The ‘need to know’ has been a driving force for humans since the time of Adam and Eve. Our innate curiosity has led to some of the discoveries and inventions that have benefited mankind since time immemorial.
Today, we can enjoy access to some of the great collections of the past – from art collections of the world, libraries full of works of imagination and scholarship, and from our many museums, big and small.
Britain is fortunate in having a rich cultural heritage that has been built up over the centuries, and many of these collections are open to the public, often with free entry to all.
But what of the ‘need to possess?’ What is it that drives the collector? The Turkish Nobel prize-winner, Orham Pamuk, suggests that the original drive to possess things is a universal reaction to some trouble or trauma. He writes that in the eighteenth century there were ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ or Wunderkammer through which the exquisite taste of the princes and the elite could be demonstrated. Pamuk has pointed out that museums are also places of learning, where information is produced and where a few objects placed together will ‘tell a story.’ Alas, ‘in the museums of the Western world, this notion has often been lost in the struggle to showcase power and wealth.’ One wonders what Pamuk would make of the Rothschild Museum of Natural History at Tring Park. As a child, Walter Rothschild was delicate and vulnerable. It is recorded that he expressed ‘frantic delight’ when he witnessed a circus parade displaying zebras and camels, and from early childhood he was collecting butterflies, moths and all kinds of insects. This childhood passion remained with him throughout his life. At ten years old, when Walter was already recognising the differences between various insects, he established his first museum in a garden shed.
Before long, his collections could no longer be contained in the shed, and at that point his father provided him with the land and finances to create a more substantial museum of his own. At the age of 17 Walter developed a persistent cough and was sent to Brighton for six weeks to enjoy the bracing sea air, taking with him his pet Australian opossum and an ‘unreliable’ dingo. While in Brighton, Walter continued to collect for his museum and he returned home with 35 species of fish and a young gannet.
Clearly, this was no ordinary teenage boy.
The ‘Wild, Weird and Wonderful’ collection of Natural History at Tring is exactly that. Whereelse can one find every ‘species’ of zebra in one room? Apparently, each species has a different pattern of stripes and in fact, no two zebras, anywhere, have exactly the same stripe pattern.
Whatever one’s beliefs about the origins of the universe, or about the ethics of killing animals and birds for the purpose of making a collection, and thereby increasing human knowledge, a visit to the Natural History Museum at Tring will leave the visitor marvelling at the colour, variety and sheer splendour of the creatures that exist on Earth.
Admission is free to the Natural History Museum at Tring. Address: The Walter Rothschild Building, Akeman Street, Tring, Herts HP23 6AP (0207 942 6171). The Museum is about 2 miles from Tring railway station, from where it can be reached by bus or taxi.