Robert Edmond Grant was the first Chair of Zoology in England, the founder of the Grant Museum collection and its first curator. He set the precedent that the Chair of Zoology at UCL (then the University of London) was also the curator of the comparative zoology collection. On his death Grant left his own collection to the museum, and was briefly succeeded by William Henry Allchin before care of the collection passed to invertebrate zoologist Edwin Ray Lankester in 1875. Lankester was curator until 1891 and added significantly to the museum collection. Later lecturer curators included evolutionary biologist W. F. R. Weldon Edward Alfred Minchin[9], embryologist J. P. Hill and palaeontologist D. M. S. Watson. After 1948 the curatorship of the museum was no longer the responsibility of the Chair of Zoology and the museum was under the care of professional curators.
