Sir Charles Dick — the Baronet curator of Brighton Museum

Brighton Museum celebrates its 150th birthday today, having been formally opened on 5 November 1861. To mark the occasion, we are running a free audio touch-tour of the museum, and have designed a treasure trail for our smartphone app. But it is worth taking a moment to remark upon the fate of one of Brighton Museum’s first curators: Sir Charles Dick.

When the Brighton and Sussex Museum opened in 1861 it was not in its present building. It originally occupied several  rooms on the upper floor of the Royal Pavilion. At the time, the museum consisted of the municipal art collection, and several other collections, including natural history specimens. Dick was not the first curator of the museum, but he has become the figure most closely identified with this early period.

In spite of his title, Dick lived much of his life on modest means. He was born in London in 1802, and moved to Brighton in 1820 with his father, Sir Page Dick. They lived in a house named Porthall on Dyke Road. Much of his income seems to have been derived from his father’s war pension, and when Sir Page died in 1851, Dick inherited relatively little. Other than his title, the house, some furniture, and a collection of armour and painted miniatures, Sir Charles Dick was left with little income. Believing himself to be entitled to a substantial pension from the crown, dating from a settlement made by Charles II, Dick spent much of the remainder of his life petitioning the government for these funds. His efforts would prove unsuccessful and, according to an obituary published in the Brighton Herald, he ‘sank lower and lower in worldly circumstances’. So low did he sink that he became a museum curator.

In the early 1860s, Dick and his family were forced to give up Porthall, and his collection of armour and miniatures were acquired for the museum. Dick’s knowledge of the collection, or charitable feeling, appear to have been the only reason he was appointed to the post. He certainly does not appear to have held much enthusiasm for the job, and spent most of his time fruitlessly pursuing his claim to a pension from the government. According to the Herald obituary:

‘It cannot be said that the now aged Baronet took kindly to his office; doubtless, his “heart was over where,” for his ” claims” were ever uppermost with him.’

Shortly before the museum moved to its present home in 1873, Dick was dismissed from his post with three months pay. Although he pleaded to be kept on, it seems that the town’s authorities had ambitious plans for the museum. An elderly, distracted curator clearly did not match this vision. Indeed, it seems that many people dismissed his museum entirely. John George Bishop in his 1891 The Brighton Pavilion and its Royal Associations fails to mention the museum at all, and simply dates the founding of the museum to 1873, the year it moved to its present site. This is particularly striking, as Bishop was one of the few mourners who attended his funeral several years later.

Sir Charles Dick died on 3 December 1876. The obituary published on 9 December bore the title ‘A Sad Story of a Life’. Although it may be hard to define Dick’s legacy, he is at the very least a reminder of how much has changed in the museum in the last 150 years.

Kevin Bacon
Digital Development Officer

Inauguration of the Sussex and Brighton Museum (The Brighton Herald 5th November 1861)

The great local event of the week has been the inaugural proceedings connected with the opening of the Sussex and Brighton Museum at the Royal Pavilion.

Inauguration of the Sussex and Brighton Museum (The Brighton Herald 5th November 1861)

The origin of this Museum, the nature of the building and the character of its contents, we have explained again and again. Only last week we usurped for the nonce the office of curator, and conducted our readers over the whole museum, – opening one after another all the compartments of the wondrous cabinet, and pointing out the value and significance of the treasures deposited in each.

Inauguration of the Sussex and Brighton Museum (The Brighton Herald 5th November 1861)

Professor Owen (who was warmly received) said: I feel much honoured by the invitation given to me to offer some discourse before you on some subjects which might seem to be applicable to the auspicious occasion on which we are all here assembled, – the inauguration of the Brighton and Sussex museum, – in this most beautiful and most convenient building. I do this with very great pleasure, because to any who set themselves apart from those pursuits which are the most attractive and are the most general in this practical, busy country, – the pursuits, I mean, which have for their aim the acquisition of improved social position, or wealth, or power, I say,  whoever sets himself apart for the more abstract investigations of pure truth, and who looks for little reward beyond the delight of acquiring knowledge, must have very great pleasure in finding such a sign of genial sympathy with his pursuits as the founding of a Museum indicates, and particularly a Museum of natural objects, such as that which forms so important a part of the institution we have assembled this day to open and inaugurate. Indeed, the collection of the varied and beautiful works of Nature is one which we must all feel a pleasure in. It seems to be instinctively planted in our nature as a delightful occupation.

At Work With…

… Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences

This is the second blog on mammal taxidermy. This time describing the processes of preparing a mammal as a posed mount rather than as a flat skin.

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The mammal used was a rabbit acquired from a local butcher’s shop which had already been semi-prepared with the belly opened up and the stomach removed. This time, there was no intention to later include the rabbit in the museum’s accessioned collections, so the usual process of weighing and measuring it was not carried out.

The removal of the rabbit’s skin was carried out in much the same way as with the fox with some differences. These differences were required for the purpose of displaying the skin as a mount rather than a flat skin. The most obvious alteration was in the preparation of the legs. In the case of the fox, each leg was cut down the entire length and the flesh was removed along with the bones. For a mounted specimen the bones need to remain as a method of support and unsightly stitch marks from incisions need to be avoided. So, with the rabbit, the skin on the legs was peeled back to the ankle joint and the flesh was removed from the bones using the scalpel. Once completed an incision was made in the sole of the foot and the muscles and tendons were removed. A sturdy wire was then fed up through the base of the foot and along the length of the bones. This wire was bound to the bone with string, before packages of wood wool and tow (plant fibres) were tied around the bones to mimic the shape of the muscles. The process was repeated on the other three legs. The position of the leg joints was recorded on an outline diagram of the carcass once the body was removed.

The preparation of the head is also different for a mounted specimen. The head of the rabbit was skinned, the same as the fox, however the central incision only went to the base of the neck. The neck and skull were then removed by turning the animal inside out. In normal circumstances the skull would be de-fleshed, then placed back inside the skin to fill out the head. However, the rabbit skull was badly damaged in this case and was not usable.

After the rest of the body was removed, the skin was washed, and any remaining flesh still stuck to the skin removed. The lips of the rabbit were sewn up to prevent the mouth opening during the drying process when the skin shrinks.

Body stuffing can either be purchased from a taxidermy retailer as a preformed plastic body or built from scratch. In our case, a body was made in the traditional way using wood wool (finely shaved wood) jute tow (used in sack cloth) and string. It was built up with wood wool, dampened with water and pesticide. This was wrapped with string at various points to secure the wool as well as to help assess the size of the body. When the body had been constructed, to the appropriate size for the skin, it was covered in a thin layer of tow and wrapped in cotton thread. This gives a smooth surface, which prevents lumps appearing in the skin.

To compensate for the lack of a skull (and Jeremy using it as a good opportunity to demonstrate how to salvage such a situation) a head was added to the body stuffing. In normal circumstances, the skull would be packed out with wood wool and modelling putty would used to fill the eye sockets and hold a pair of glass eyes in place. In this case, the modelling putty was built directly onto the head section of the body stuffing and the skull shaped by using more putty, cotton wool and string.

The whole body stuffing was then inserted head first into the skin. The wires bound to the leg bones were pushed into the stuffing material using the diagram as a guide to the position of the joints. Once the legs were anchored into place, the body was sewn up. The legs were then bent into the desired pose and the body was mounted onto a temporary wooden board to dry.

During drying the skin tightens up and sets the position of the pose. Drying involves pinning the skin into position and brushing and blow drying the fur. Once the fur looks presentable the mammal can be left to dry at room temp for several weeks. In larger mammals the skin shrinks significantly during the drying process so tanning is used to prevent it. On smaller mammals it isn’t such a problem.