The fossils, rocks, minerals and archive material that you see on display in the Museum are just a small proportion of the more than 2 million items in our collections. Many are held in our Collections Research Centre on Madingley Rise in West Cambridge, where they are available for research and study. Find out more about the different areas of the Sedgwick Museum collections by visiting the Our Collections page.
The collections are of outstanding scientific and historical importance. They date from the 17th century and are still growing as research continues today. Important historic collections include those of John Woodward (1688-1728), Sir Abraham Hume (1749-1838), Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Alfred Harker (1859-1939), while our archive collection includes field notebooks, papers, maps and photographs charting the history of geology in Cambridge, including the records of the Sedgwick Club, the student society founded in 1880.
We welcome enquiries from researchers, students, artists and others who would like to use our collections. For general Collections enquiries please contact us to discuss how we can help you. For Archive specific enquiries please visit Archive Enquiries.
We are working to make our collections available online, but in the meantime our Collections Team can help with your enquiry. Further information about research enquiries can be found here.