6. Founding the Museum

In 1831 Saull moved his business to larger premises at 15 Aldersgate Street. That April he bought James Sowerby’s fossils, added them to his own, and in June declared his wine-depot museum open. In these months, Reform Bill fever was running high. Henry Hetherington started his class-conscious Poor Man’s Guardian, and the museum fossils, arranged stratigraphically, were to show Hetherington’s dispossessed “scum” how life’s perfecting principle promised a brighter future. Accordingly, where Sowerby’s museum had had a hefty entrance fee, Saull’s was free; nor were letters of introduction needed. He invited radical artisans (men and women), Rotunda dissidents and Trades’ Union activists. Thus the museum, in its clientele and accessibility, broke all precedents, while in its rationalist explanation of life, to ready the “productive classes” for power, it was unique. Meanwhile Saull’s political lobbying, at the Guildhall and in the National Political Union, continued in support of the Reform Bill. To coincide with the museum opening, Saull, still on bail and under threat of prosecution for blasphemy, stopped publicly attacking Christianity, but continued it under the rubric of his newly-started geology lectures. He now moved completely into Robert Owen’s camp. Saull helped establish Owen’s Labour Exchange, and sat on the council of Owen’s “Institution of the Industrious Classes”, where he delivered geology courses.