Royal Ontario Museum of Geology

Corporate body

Royal Ontario Museum of Geology

1912-1955

The Royal Ontario Museum was established in 1912 through the signing of the Royal Ontario Museum Act in Ontario legislature, and officially opened to the public in 1914. At the time of its opening it consisted of five separate museums, that of the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology (headed by C. Currelly), Palaeontology (headed by Dr. W.A. Parks), Mineralogy (headed by Dr. T.L. Walker), Zoology (headed by Dr. B.A. Bensley), and Geology (headed by Dr. A.P. Coleman). Each of these museum directors had been professors in their respective fields at the University of Toronto, with each department director granted no authority of decision, but merely recommendations to be presented by the secretary to the Board of Trustees.

The Royal Ontario Museum of Geology director A.P. Coleman's 1922 retirement brought in Dr. E.S. Moore as director. Moore would continue his directorship through a 1946 merging of the two Museums of Geology and Mineralogy, remaining director of the joint museums until his eventual retirement in 1949, where he would be succeeded by Dr. V.B. Meen. In the period prior to the merging of the two museums, the Royal Ontario Museum of Mineralogy passed from the directorship of Dr. T.L. Walker into that of Dr. A.L. Parsons from 1937, where he would remain until the 1946 merger. The Walker Mineralogical Club is founded in 1938.

Following a meeting of the Museum Board of Trustees, and joint determinations made by the government of Ontario and the University of Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum Act of 1947 dissolved the ROM as corporation, incorporating it rather into the administrative and financial control of the University of Toronto. This relationship would continue until the 1955 ammendment of the Royal Ontario Museum Act which would see the amalgamation of all component museums under a single director, beginning with T.A. Heinrich until his dismissal in 1962.

Following the 1955 amalgamation, the museums and their collections were organized into three divisions: the Division of Art and Archaeology, the Division of Geology and Mineralogy (later changed to Earth Sciences in 1959), and the Division of Zoology and Palaeontology (later changed to Life Sciences in ca. 1958), with a fourth Education Division, each with their respective division heads. V.B. Meen acted as head of the Division of Geology and Mineralogy from 1955 to 1959, and later the Division of Earth Sciences from 1959 to 1964. Each division additionally employed curators, associate curators, and preparators.

In July 1968 a new Royal Ontario Museum Act is passed to formalize the separation of the ROM and University of Toronto.

[ROM] Division of Geology & Mineralogy (1955-1963)

Royal Ontario Museum

ON00259

Final

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3/3/2023 E. Thomas (Creation)