Contextualising Captain Scotts Echinoderm Collections at the Natural History Museum

When the placement options were first announced, there was one that seemed as though it had been designed just for me. I’ve loved the Natural History Museum since visiting as a dinosaur-obsessed child, and I have always found the history of the museum’s collections fascinating. I’ve also long been fascinated by polar exploration. 

Although I’m unable to profess any great love for echinoderms (apologies to my supervisor), I found the prospect of working with historic collections exciting, especially when they had been collected during Captain Scott’s doomed expedition. My placement had two core objectives. The first was to locate, research and relabel the echinoderm specimens collected during the Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions, most of which had been accessioned in the early 20th century. Locating specimens proved harder than expected, as specimens had been reidentified, split or even lost. Despite these challenges, I located over 90% of the specimens. 

Within each specimen jar were labels recording data such as locality, date of collection and method of collection, but none of this was documented in the museum’s catalogue. I gathered data from each specimen’s labels and collected it into a spreadsheet, which will eventually be used to update the museum’s catalogue. I also used this data to create updated labels for each specimen. By the end of my placement, I was very proud that I had located and re-labelled 488 specimen jars.

My second objective was to contextualise the echinoderm collections using archival material. I read through letters, museum logs and journals from Scott’s Antarctic expeditions to find details about the collection of echinoderm specimens. An unpublished journal revealed that the poor state of many specimens was due to them being lacerated by ice crystals upon collection. Within a letter, a marine biologist boasted that he had the ‘softest job of the ship’s company’. This information, and so much more, was able to provide vital context to the collections. I was thrilled to use this information to write the historical context for a research paper describing the taxonomy of the Scott expedition echinoderms.

I had an amazing time working at the Natural History Museum, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity I was given. I’ve learned so much about working with natural history collections, and I now feel like I have a much better idea of what it’s like to work in a museum environment. It was fantastic to visit different parts of the museum ‘behind the scenes’ and see the variety of work carried out. I loved meeting so many enthusiastic people who work at the museum, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the project I started goes next.

Eddie Jenkins, MA Museum Studies