The Earth and Natural World Collection contains geology, palaeontology, natural history and botany. The geology collection is very large and was established by gifts from Charles Gore and William Morris (founder of the Swindon Advertiser).

 

Geology

This collection includes local, British and international geology, including rocks and minerals. It includes:

• personal historic collections compiled by Charles Gore
• personal historic collections compiled by William Morris

Palaeontology

 

Including local pliosaur and plesiosaur bones, and many local and non-local fossils.

Natural history

 

A large and varied collection including many taxidermied birds and animals, boxed collections of butterflies and other insects, and boxed collections of shells. Many were used for the schools loans service in the 1980s. This collection includes:

• The Higginbotham Mollusca, a complete record of all Wiltshire molluscs
• The gharial, a large stuffed and preserved gharial, sometimes known as ‘Apsley, ‘the crocodile’, ‘Georgina’ or ‘Swindon croc’, and acquired by Swindon Museum in 1935

Botany

This comprises a single collection, The Todd Herbarium. It is made up of approximately 8000 pressed plant specimens from Wiltshire and elsewhere in the UK, collected in the 1920s by Emily Todd of Aldbourne, Wiltshire.