More on the dinosaurs of the Booth Museum, Brighton

John A Cooper (UK)

The legacy of Gideon Mantell’s fossil collection, sold to the British Museum in 1833, would have been so much more significant to Brighton had he been successful in establishing a permanent Sussex scientific institute to house it. In his article, Gideon Mantel and the dinosaur relic, Rob Hope referred to his visit to the Booth Museum of Natural History during which he came across some dinosaur fossils, which could perhaps, he wondered, have belonged to Mantell. Far from it.

Gideon Mantell (Fig. 1)was very guarded about his fossil sites. Virtually everything he found came from ‘the Tilgate Forest’, now a small forest very close to modern day Crawley, in Sussex. However, even in Mantell’s time when it was much larger, the name didn’t cover many of the places where he actually found his fossils, such as Cuckfield.

By this means, he was able to put any other potential collectors off the scent and keep his sites secret. He was also jealous of the intellectual rights of his finds and wasn’t too keen on other people – ‘trespassers’ – looking for the fossils that were ‘his’. His American friend, Benjamin Silliman, a Professor at Yale University agreed:

It is hard indeed that you should be excluded by intruders from your own Tilgate Forest, your own and Mrs Mantell’s, certainly by the rights of discovery if not by the charters of kings…”

So, it comes as no surprise that he never befriended George Bax Holmes (1802 – 1887) of Horsham (Fig. 2), a town some 20 miles from Mantell’s base in Brighton. Horsham is built on the Tunbridge Wells Sandstone, the strata in which Mantell made all his important dinosaur discoveries. No doubt inspired by Mantell, Holmes looked for vertebrate fossils from his own home town and was generously rewarded for his efforts.

Mantell inspected Holmes’s collection in 1835 and recorded the visit in his journal, but with no comment. Only later did he refer to Holmes as “a sly Quaker”, thus making his feelings clear. However, Holmes – independently wealthy, with time on his hands – discovered important material, including not only the first humerus of Iguanodon – the first ‘monstrous lizard’ discovered by Mantell – but also the first jawbone. For the first time, this find demonstrated the true nature of the teeth of Iguanodon (Fig. 3), showing that they were successional, as in sharks. That is, old teeth fall out to be replaced by new ones growing in their place.

While Mantell published papers and books about his own fossils, Holmes did not – Quakers are quiet people, not inclined to self-aggrandisement. However, he did welcome the attentions of Richard Owen. In 1841/1842, the up and coming anatomist Owen was commissioned to investigate the ever-growing number of large reptilian fossils that were being found, mainly in the south of England.

Owen used Holmes’s collection, among others, to help him define the new fossil reptile group of the Dinosauria, becoming a very famous man and was later knighted by Queen Victoria. He published his researches widely, but too quickly made enemies of his fellow naturalists, including Mantell, who was furious that Holmes should rise to such prominence through Owen.

With his fossils appearing in Owen’s publications, Holmes became a significant figure in the history of dinosaur discoveries, but not perhaps as significant as he would have wished. Owen did not live up to his promises and did not use as many specimens as Holmes had hoped. It later became clear that Owen cared little for “mere collectors” like Holmes, who amassed specimens for great men like himself to interpret. In this way, he also succeeded in making an enemy out of Holmes, an enmity that resulted in threats by Holmes of legal action.

George Holmes died in 1887 and his collection was bought by the Brighton Town Council for the Town Museum. Edward Crane, the Curator, recognised its value and scientific worth, and cheerfully paid £55 – then the equivalent of a four-figure sum. The collection is now stored at the Booth Museum, though some of the specimens have been lent to Horsham Museum for exhibition.

And so the specimens that Rob Hope saw at the Booth Museum belong to the George Bax Holmes collection, contemporary with Mantell’s if not as large – and with a story to tell, all of its own.

About the author

John A Cooper was Keeper of the Booth Museum of Natural History and is currently Volunteer & Training Manager at the Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton.

Further reading

Gideon Mantel and the dinosaur relic, by Rob Hope (France)

Geology museums of Britain: The Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton, by Jon Trevelyan (UK)