It is amazing how much we have progressed in the last century. When looking back at these early photographs of London’s Honiman Musuem’s first aquariums, it is even more impressive where we are today.
These snapshots date back to around 1905 at the first iteration of the museum. According to our friend and Horniman aquarium curator Jamie Craggs, the aquarium was founded in 1903 under the supervision of eminent zoologist and ethnographer Alfred Cort Haddon (1855-1940).
Haddon was a correspondent of Phillip Henry Gosse (1810-1888), the Victorian naturalist consulted by Charles Darwin. Gosse set up the first marine aquaria in Britain and also wrote the first descriptive catalog of British marine invertebrates.
Thank you to Jamie for sharing!
