The museum’s spring exhibition in 2009 celebrated an important local connection to Darwin’s work and the study of the evolution of species.

Entitled ‘The Bird Man from Lyme Regis - John Gould and Charles Darwin’ the exhibition celebrated the life of John Gould, a famous son of Lyme.

He was born in Lyme Regis in 1804 and like his father, became a gardener at Windsor Castle.  But he had his sights set on greater things and moved to London where he set up business as a taxidermist. His knowledge of animals developed and in 1827 he joined the staff of the Zoological Society of London, becoming their Curator of Birds and the leading ornithologist of his day.

In 1837 he worked with Darwin on the classification and relationships of mocking birds, finches and ostriches from South America and the Galapagos. This was one of the foundations for Darwin’s work on evolution by natural selection.  In the following year he travelled to Australia to study their birds, which were almost entirely unrecorded at the time.  This made him the ‘father of Australian ornithology’.

Gould is best known for the wonderful coloured illustrations of birds that he produced. In total, he published almost 3000 large hand-coloured lithographs of birds, covering almost the whole world.

The exhibition enabled visitors to find out more about this fascinating man and his art.  It showed his production methods and the work of the other artists he employed, including Edward Lear.  Visitors were able to discover that Lyme’s contribution to understanding evolution is not just to be found in its famous fossils.