The inscription on the corner of the
building reads:
This stone was laid
by
J. Passmore Edwards Esq
6 October 1898
Alderman William Grey
JP
Mayor
Alderman William Crow JP
Chairman of
Committee
The names of the Town Clerk, Builder
and Architects are shown along the bottom edge of the stone.
The Essex Field Club website [visit
link] tells us:
"In Romford Road, Stratford, is a
magnificent Grade 2 listed building that, for 94 years housed the fine natural
history collections of the Essex Field Club. In the 1990s, this collection
amounted to some 20,000 specimens including a unique collection of Essex rocks
and fossils.
The Essex Museum of Natural
History, or the Passmore Edwards Museum as it was known in later years, was one
of the finest provincial museums in the country and fulfilled one of the primary
objectives that the Field Club had set itself at its Foundation Meeting on 10th
January 1880 which was “to establish a museum to illustrate the fauna, flora,
geology, and natural productions of the county”. Opened in 1900 by the Countess
of Warwick, the museum was the result of a successful collaboration between the
Essex Field Club and West Ham Corporation (later to become the London Borough of
Newham). It was constructed at the same time, and by the same architect, as the
adjoining Municipal Technical Institute of West Ham. The building itself, and
its original fittings, was largely funded by John Passmore Edwards M.P. of
Salisbury, newspaper publisher and philanthropist. The museum was staffed by
volunteers from its beginning but the lack of a full time curator led to its
closure for some years after the Second World War. The museum reopened to the
public in 1953 and in 1956 a new agreement with the Corporation - then called
West Ham Borough – resolved the situation and thereafter the Borough
administered the museum and provided paid staff including, for many years, a
full-time geology curator. Fortunately the geology curator was in post during
the years when the M11 and M25 motorways were constructed in Essex and this led
to the remarkable geological sections along the routes of the motorways being
adequately recorded and great numbers of fossils collected which would otherwise
have been lost to science.
In the local government
reorganisation of the 1960s, West Ham Borough became the London Borough of
Newham who continued to run the Museum successfully for the next few decades.
However, in the 1990s, the Borough imposed sweeping changes to Newham’s museum
service which forced the permanent closure of the Passmore Edwards Museum as an
economy measure. The museum finally closed its doors to the public in 1994 after
nearly a century of service to the East London boroughs and Essex as a whole.
The loss of the valuable educational role that the museum provided in the field
of natural history is particularly to be regretted considering that in a densely
populated area like Newham there are far fewer opportunities to access the
countryside and learn about the natural world than in other parts of Essex that
still retain active museums.
Following closure of the Museum the
Essex Field Club’s vast collection of natural history specimens and its library
was put into storage by the Council. Any collection of historic objects,
particularly natural history and geological specimens, requires regular curation
and care to prevent chemical and biological attack and this was clearly not
possible after the museum’s closure. Therefore, in 2000, after lengthy
negotiations, the Club finally had its collection and library transferred to
more secure storage in central Essex. Curation and ready access for most of the
collection was still impossible, however, and the collection is still at risk,
but, at the time of writing (2007), there is hope that a permanent home will
soon be found.
The fine Passmore Edwards Museum
building in Romford Road still exists, the attractive red brick and limestone
architecture with its domed roof, still providing character to the street scene.
The building is now used by the adjacent former Technical Institute (now the
University of East London). Above the entrance doors can be seen a bronze relief
with the words ‘Passmore Edwards Museum’ and an image of the benefactor. The
impressive carved foundation stone, laid in 1898, is clearly visible from the
pavement, set into the brickwork on the left hand corner of the
building."