The Redpath Museum (french: Musée Redpath) is a
museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
of
natural history belonging to
McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
and located on the university's campus at 859, rue Sherbrooke Ouest (859
Sherbrooke Street
Sherbrooke Street (officially in french: rue Sherbrooke) is a major east–west artery and at in length, is the second longest street on the Island of Montreal. The street begins in the town of Montreal West and ends on the extreme tip of t ...
West) in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
. It was built in 1882 as a gift from the sugar baron
Peter Redpath
Peter Redpath (August 1, 1821 – February 1, 1894) was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist, closely associated with Redpath Sugar.
Biography
Redpath was born in Montreal, Lower Canada, the son of a Scottish immigrant, John Redpath, a ...
.
It houses collections of interest to
ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...
,
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
,
paleontology
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
, and
mineralogy
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...
/
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...
.
The collections were started by some of the same individuals who founded the
Smithsonian and
Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...
collections. The current director is Hans Larsson. Commissioned by Redpath to mark the 25th anniversary of Sir
John William Dawson
Sir John William Dawson (1820–1899) was a Canadian geologist and university administrator.
Life and work
John William Dawson was born on 13 October 1820 in Pictou, Nova Scotia, where he attended and graduated from Pictou Academy. Of Scotti ...
's appointment as Principal, the Museum was designed by A.C. Hutchison and A.D. Steele. McGill University's Redpath Museum website characterizes it as an "idiosyncratic expression of eclectic
Victorian Classicism" as well as "an unusual and late example of the
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
in North America."
It is the oldest building built specifically to be a museum in Canada.
"About the Museum"
"McGill University". Accessed May 11, 2008. Both the museum's interior and exterior have been utilized as a set, for movies and commercials.
Collections
Image:DinosaurInRedpathMuseum_Montreal_March2003.JPG, Signature dinosaur skeleton within the Redpath Museum, set against interior Beaux Art decorations
Image:mcgill_redpath_m_albertosaurus.jpg, View of the ''Gorgosaurus
''Gorgosaurus'' ( ; ) is a genus of tyrannosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in western North America during the Late Cretaceous Period (Campanian), between about 76.6 and 75.1 million years ago. Fossil remains have been found in the Can ...
'' in the central evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
exhibit atrium
Image:FossilScallops-RedpathMuseumMontreal-June6-08.png, Redpath Museum Collection – fossilized scallop
Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families ...
s
Image:ClaudiosaurusGermaini-RedpathMuseumMontreal-June6-08.png, Redpath Museum Collection – ''Claudiosaurus germaini
''Claudiosaurus'' (''claudus'' is Latin for 'lameness' and ''saurus'' means 'lizard') is an extinct genus of diapsid reptiles from the Permian Sakamena Formation of the Morondava Basin, Madagascar. The pattern of the vertebrate, girle, and limb ...
''
Image:Marrella_splendens_(Redpath_Museum,_Montreal).png, Redpath Museum Collection – '' Marrella splendens''
Image:Limnoscelis(Cast)-RedpathMuseumMontreal-June6-08.png, Redpath Museum Collection – ''Limnoscelis
''Limnoscelis'' (\ limˈnäsələ̇s \, meaning "marsh footed") was a genus of large diadectomorph tetrapods from the Late Carboniferous of western North America. It includes two species: the type species ''Limnoscelis paludis'' from New Mexico, ...
''
Image:PecopterisBucklandi-RedpathMuseumMontreal-June6-08.png, Redpath Museum Collection – ''Pecopteris bucklandi
''Pecopteris'' is a very common form genus of leaves. Most ''Pecopteris'' leaves and fronds are associated with the marattialean tree fern ''Psaronius''. However, ''Pecopteris''-type foliage also is borne on several filicalean ferns, and at ...
''
Image:CamptorhynchusLabradoriusMale(CloseUp)-RedpathMuseumMontreal-June6-08.png, Redpath Museum Collection – Labrador duck
The Labrador duck (''Camptorhynchus labradorius'') was a North American bird; it has the distinction of being the first known endemic North American bird species to become extinct after the Columbian Exchange, with the last known sighting occurri ...
Image:Dendrerpeton(Skull)-RedpathMuseumMontreal-June6-08.png, Redpath Museum Collection – ''Dendrerpeton
''Dendrerpeton'' (from el, δένδρον , 'tree' and el, ἑρπετόν , 'creeping thing') is a genus of an extinct group of temnospondyl amphibians. Its fossils have been found primarily in the Joggins Formation of Eastern Canada and in I ...
''
Image:ConuropsisCarolinensis-RedpathMuseumMontreal-June6-08.png, Redpath Museum Collection – Carolina parakeet
The Carolina parakeet (''Conuropsis carolinensis''), or Carolina conure, is an extinct species of small green neotropical parrot with a bright yellow head, reddish orange face and pale beak that was native to the eastern, Midwest and plains sta ...
File:Anaconda Redpath museum.jpg, Skeleton of an anaconda
Anacondas or water boas are a group of large snakes of the genus '' Eunectes''. They are found in tropical South America. Four species are currently recognized.
Description
Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used ...
Geology (mineralogy)
Five collections, containing approximately 16,000 specimens from all over the world, are identified by their initial letters:
*'D' Doell collection for Dr Donald Doell, a physician who contributed many of the more recent materials in the collection.
*'F' Ferrier collection for Walter Frederick Ferrier, famous mining engineer who contributed this pre-eminent collection of minerals from many classic locations.
*'J' Jeffrey collection for Jeffrey de Fourestier, mineralogist and former volunteer at the museum.
*'P' Palache collection for Charles Palache
Charles Palache (July 18, 1869 – December 5, 1954) was an American mineralogist and crystallographer. In his time, he was one of the most important mineralogists in the United States.
Background
Charles Palache came from the Pallache family ...
, mineralogist and Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
professor.
*'SC' Shirley Collection for the wife of Sir Hugh Graham, 1st Baron Atholstan who donated the collection in the early 1880s.
*'NS' New System collection for the general collection catalogue. This collection contains the main body of specimens including the collection of the former Natural History Society of Montreal and specimens from the collection of Lord Strathcona
Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, of Glencoe in the County of Argyll and of Mount Royal in the Province of Quebec and Dominion of Canada, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1900 for the Scottish-born Canadian ...
.
Entomology
The Lyman entomology collections were transferred in 1961 by D. Keith McE. Kevan to Macdonald Campus in Sainte Anne-de-Bellevue, leading to the creation of the Lyman Entomological Museum and Research Laboratory.
Paleontology
The museum's important collection of fossils owes much of its beginning to Sir William Dawson who provided not only many of the fossils of plants from his native Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
, but procured many important specimens from around the world.
Dr Thomas Clark, for many years up until his death, was a fixture at the museum and was renowned for his pioneering work on fossils from the Burgess Shale
The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest foss ...
, some of the oldest known anywhere.
Ethnology
The ethnological and archeological collection is one of the oldest in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
and began with Sir William Dawson's collection. It received further material from the Natural History Society of Montreal. It now has over 17,000 items from Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, ancient Egypt, Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...
, paleolithic Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. The collection of First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
artifacts that were once part of the collection now are housed in the nearby McCord Museum
The McCord Stewart Museum (french: Musée McCord Stewart) is a public research and teaching museum dedicated to the preservation, study, diffusion, and appreciation of Canadian history. The museum, whose full name is McCord Museum of Canadian His ...
in Montreal.
Affiliations
The Museum is affiliated with: CMA, CHIN
The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible (List_of_human_anatomical_regions#Regions, mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm.
Evolution
The presence of a we ...
, and Virtual Museum of Canada
The Digital Museums Canada (DMC; , ''MNC'') is a funding program in Canada "dedicated to online projects by the museum and heritage community," helping organizations to build digital capacity.
Administered by the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) ...
.
Metro
The museum, accessible by walking from many downtown Montreal locations, is also near the McGill station on the Montreal Metro
The Montreal Metro (french: Métro de Montréal) is a rubber-tired underground rapid transit system serving Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The metro, operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), was inaugurated on October 14, ...
Green Line.
See also
* Redpath Library
Opened in 1893, Redpath Hall was McGill University's first dedicated library building. It is situated at 3461, rue McTavish (3461, McTavish Street). Through numerous renovations, the library was extended to the south with the addition of the Re ...
* George Barnston
References
External links
Redpath Museum
Redpath Museum Biodiversity website
Lyman Entomological Museum and Research Laboratory
360 interactive panorama featuring the Albertosaurus in the Dawson gallery
Photograph:Redpath Museum, 1883
- McCord Museum
Photograph:Redpath Museum, 1913
- McCord Museum
Photograph:Interior of Redpath Museum, about 1893
- McCord Museum
{{authority control
McGill University buildings
Museums in Montreal
Natural history museums in Canada
Cultural infrastructure completed in 1882
Museums established in 1882
Egyptological collections in Canada
Redpath family
University museums in Canada
Greek Revival architecture in Canada
First Nations museums in Canada