Expanding Stories
‘It is very necessary that a chemical laboratory should be attached to the proposed Museum, so that new and other raw materials, as well as waste products likely to be useful ... may be examined and made the subject of experiment’
Changing Ecosystems
The earliest vision of Sydney's Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum, articulated by Prof Liversidge and realised by Joseph Henry Maiden, was of an ‘economic’ museum concerned with the 'science of everyday life', a museum that 'would not only display raw and manufactured products, but would research them as well'.
In an early Annual Report – covering 1880 – J H Maiden noted the museum’s intention ‘to employ the laboratory for the prosecution of original chemical and physical research with especial reference to the utilisation of the products of New South Wales and Australia generally'. This meant the museum needed large quantities of material to investigate and, from 1886, Maiden began to organise a systematic collection of native plant samples, including bark, leaves, flowers and gums.
