wore never or seldom changed, because the institute seemed to be always hard up; any new addition was detected as readily as a brand new patch on an old pair of trousers; one got to know the exhibits so thoroughly. There was the large case of rather motheaten stuffed animals on the ground floor; the wicked-looking blue shark on the landing, rather the worse for handling, about the fin; the mounted seals upstairs, with the hair on the shoulder quite rubbed off by continuous stroking of the velvety skin by small children, who like to pat what pleases their eye; i the melancholy jars of fish in spirit, red schnapper exactly the same hue as the azure maomao, all colour having long since left their parchment-like skins; and a few other outstanding things which remain fixed in the memory of youthful Auckland as firmly as the image on a photograph plate. Then in 1892 the institute, by some means known only to itself, managed to scrape together £1500 with which it built a simple brick barn alongside the old building and called it the "Maori Hall." Auckland thought it rather fine, and Lord Glasgow, the Governor of the day, said so in so many words. Certain I it is that then for the first time Auck-

land began to realise what a wonderful nucleus it had for the finest Maori collection in the world. The carved house and the war canoe ("Toki-a-Tapiri") were in themselves a start that anv museum might envy, but in addition the museum found that it had a splendid collection of greenstone, mats, and different articles used in every day life by the brown man. The Maori*Hali brought new life to the old Museum, but the good people who helped to look after its destinies would have had considerable difficulty in picturing for 1920 the magnificent buildinsr ■which "now overlooks the harbour from the highest spot on Domain hill. It must be remembered that in its earlv days the institute had to pejr along with its own resources. Up j to 1017 it had received only, one grant, namely £2200, and had to finance the! Museum and contents out of its own

income. Was it any wonder that any fresh addition to the collection was so l are that it stood out like a stranger landin-r in a bush village? °

That the Museum maintains its prestige, and continued to interest people, was due in a great measure to the fact that at the head of it was one who was a. true scientist at heart, and could still keep up appearances though the bank account was always at such a low ebb, -"nd that was the late Mr. Thomas Clieesenian. Hp was appointed curator awpv back in 1574, and until his death a few years he was practically Institute. Council and Museum management all in one.