Britain's oldest public museum once housed a dodo and Guy Fawkes's own lantern

Art · Published 30 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is a storied institution that evolved from a 17th-century cabinet of curiosities into a world-class center for art and archaeology. From the remnants of an extinct bird to the lantern carried during the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, its collection captures centuries of human history and discovery.

Established in 1683, the Ashmolean holds the distinction of being Britain's first public museum. Its origins trace back to the collection of John Tradescant the Elder and his son, which Elias Ashmole gifted to the University of Oxford in 1677. The original building on Broad Street, now the Museum of the History of Science, once displayed eclectic specimens including the last stuffed dodo ever seen in Europe. By 1755, however, the dodo had succumbed to moths, leaving only its head and a single claw behind.

The museum's trajectory shifted dramatically under Sir Arthur Evans, who served as keeper from 1884 to 1908. Evans rescued the institution from a period of decline where half the original collection had been lost. With a £10,000 donation from Charles Drury Edward Fortnum, Evans expanded the University Galleries on Beaumont Street, moving the collection there in 1894. This site, designed by Charles Cockerell between 1841 and 1845, eventually merged with the Ashmolean in 1908 to form the modern institution.

Modern redevelopment has transformed the museum into a sprawling five-floor facility. A $98.2 million expansion, completed in 2009, doubled the display space and introduced new conservation studios. Today, the Ashmolean houses an extraordinary range of artifacts, from Michelangelo drawings and the Messiah Stradivarius to the Parian Marble—the earliest surviving Greek chronological table. Recent acquisitions, such as a 1645 William Dobson portrait and a 1420s Fra Angelico painting, ensure the collection remains a living record of global art and history.

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