Natural History Museum at Tring
The Natural History Museum at Tring , under the name Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, was the private museum of Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild until 1937 and is located on the grounds of the former Rothschild family residence in Tring Park , Tring , Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom . It was in this museum, which opened to the public in 1892, that Rothschild amassed his enormous collection of specimens. It houses one of the finest collections of stuffed birds, mammals, reptiles and insect preparations in the United Kingdom, according to widely shared expert opinion.
The museum is located on Akeman Street in Tring, Hertfordshire, HP23 6AP.
The extensive collection, which is housed in several rooms, includes extinct animal species such as the quagga , the pouch wolf , the giant alk, as well as reconstructions of the moas and dodos . Curiosities include hybrids and examples with an abnormal coloring. The dogs on display were moved from the Natural History Museum , South Kensington , London to the Rothschild Zoological Museum after the Second World War . This exhibition shows how domestic dogs change their shape through selected breeding. It includes Russian and Mexican lap dogs, as well as the greyhounds .
Because of Rothschild’s financial difficulties, a large part of the collection had to be sold to the American Museum of Natural History in 1932 . The remaining part was transferred to the Natural History Museum in 1937 . In April 2007 the name of the museum was changed to Natural History Museum at Tring .
The museum houses ornithological research collections (Bird Group, Department of Zoology) and the ornithological library (Department of Library and Information Services) of the Natural History Museum , but these are not open to the public. The British Ornithologists' Union is also headquartered on the museum grounds.
There are small themed exhibitions throughout the year that showcase exhibits that are normally not shown.
The museum is easily accessible by car. The nearest train station is 3 km from Tring. According to museum staff, Rothschild did not want any passing trains in his vicinity because the noise of the train would have caused unrest in his menagerie . The eccentric Rothschild was known for making the distance from the museum to the train station in a carriage pulled by a team of zebras. The zebra cafe in the museum, where photos of trained zebras are shown, also points to Rothschild's love for zebras . Rothschild bred hybrids from zebras and horses ( zebroids ). A stuffed zebroid foal is on display in the museum.
Since Walter Rothschild collected new material so quickly that it could hardly be edited, from 1894 to 1939 the Novitates Zoologicae was published as a separate scientific journal for the museum by Ernst Hartert and Karl Jordan , in which over 1700 scientific books and articles were presented and over 5000 new animal species have been described.
Illustrations
Russian and Mexican lap dogs (puppies)
Zebroid foal
Tasmanian wolf or pouch wolf
Web links
- NHM: The Natural History Museum at Tring (English)
- The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum on the Tring Information Center website (English)
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 51 ° 47 ′ 29 " N , 0 ° 39 ′ 38" W.