A Year: Day to Day Men: 6th of June
Heaven with Cerulean Fields
On June 6, 1683, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England opens as the world’s first university museum.
The Ashmolean Museum came into existence when Elias Ashmole, a weathy collector of rare books, gifted his collection to the University in 1682. He did so ‘because the knowledge of Nature is very necessary to human life and health.’ It opened as Britain’s first public museum, and the world’s first university museum on June 6, 1683. Though the collection has evolved considerably, the founding principle remains: that knowledge of humanity across cultures and across times is important to society.
Elias Ashmole acquired his collection from John Tradescant, father and son, both gardeners. The Tradescants were no ordinary gardeners; they were employed by the wealthy Earl of Salisbury. The Tradescants voyaged overseas, traveling the known world and shipping back new and exotic plant specimens for the Earl’s gardens. In the course of their travels they also acquired a remarkable collection of curiosities that included botanical, geological and zoological items as well as man-made objects.
When Elias Ashmole gifted this collection to the University, it was combined with an older University collection. The original Ashmolean Museum opened on Broad Street in Oxford in 1683, in the building that is now the Museum of the History of Science. Members of the public were admitted to the Ashmolean Museum from the outset- which was a controversial policy in the 17th century. Alongside the collection, this building was designed to house a chemistry laboratory and rooms for undergraduate lectures.
In 1823 the Ashmolean collection came under the reforming stewardship of brothers John and Philip Duncan – John was appointed as Keeper in 1823 and succeeded by Philip in 1829. In 1826 an “Introduction to the Catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum” was published, which proposed a detailed consideration of prevailing taxonomic systems of object organization. A full catalogue of the collections was completed in 1836 by Philip Duncan. These documents reveal the extent that the Duncan brothers, and the donors they attracted, transformed the collections with fresh specimens.
Sir Arthur Evans became Keeper of the Ashmolean in 1884. Sir Arthur was an Oxford scholar, traveller, and son of a famous academic of prehistory. In his 24-year keepership he transformed the museum by acquiring an archaeological collection and establishing the museum as a first-rate research institution. In 1908 the Ashmolean Museum and the University Art Galleries combined to create the current Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology.