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Illustration of the national flower
of NSW from JH Maiden’s Flowering
plants and ferns of NSW (1895),
one of the Museum’s earliest publications.

Thirty one models of horses teeth
were purchased in the 1880's to
show common frauds to disguise a horses age.

A model furnace purchased as
part of a larger collection to show
students different methods to
metal processing.

6 April to 18 July 2005

This exhibition celebrates the the Powerhouse Museum history from its beginning in Sydney's Garden Palace in 1880 to its development into a 'modern science museum'.

Animal, vegetable and mineral: The weird and wonderful world of the Powerhouse Museum 1883-1939 traces the development of a fledging museum with very British ideas about applied sciences and the ‘useful arts’ into a major national institution presenting some of the first scientific research into Australia’s rich flora and fauna.

When it began in 1880 as the Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum in the Garden Palace in the Domain and later in the Agricultural Hall in the Domain this was an entirely new type of museum dedicated to educating the public for the first time about the science of everyday life.

The industrial revolution not only brought about a huge range of manufactured goods, it also needed well educated men and women to produce them. Technological museums played an important part in this education. Through models, diagrams and illustrations these museums revealed the scientific principles behind processes such as the production of heat and light, or the nutritional values of foods.

Animal, vegetable and mineral focuses on the first half century of collecting and the Museum’s exhibits. Although the first collection of some 10,000 objects was lost in the Garden Palace fire in 1882, it was quickly replaced by readily available commercial products or models. At the time, many thought models were preferable to the real thing.

In 1893 the now renown Technological Museum opened in Ultimo, next door to the Technical College. Exhibits were carefully arranged into the three great kingdoms of nature - animal, vegetable and mineral. Visitors to the Museum ascended from minerals on the ground floor (with displays of ‘useful’ Australian marbles and stones), through vegetable (where the parts of the plant were explained and examples of commercial plants illustrated) to animal on the top floor. Here exhibits included Australia’s most comprehensive display of wool. Many of these objects are included in the exhibition.

Animal, vegetable and mineral features a range of the early exhibits, many not seen since the 1920s when the Museum was modernised and many older displays removed. Highlights include the finely crafted models of flowers, bees, a silkworm – that can be pulled apart to show the ‘economy of the worm’ – and human anatomy.

The bee comes from a collection demonstrating honey production, purchased in 1883 for the animal
courts. Made by Parisian model
maker Dr Auzoux it can be taken
apart to show its 'internal economy'.

Many come from the renowned Paris workshop of Dr Auzoux. The original intention was for curators to use the models in demonstrations on the science of everyday life. For many years young women from local ladies colleges were allowed into the Museum on Saturday mornings for demonstrations of the anatomical models. One of the quirkier displays to survive is a collection of 31 models of horse teeth and jaws showing how to tell a horse’s age and detect common frauds.

Given its great interest in science, when the Museum took up residence in Ultimo each floor also had a laboratory with Metallurgy on ground floor, Chemistry on first and Botany on the second floor. It also had a still for distilling eucalyptus oil. Much of the material investigated was sent to the Museum by appointed collectors.

Collectors such as William Bäuerlen scoured remote and virtually inaccessible areas of the state, looking for new types of plants, particularly eucalypts. Bäuerlen did not just collect leaves, he took slices through trees to show their grain and bark. The display of timber samples reminds us of the beauty and diversity of our native trees and the importance of their preservation. Examples of materials acquired will be displayed alongside the products of the Museum’s research and the early curators’ beautifully illustrated and important publications on Australian plants.

500 Harris Street Ultimo, PO Box K346 Haymarket, Sydney NSW 1238, Australia.
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