McCoy's Museum

Engraving of the National Museum, University of Melbourne.

Contrary to the popular notion of old museums as 'cabinets of curiosity', Frederick McCoy's museum was set out as a teaching facility. His National Museum, together with institutions such as the State Library of Victoria, was established at least in part to enable 'self improvement' through education among the colonists.

McCoy brought to Victoria what were, in the 1850s, modern notions of museology. His carefully prepared specimens had concise and informative (if somewhat dry) labels and the museum was, as far as possible, set out to adhere to Louis Agassiz's theory of the 'centres of creation' in which God created an assemblage of creatures for each geographic zone of the world.

National Museum of Victoria original stone office plaque.

It was an experience that attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to his museum in Carlton.

The ground floors are to be entirely devoted to geology, palaeontology, mineralogy and the hard parts of animals connected with palaeontology, such as skeletons and shells, while the galleries will be devoted to the collection of recent zoology, divided according to the method that has been found so instructive in the present rooms in the north wing of the University where by each of the great divisions of the earth inaccessible, the one from the other, so far as the animal inhabitants of each are concerned, are treated separately, so that all the representative types , the study of which forms so interesting a feature in the philosophy of modern zoology-these very similar, but really different species, which perform the same function in corresponding latitudes or climates in the other parts of the world- are once recognized by the visitor in passing from the cases of one country to those of another, thus giving additional interest to geographical studies.1


1RTM Pescott, Collections of a Century: The History of the First Hundred Years of the National Museum of Victoria, National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne, 1954, p. 55.

Join the mailing list and get the latest from our Museums direct to your inbox.

Share your thoughts to WIN

We'd love to hear about your experience with our website. Our survey takes less than 10 minutes and entries go in a draw to win a $100 gift voucher at our online store!