Oxford University Museum of Natural History architecture: Columns and Capitals

View of columns and carved capitals in the central court

Around the edges of the Museum's central court are columns of specimen stones sourced from throughout Britain and Ireland. On the ground floor there are thirty large polished columns and 97 more slender columns surround the upper arcade. The capital of every column in the central court is decorated with carvings depicting different plant specimens.

Both the specimen columns and the carved capitals were funded by donations from the public.

Excerpt from request for donations towards the Museum's decoration, May 1855, OUNMH archives

Excerpt from request for donations towards the Museum's decoration, May 1855, OUNMH archives

As well as being decorative, the capitals and the columns were intended to be educational.

"this is not a haphazard collection of pretty stones crowned by pretty flowers, but a selection of marbles and sculptures, intended to illustrate points of some interest and importance in science and art."
John Phillips writing in Acland and Ruskin, The Oxford Museum, 1859

Through the columns and botanical capitals, the Museum's aim to provide an education in natural history was built into the fabric and decoration of the new building.

The key figure behind the central court's scheme of columns and capitals was the geologist John Phillips (1800-1874). Phillips worked with other members of the Museum's governing body and the architects to realise these celebrated features of the building's interior.

Nephew of the celebrated geologist William Smith, Phillips had previously been Keeper at the Yorkshire Museum, York. In 1853, Phillips was appointed as the University of Oxford's Reader in Geology. He played an important role in the design of new building and was appointed the Museum's first Keeper in 1857.

Unknown artist, John Phillips, oil on canvas, OUMNH

Specimen Columns

Donations of £5 were requested to fund a single column. Forty-seven donors gave money specifically towards the columns. Some donors specified what stone they would like purchased with their money. Some donors even sourced the specimens themselves.

Donors

The donors' choice of stones often reflected personal geographical allegiances. In this way, aspects of the benefactors' individual histories were incorporated into the design and decoration of the interior.

Portrait painting of George Douglas Campbell

George Campbell by George Frederic Watts, oil on panel, circa 1860, © National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 1263

George Campbell, Duke of Argyll

Campbell was supportive of the Museum’s educational aims and, as a major landowner, he was able to gift specimens directly to the Museum.

Detail of the granite column showing quartz, feldspar and other minerals, OUMNH

Ben Cruachan Granite

The columns that George Campbell donated to the Museum included granite from Ben Cruachan, near Oban, and red porphyry from Inverary, both sourced from quarries he owned.

Francis Jeune, oil on canvas, Victoria College, Jersey

Rev Francis Jeune, Master of Pembroke College

Jeune (later Vice-Chancellor of the University) requested that his donation be used to pay for a column of granite from Jersey.

Detail of the granite column showing quartz, feldspar and other minerals, OUMNH

Jersey Granite

Jeune's choice of specimen seems to be a celebration of his personal connection with Jersey; he had been born there and served as Dean of Jersey.

Henry Liddell by Julia Margaret Cameron, albumen print, circa 1870, © National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG P163

Henry Liddell, Dean of Christ Church College

Liddell gave money towards columns which reflected his Northumbrian origins.

Detail of the column showing corals in the limestone, OUMNH

Frosterley Marble

Liddell asked for his money to be spent on columns of Frosterley Marble, a black limestone containing fossils, found at the Northumbrian mine of Rogerley. He also requested two shafts of Bamburgh Limestone.

Walter Shirley by Dickinson & Foster, oil on canvas, 1877, Keble College, University of Oxford

Rev Walter Shirley, Fellow of Wadham

Shirley took responsibility for selecting and sourcing two columns himself.

Detail of the column showing calcite veins in the limestone, OUMNH

Derbyshire Limestone

Shirley is another donor who seems to have demonstrated geographical allegiance by selecting specimens from the county in which he was born.

In May 1855, the first specimens began to be ordered. The columns were sourced through a network of dealers in minerals and building materials and private landowners. For the Irish specimens, the building's architect Benjamin Woodward made use of his contacts in the Irish building trade. Phillips and Neville Story Maskelyne (1823-1911), Reader in Mineralogy at Oxford, approached their scientific contacts for help with both donations and sourcing columns. Henry Acland's Devonshire roots helped to secure specimens from the West Country.

By 1858, all the columns were in place. Phillips' initial aim had been to divide the specimens according to geological origin, with igneous rock on the ground floor and sedimentary rock on the upper gallery. This was abandoned due to difficulties in sourcing specimens large enough for the ground floor columns. Ultimately, the final layout reflected a mixture of geological age, origin and locality.

The columns provide a rare example of a structural part of a museum building also doubling as part of its collections.

For more detail about the geology of the specimen columns, see Nina Morgan and Phillip Powell, A Story in Stone: The Geology of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History Building, Geologica Press, 2022.

Drawing showing design and size of large and small column

sketch and dimensions for the upper and lower columns, OUMNH archives

hand written list of names and bill amounts

List of mineral dealers who sourced columns, OUMNH archives

handwritten plan for columns in the central court

Sketch for layout of ground floor columns by John Phillips, OUMNH archives

Carved capitals on the ground floor

As with the columns, donations of £5 were requested to fund each capital. Twenty donors gave money specifically towards the capitals.

The most generous were Sir Walter Trevelyan (1797-1879) and his wife, Pauline (1816-1866), who, between them, gave £35 towards seven capitals. The Trevelyans were friends of the art critic, John Ruskin, and champions of Pre-Raphaelite art. They took a keen, personal interest in the development of the capitals, with Sir Walter providing suggestions for the layout and Lady Pauline providing design sketches for individual capitals.

The estate of William Buckland, who had died in 1856, donated money towards the carving of five capitals. As well as Lady Trevelyan, four other women gave money to the scheme, including Lady Marian Alford, a keen art patron and writer on needlework.

Pauline Jermyn (1816–1866), Lady Trevelyan, by William Bell Scott (1811-1890), National Trust Images, Wallington

Capital carved with lilies, tulips and fritillaria

Capital funded by Lady Trevelyan and carved by Edward Whelan, OUMNH archives

The funding campaign raised enough money for work to start on the capitals and corbels on the ground floor of the central court.

Phillips was again responsible for organising the scheme's layout. With the help of William Baxter (1787-1871), curator at the Oxford Botanic Gardens, Phillips compiled lists of plants to be included and divided the plants to show distinctions between monocotyledons and dicotyledons.

Three Irish stone masons were employed to carve the capitals on the ground floor, the brothers John and James O'Shea ( c. 1822- ? and 1824-1882) and their nephew, Edward Whelan (1835-1871). John and James O'Shea had worked on earlier projects with Benjamin Woodward in Ireland and England.

Phillips adapted donors' requests and dictated what plant specimens should be carved on each capital. Though he also made suggestions about the composition of plants on the capitals, it was the stonemasons who had control of the final designs, often working from live specimens gathered from the Oxford Botanic Gardens.

"plants growing in pots by the side of the workman, or the fresh branches brought in, as models"
Anonymous, ‘The Oxford Museum’, The Ladies’ Cabinet of Fashion, undated

This process epitomised two key elements in Ruskin’s interpretation of the Gothic Revival; a direct reference to nature and the freedom of design allotted to the workmen themselves. Each stone mason had a subtly distinct style and it is possible to distinguish between their work.

Sketch showing a design for a capital decorated with a date palm

Design for a capital by John Phillips, OUMNH archives

Black and white photograph of a stone mason carving one of the Museum's windows

James O'Shea working on an exterior window, OUMNH archives

Layout of the Columns and Capitals
on the Ground Floor

Click on the bays to discover more about the specimen stones and botanical carvings

Carved capitals on the upper floor

The money raised from public donations was only sufficient to carve the capitals on the ground floor. The scheme was not completed for another fifty years, when further funding enabled the capitals and corbels on the upper floor to be carved.

In the summer of 1904, Rev H T Morgan, 'an old Oxford man', visited the Museum. He was struck by the fact that the uncarved capitals looked 'so dull and heavy'.

Morgan subsequently wrote to Henry Miers (1858-1942), the Museum Secretary, offering to fund the carving of the upper capitals. Miers approached Farmer and Brindley, a leading firm of architectural stone carvers, to carry out the work and, in July 1905, stone masons began with capitals in the west corridor.

Morgan had studied at Oxford, then become chaplain at Cuddesdon, before settling in a Lincoln parish. It seems that his generosity was prompted by nostalgia. He had been a student at Oxford whilst the capitals on the ground floor were being carved and held John Ruskin's and Henry Acland's original aims for the project in high regard.

"I am thankful I have been allowed to help the spirit of the great, i.e. Ruskin and Acland, in getting their aim carried out"
Rev H T Morgan to Henry Miers, February 1907

The layout that Phillips had devised in the 1850s for the capitals on both the ground floor and upper floor was continued.

Likewise, the stone masons from Farmer and Brindley followed the working methods set by the O'Shea brothers and Whelan fifty years earlier.

"I have arranged with the Professor of Botany to supply the necessary plants from the Botanic Garden, and the Sculptor foreman will come at the beginning of next week to make sketches for the capitals"
Henry Miers to Rev H T Morgan, June 1905

The commitment to carving from live specimens was such that the order of work was adapted to fit around the seasonal cycle of the plants.

Black and white photo of Museum's central court with uncarved capitals on upper floor

Interior view showing uncarved capitals on upper floor, OUMNH archives

Typed estimate for carving on the upper floor

Quote for carving the upper capitals and corbels from Farmer and Brindley, June 1905, OU archives

Pencil sketches of botanical designs for the upper capitals

Pencil sketches of designs for the upper capitals by Mills, project foreman, OU archives

Black and white photo of two stone masons carving botanical decoration

Stone masons from Farmer and Brindley working on the upper floor of the central court, OUMNH archives

Miers was sensitive to the fact that Morgan could not afford to fund the entire project and sought the support of other donors.

‘No such series of carved plants exists in England (or perhaps elsewhere), and it will be sad if the series cannot be carried on continuously, and completed by the men now engaged upon it’
Henry Miers, ‘The New Carvings at the University Museum’, The Oxford Magazine, February 1906

The majority of the donations came from those who had studied at Oxford as undergraduates and, by 1907, a further £369 had been raised.

Four stone masons started on the project, led by the foreman, Mills. By November 1905 this was reduced to two carvers, Mills and Louis Holt. These two masons continued to work at the Museum until funds ran out in 1907.

Central Court key book with entries for stone masons, 1909-10, OUMNH archives

Central Court key book with entries for stone masons, 1909-10, OUMNH archives

Subsequently, stone masons from Farmer and Brindley continued to work on the project sporadically, as and when funds could be raised. Morgan did not live to see the scheme completed but money left to the Museum in his will contributed to the scheme finally being finished in 1912.