Statues - Hither & Thither

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Parks Road ☒
(Oxford University Museum of Natural History)

Statues of Scientists

Various sculptors
1857-1908

Description

In the main exhibition room of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (built 1854-60) are 18 statues of eminent scientists, philosophers and engineers and 10 busts of Oxford men of science that have made a significant contribution to the Museum, plus a portrait medaillon of the architect of the building. The 19th statue is that of the founder, the Prince Consort, is placed more central in the hall.
The plan was that each pillar around the gallery would play host to a statue of one of the great scientists. The statues were paid for by private subscription however, and unfortunately only 19 full statues were completed. Many of these were presented by Queen Victoria. All but one of the statues is carved in Caen stone - a limestone from Normandy in France. Many of the sculptors were well-known Victorian artists.

In the central aisle:

Oxford - Statues of Scientists
1. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

The Prince Consort
this statue of the | PRINCE CONSORT | was presented to the university museum | by citizens of oxford | april 1864.
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Schloss Rosenau, Coburg, 1819 - Windsor Castle 1861), the husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Thomas Woolner.
Starting at the entrance going left along the west arcade:

2. Aristotle
3. John Hunter
4. Thomas Sydenham
5. William Harvey
6. Hippocrates
aristotle
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Greek philosopher (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Henry Armstead, signed "h.h.armstead.scup.london"; presented by the Bachelors and Undergraduates, 1858
john hunter
John Hunter (Long Calderwood near East Kilbride 1728 - London 1793), Scottish surgeon, one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Henry Hope Pinker, signed "H. Richard Pinker / 1886 sculp.t"; presented by Queen Victoria, unveiled 5 June 1886 by Princess Christian.
sydenham
Thomas Sydenham (Wynford Eagle, Dorset 1624 - London 1689), English physician (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Henry Hope Pinker, signed "h.hope-pinker Sculpt. 1894"; presented by the Warden and two Fellows of All Souls College.
harvey
William Harvey (Folkestone 1578 - London 1657), physician, first to describe the circulation of the blood (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Henry Weekes, signed "h. weekes r.a. Sc"; presented by Mr. H. Vaughan.
hippocrates
Hippocrates (c. 460 - c. 370 BC), ancient Greek physician; considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Alexander Munro; presented by Mr. Ruskin, 1857.
Along the north arcade:

7. John Burdon-Sanderson
8. Raphael Weldon
9. George Rolleston
10. Benjamin Woodward
sir john scott burdon-sanderson, b^t | d.m., f.r.s. | waynflete professor of physiology, 1882-95. | regius professor of medicine , 1895-1904.
John Burdon-Sanderson (near Newcastle upon Tyne 1828 - Oxford 1905), English physiologist (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Henry Hope Pinker; Acquired February 1908
walter frank raphael weldon | m.a., d.sc., f.r.s. | linacre professor of comparative anatomy, | 1899-1906.
Raphael Weldon (London 1860 - Oxford 1906), English evolutionary biologist and a founder of biometry (Wikipedia).
Unveiled 8 October 1908
george rolleston, d.m., f.r.s. | linacre professor of physiology, | 1860-1881.
George Rolleston (Maltby Hall, near Rotherham, Yorkshire 1829 - Oxford 1881), English physician and zoologist (Wikipedia).
benjamin woodward, architect.
Benjamin Woodward (Tullamore, County Offaly 1816-1861), Irish architect, designed the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Wikipedia).
Along the east arcade:

11. Carl von Linné (Linnaeus)
12. Charles Darwin
13. Sir Isaac Newton
14. Galileo Galilei
15. Euclid
16. William Buckland
linnaeus
Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) (Rashult, Stenbrohult parish 1707 - Hammarby estate, Uppsala 1778), Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by John Tupper, signed "Designed | & carved by | J.L. Tupper | london; presented by the Rev. F.W. Hope, D.C.L.
charles darwin
Charles Darwin (Shrewsbury 12 February 1809 - Downe 19 April 1882), English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors (Wikipedia)
Sculpted by Henry Hope Pinker; unveiled 14 June 1899; presented by Mr. Edward B. Poulton.
newton
Sir Isaac Newton (Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincoln, 1643 - Kensington, 1727), English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Alexander Munro; presented by Queen Victoria, 1857.
galileo
Galileo Galilei (Pisa 1564 - Arcetri 1642), Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Alexander Munro; presented by Queen Victoria, 1857
euclid
Euclid (Greek: Εὐκλείδης, Eukleidēs) (fl. 300 BC), sometimes called Euclid of Alexandria, Greek mathematician, often referred to as the 'Father of Geometry' (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Joseph Durham, signed "j. durham"; presented by the Freemasons of the province of Oxfordshire.
william buckland, d.d., f.r.s. | reader in mineralogy 1813-56 | and in geology 1818-56
William Buckland (Axminster 1784 - Islip 1856), English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and palaeontologist, writing the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus (Wikipedia).
Along the south arcade:

17. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
18. Hans Christian Ørsted
19. John Phillips
20. William 'Strata' Smith
leibnitz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Leipzig 1646 - Hannover 1716), German mathematician and philosopher (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Alexander Munro; presented by Queen Victoria.
oersted
Hans Christian Ørsted (Rudkøbing 1777 - København 1851), Danish physicist and chemist (Wikipedia).
Plaster statue, sculpted by J.A. Jerichau; presented by Queen Victoria. (the Danish name is on the museum's website erroneously read as K. Jobhen. See: Dan Ch. Christensen, Hans Christian Ørsted: Reading Nature's Mind (Oxford 2013), p. 12.
john phillips, m.a., f.r.s. | reader in geology 1856-80 | professor of geology 1860-74 | keeper of the university museum 1857-74.
John Phillips (Marden, Wiltshire 1800 - Oxford 1874), English geologist. In 1841 he published the first global geologic time scale based on the correlation of fossils in rock strata, thereby helping to standardize terminology including the term Mesozoic, which he invented (Wikipedia). He was a nephew of William Smith, see next entry.
william smith
William 'Strata' Smith (Churchill, Oxfordshire 1769 - Northampton 1839), English geologist, credited with creating the first nationwide geological map (Wikipedia). He was an uncle of John Philips, see preceding entry.

21. James Watt
22. George Stephenson
23. Sir Joseph Prestwich
24. Henry John Stephen Smith
watt
James Watt (Greenock, Renfrewshire 1736 - Handsworth, Birmingham 1819), Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Alexander Munro; presented by Mr. Boulton.
george stephenson
George Stephenson (Wylam-on-Tyne 1781 - Chesterfield 1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Joseph Durham, signed "j. durham"
sir joseph prestwich, knt., d.c.l., f.r.s. | professor of geology 1874-88.
Sir Joseph Prestwich (Clapham 1812 - 1896), British geologist and businessman (Wikipedia).
henry john stephen smith, m.a., f.r.s. | savilian professor of geometry 1861-83 | keeper of the university museum 1874-83.
Henry Smith (Dublin 1826 - Oxford 1883), Irish mathematician remembered for his work in elementary divisors, quadratic forms, and Smith-Minkowski-Siegel mass formula in number theory; Professor of Geometry at Oxford, 1861-1883, and keeper of the University Museum, 1874-1883 (Wikipedia).
Along the west arcade back to the entrance:

25. Sir Humphry Davy
26. Joseph Priestley
27. Roger Bacon
28. Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban
humphry davy
Sir Humphry Davy (Penzance 1778 - Genève 1829), British chemist and inventor (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Alexander Munro; presented by the Marquis of Lothian.
priestley
Joseph Priestley (Birstall, Leeds, 1733 - Northumberland County, Pennsylvania 1804), English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and Liberal political theorist, usually credited with the discovery of oxygen (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Edward Stephens, 1860
1214 roger bacon 1292
Roger Bacon (ca. 1214 - c. 1292), English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Henry Hope Pinker.
bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (London 1561 - Highgate, Middlesex 1626), English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, essayist and author (Wikipedia).
Sculpted by Thomas Woolner; presented by Queen Victoria, 1857
In a northern sideroom:

29. Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland
henrici wentworth-acland | baronetti amplissimi ordinis | balnei eqvitis | medicinæ apvd nos per annos | xxxvii professoris regii | qvi has ædes opse sva et | consilio constitvendas | procvravit | vt in perpetvvm scientiarvm | natvralivm inter se | connexarvm | domicilio essent | hanc effigiem | p.p. amici et collegæ
Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland, 1st Baronet, KCB (Killerton, Exeter 1815 - 16 October 1900), English physician and educator (Wikipedia).

Sculptors:

Armstead: 2
Durham: 15, 22
Munro: 6, 13, 14, 17, 21, 25
Pinker: 3, 4, 7, 12, 27
Stephens: 26
Tupper: 11
Weekes: 5
Woolner: 1, 28

Sculptors

Henry Hugh Armstead (London 1828 - London 1905), English sculptor and illustrator (Wikipedia).
Joseph Durham (London 1814 - London 1877), English sculptor (Wikipedia).
Henry Richard Hope-Pinker (Peckham, Surrey, 1850 - 1927), British sculptor (Mapping of Sculpture – M.H. Spielmann, British sculpture and sculptors of today, 1901).
Jens Adolph Jerichau (Assen, 1816 - Neder Draaby 1883), Danish sculptor (his statue) (Wikipedia).
Alexander Munro (1825 - 1871), British sculptor (Wikipedia).
Edward Bowring Stephens (Exeter 1815 - London 1882), British sculptor (Wikipedia).
John Lucas Tupper (London c. 1826 - 1879), British sculptor (Mapping of Sculpture).
Henry Weekes RA (Canterbury 1807-1877), English sculptor (biography).
Thomas Woolner (Hadleigh, Suffolk 1825 - London 1892), English sculptor and poet (Wikipedia).

Sources & Information

Philip Opher, Oxford Sculpture (Heritage Tours Publications, 2009).
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, The statues in the court.
Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette - Saturday 27 June 1857 (British Newspaper Archive).
Kendal Mercury - Saturday 11 August 1860 [inauguration of the statue of Priestley] (British Newspaper Archive).
Nottingham Evening Post - Friday 10 August 1894 [inauguration of the statue of Sydenham] (British Newspaper Archive).
Oxford Journal - Saturday 17 June 1899 [unveiling of the statue of Darwin] (British Newspaper Archive).

Locatie (N 51°45'31" - W 1°15'20") (Satellite view: Google Maps)

Item Code: gbse162; Photograph: 18 October 2015
Of each statue we made photos from various angles and also detail photos of the various texts.
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© Website and photos: René & Peter van der Krogt