The Horniman Museum in London was created by tea merchant Frederick John Horniman, who collected items from his travels to share with his native land. The museum has permanent exhibits including an aquarium, African objects, natural history, and a music gallery. The museum’s grounds feature gardens, a sundial trail, and a beehive. The collections include items from exhibitions, donations, travel, and missionaries, with 32,000 pieces from Asia alone.
The Horniman Museum in London is an anthropological repository created by Frederick John Horniman. He was a Victorian tea merchant who sent home from his world travels the many items he collected. His desire was to share the world with his native land through these various objects. Frederick Horniman began his collection during his travels in the 1860s and initially invited the public to his home to view them. When the collection grew too large, he commissioned the construction of a museum, which officially opened its doors in 1901.
The tea that brought the merchant good luck was sold in packets and Frederick Horniman, a Quaker, is believed to have been among the first to sell tea in this way. He gave the museum and surrounding gardens to the city free of charge for the people’s enjoyment. Originally the museum’s collection included musical instruments and cultural artifacts, but over the past century the collections have increased to the point that the original items make up only 10 percent of the museum’s holdings. The museum underwent renovations and opened with an expansion and additional space in 2002.
The Horniman Museum has several excellent permanent exhibits, including an aquarium that includes a coral reef and seahorses, objects from Africa, a natural history exhibit, and a music gallery. The museum has around 1,600 musical instruments and visitors can try their hand at playing some of them. The Horniman Museum grounds encompass 16 acres that are divided between natural and formal arrangements that feature roses, herbs, a sunken garden, and wildflowers. The museum’s sundial trail is composed of a variety of time-reading instruments from a number of locations, including a vertical stained glass sundial and a Roman sundial. The Horniman Museum also has its own beehive.
Most of the early collections were purchased by Frederick Horniman or his son, Emslie Horniman. They found many of these pieces in several period exhibitions, including the Great Exhibition in London in the mid-1800s and the 1910 Anglo-Japanese Exhibition. Other items in the Horniman Museum collections came from Horniman donations, travel, and missionaries . The pieces from Asia alone number around 32,000.
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