The Yorkshire Natural History Museum has opened in Sheffield featuring objects from the private collection of 23-year-old palaeontology expert James Hogg.
Hogg said the collection focuses on Yorkshire’s prehistoric life. “We’ve got a wide variety of specimens,” he told the BBC. “We’ve got things from minerals to fossils.”
“It’s predominately a collection of Jurassic marine life, so things ranging from ammonites, belemnites to plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs,” he added.
He was inspired by the Natural History Museum in London. Doug Gurr, NHM director, said: “There’s a lot of great museums in Yorkshire, but to have a new natural history museum up there in Sheffield I think is terrific”.
Objects from James Hogg’s private collection
“Anything we can do to support a new museum we would absolutely love to do,” Gurr added.
The Yorkshire Natural History Museum is home to a gallery, the Trilo-Bites Café, and laboratories for researching the collection.
“I’ve always been academically inclined, and as I got older, I grew a passion for the collection of fossils and study of palaeontology,” Hogg told the Yorkshire Post.
“And as for the museum – well, I’ve always wanted to have something up north.”
Objects on display include the 15,000-year-old skull of a domesticated dog and a fossil of an ichthyosaur believed to be 175 million years old.
Yorkshire Natural History Museum
“It’s mind-blowing that we don’t already have a natural history museum up here,” he added.
“It’s one of the injustices I want to balance. There is nothing wrong with the beautiful museums down south, but I wanted to bring one here.”
Last month, the Natural History Museum launched a fundraising campaign for its Urban Nature Project, which will transform its grounds in London into a free green space.
Set to open in summer 2023, the five-acre site will offer new outdoor galleries that explore evolving life on the planet from 540 million years ago. Highlights will include a giant bronze diplodocus surrounded by plants from the Jurassic period.
