World Museum is a large museum in Liverpool, England which has extensive collections covering archaeology, ethnology and the natural and physical sciences. Special attractions include the Natural History Centre and a planetarium. Entry to the museum is free. The museum is part of National Museums Liverpool.
History The current museum is unconnected to the Liverpool Museum of William Bullock, who operated a museum in his house on Church Street, Liverpool, between 1795 and 1809, before he moved it to London. The museum was originally started as the Derby Museum as it comprised the 13th Earl of Derby's natural history collection. It opened in 1851, sharing two rooms on Duke Street with a library. However, the museum proved extremely popular and a new, purpose-built building was required. Land for the new building, on a street then known as Shaw's Brow (now William Brown Street), opposite St George's Hall, was donated by a local MP and wealthy merchant, Sir William Brown, as was much of the funding for the building which would be known as the William Brown Library and Museum. Around 400,000 people attended the opening of the new building in 1860. Reports detailing the museum's activities and acquisitions were presented to the committee of the borough, city and corporation of Liverpool annually. In the late 19th century, the museum's collection was beginning to outgrow its building so a competition was launched to design a combined extension to the museum and college of technology. The competition was won by Edward William Mountford and the College of Technology and Museum Extension opened in 1901. Liverpool, being one of the UK's major ports, was heavily damaged by German bombing during the blitz. While much of the museum's collection was moved to less vulnerable locations during the war, the museum building was struck by German firebombs and suffered heavy damage. Parts of the museum only began to reopen fifteen years later. One of the exhibits destroyed in 1941 was the little 20 ft (6.1 m) yawl City of Ragusa, which twice crossed the Atlantic in 1870 and 1871 with a crew of two men. The museum underwent a £35 million refurbishment in 2005 in order to double the size of the display spaces and make more of the collections accessible for visitors. A central entrance hall and six-storey atrium were created as part of the work. Major new galleries included "World Cultures", the "Bug House" and the "Weston Discovery Centre". On reopening the museum's name was changed again to World Museum.
Collections and exhibits
Astronomy, space and time
The physical sciences collection of World Museum was built after the devastation caused by the incendiary fire of 1941. The collection has expanded, in part, due to transfers from the Decorative Arts Department, Regional History Department, Walker Art Gallery and the Prescot Museum. The collection also contains several significant collections from the Liverpool Royal Institution, Bidston Observatory, later the Proudman Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, and the Physics Department of the University of Liverpool. Collections such as these are often made up of items of a singular type designed for a particular experiment such as DELPHI or LEP at CERN or the Equatorium, a post-Copernican planetary calculator made to special order in the early 17th century. As a consequence the collection is small but contains a number of significant items.
Planetarium World Museum is home to a planetarium. The planetarium, said to be the first planetarium in the UK outside of London, opened in 1970 and has 62 seats. It currently attracts about 90,000 people per year. Shows cover various aspects of space science, including the Solar System and space exploration; there are also special children's shows.
Human history
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