Macleay Museum

Macleay Museum
	Edgeworth David Building that houses the Macleay Museum
Former name	Museum of Antiquities
Established	1887
Dissolved	22 November 2016
Location	Science Road, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
Coordinates	33°53′07″S 151°11′17″E / 33.8852°S 151.1881°E
Type	Natural history museum
Collections	Colonial/Australian entomology; Colonial/Australian ethnography; Scientific instruments and apparatus; Colonial/Australian historic photographs;
Collection size	79,000+
Founder	Alexander Macleay; William Sharp Macleay; William John Macleay;
Director, University Museums	David Ellis; (since 2013)
Curator	Jan Brazier (History); Rebecca Conway (Ethnography); Anthony Gill (Natural History);
Architect	George Allen Mansfield
Owner	The University of Sydney
Website	sydney.edu.au/museums/collections/macleay.shtml
New South Wales Heritage Database; (Local Government Register)
Official name	Macleay Museum; Macleay Museum Building, University of Sydney Including Interior
Type	Local government heritage (built)
Criteria	a., c., d., e., f.
Designated	14 December 2012
Reference no.	I79
Type	Education
Category	University

The Macleay Museum at The University of Sydney, was a natural history museum located on the University's Camperdown campus, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The museum was dissolved in 2016 and upon opening of the Chau Chak Wing Museum in 2020, its collections were amalgamated into it.^[1]

The Macleay Museum was added to the City of Sydney local government heritage list on 14 December 2012.^[2]^[3]

History

The Edgeworth David building in which the museum was housed was built off Science Lane within the Camperdown campus in 1887. The collections were based largely on the efforts and acquisitions of the Macleay family, one of the pre-eminent families in colonial Sydney including Alexander Macleay, William Sharp Macleay and William John Macleay. The zoologist and collector George Masters served as curator until 1912.^[4]

Collection

The strengths of the collection, now part of the Sydney University Museums, were in entomology, ethnography, scientific instruments, and historic photographs. Many of the biological specimens in the collection represented rare or extinct species, while some of the specimens have historic and cultural value^[5] as they were collected by explorers like Charles Darwin and Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay.

The George Masters Exhibition Space of the museum was devoted to temporary exhibitions. Overall, the museum housed one of the most important natural history and ethnography collections in Australia,^{[citation needed]} surpassed in Sydney only by the Australian Museum.