A single wooden chair from a small museum in a far-off colony may seem an unlikely object to tell a story of global scientific upheaval. It belonged to Gerard Krefft, curator of the Museum from 1864 to 1874 and a central figure in Australian science in the 19th century.
Krefft was a renowned zoologist, a prolific specimen collector, and an accomplished scientific illustrator. But his support for Darwin’s theory of evolution saw him come into conflict with many of the Museum’s trustees and he was dismissed in 1874. Refusing to leave, he barricaded himself in his living quarters in the Museum. Edward Smith-Hall, a trustee, hired two prize fighters to carry him out, still seated in this chair.
Australia’s unique wildlife and geology had become a focus of growing scientific interest since its colonisation by the British. To the left of the chair is a small bottle used by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander to collect some of the first wildlife specimens to be sent from Australia to England. It is one of the few surviving relics from Captain Cook’s first voyage to Australia on the Endeavour in 1770.
Above the chair is an Australian Lungfish, first identified as a separate species in 1870 by Gerard Krefft. The Australian Lungfish has a single lung which enables it to breathe air when its river habitat becomes stagnant and restricted. Krefft suggested that the lungfish could be the missing link between fishes and amphibians.
Scientific illustration plays a fundamental role in the spread of knowledge by allowing those with no access to specimens to see a species’ distinguishing features. Above Krefft’s chair hang two illustrations produced by sisters Harriet and Helena Scott, two of 19th-century Australia’s most accomplished natural history illustrators. The paintings they made for their father’s book on Australia’s butterflies and moths secured their reputations, and soon they were producing nearly all the scientific illustrations in Sydney. At a time when education for women was limited, the sisters gained the necessary knowledge of botany and zoology from their father.