Abstract
THE celebrations, arranged by Dr. R. T. Gunther, of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Old Ashmolean on May 21, 1683, brought together a large gathering, which included representatives from a number of universities and scientific institutions in Great Britain and the United States. The Royal Society and the Linnean Society sent messages of congratulation, the latter referring particularly to the original specimens of the Tradescants forming part of the Lewis Evans collection. On May 21, a private reception was held in the Old Ashmolean building by Dr, R. T. Gunther. The guests took tea afterwards in Exeter College Hall, following the route taken by the Duke of York and his retinue in 1683, after the original opening of the Museum. On May 22, a private luncheon-party assembled in Wadham College Hall, and a toast in memory of Elias Ashmole was submitted. Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who was among the guests, referred to the desirability of a fuller realisation of the value of historic science as an intellectual equipment and implement in current methods of education. In the course of the afternoon a lecture was delivered in the University Museum by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward on “Plot and Lhwyd and the Dawn of Geology”. A survey was given of the position of natural science in Great Britain and in other European countries in the seventeenth century. The studies of Plot and Lhwyd were described. From the preface of the former to his work “The Natural History of Oxfordshire: an Essay towards the Natural History of England”(1677), it would appear that Plot was of vigorous temperament. He says: “But as for the hot-headed, half-witted Censurer, who, perhaps, only looks on the Title of a Chapter, or here and there a paragraph that makes for his turn, I must and do expect the lash of his tongue.” The exhibition of objects of Ashmolean interest—especially those at the Bodleian Library in relation to Ashmole himself, and of great historic value—were a welcome form of dedication accompanying the celebrations.
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The Old Ashmolean, Oxford. Nature 131, 793–794 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131793d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131793d0