It had been a number of years since I had visited the Australian Museum but I was recently drawn back, attracted by the fact that it was hosting a special exhibition, Trailblazers, honouring Australia’s 50 greatest explorers and because I had a museum pass, bought on a recent trip to Melbourne, which gave me free entry to museum’s permanent galleries. Continue reading “The Australian Museum”
As you enter the Hunterian Museum, in a niche just past the reception desk, you will be confronted with the skeleton of Jonathan Wild one of London’s most notorious criminals.
Wild, hailing from Wolverhampton arrived in London in 1708 and soon (1710) landed himself in jail for a debt offence. While in prison Wild really began his short life of crime and befriended both other petty criminals and his warders who (the warders that is!) awarded him with “the liberty of the gate”, meaning that he was allowed out at night to aid in the arrest of thieves. Off course this award was of mutual benefit to warders and Wild. Continue reading “Thief Taker General – Hunterian Museum”
Freak shows of any variety were a mainstay in the entertainment of London society in Georgian times (1700s), the odder and more extreme the better.
In 1781 George Byrne left his home in Northern Ireland to join ‘the circus’. Continue reading “The Irish Giant at the Hunterian Museum”
The Rambling Wombat 