Edgar Albert Smith - in The British Museum

In The British Museum

Smith was employed at the British Museum (now Natural History Museum) as an Assistant Keeper of the Zoological Department for more than forty years, from 1867 to 1913. Edgar Smith's first work was in connection with the celebrated collection of shells made by Hugh Cuming and acquired by the Museum in 1846, at which he worked under Dr. John Edward Gray. From 1871 he was in immediate charge of the collection of molluscs, whilst till 1878 he was also responsible for the rest of the marine invertebrates with the exception of the Crustacea. On the removal of the natural history collections from Bloomsbury to South Kensington, the arrangement of the Molluscan Collection in the then new Natural History Museum was, of course, his peculiar care and was planned by him with a special eye to the convenience of the numerous students and amateur collectors who have not been slow to avail themselves of it. In 1895 Edgar Smith obtained his well-deserved promotion to the post of Assistant Keeper in the Zoological Department.