A Danish Collector: Hans Schlesch

Hans Schlesch (1891 – 1962) was a conchologist.  A conchologist is someone who scientifically studies molluscs, with a special focus on their shells (rather than an interest in mollusc as whole organisms, that’s a malacologist).  He was mainly based in Copenhagen, Denmark although he also made research visits abroad including Iceland.

Hans Schlesch working on a shell collection c. 1950.
Image from Göteborgs Naturhistoriska Museum.

Schlesch became connected to Hull Museums through Thomas Sheppard, who was the first curator of Hull Museums.  Thomas Sheppard had an interest in Natural History and was editor of The Naturalist Journal, to which Hans Schlesch regularly contributed articles on Conchology.

Schlesch was a very generous benefactor to Hull Museums, donating many objects to the collections including a vast collection of molluscs as well as several flint axeheads, which have been mentioned in a previous post.  Schlesch regularly visited Hull Museums to catalogue the molluscs he had donated.  Some of these collections were destroyed during the Second World War, when the Albion Street Museum (also known as the Municipal Museum) caught fire during an air raid in 1943.

However, some of the collections including the Danish Neolithic stone tools survived World War 2 and continue to be studied and enjoyed.  If you’d like to explore Hans Schlesch’s collection you can find some of the objects he donated on the Hull Museums Collections website.