| Activity | When the 13th Earl of Derby died in 1851, he left his natural history collection to the town of Liverpool. The town council arranged for the collection to be moved to a hastily built museum on the corner of Slater Street and Parr Street, not far from the docks. The mayor of Liverpool declared the new Derby Museum of the Borough of Liverpool open on 18 March 1853. It was renamed the Liverpool Free Public Museum in 1860, and it opened to the public exactly a year later on 18 October 1861.
The museum was one of a group of museums and galleries that were ’nationalised’ on 1 April 1986 under the new organisation, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, now called National Museums Liverpool.
The museum’s ground-breaking Natural History Centre opened on 1 August 1987. It was the first hands-on centre in a museum and has been imitated across the globe.
The museum was renamed World Museum on 29 April 2005
Tring correspondent |