January 24, 2014 11.15 am This story is over 122 months old

Sir David Attenborough to open Lincoln exhibition

A great endeavour: Sir David Attenborough is set to open a Lincoln exhibition celebrating the Lincolnshire explorer and botanist Sir Joseph Banks.
Photo: BBC

The Collection museum in Lincoln will host a celebration of the great Lincolnshire explorer naturalist and botanist Sir Joseph Banks – and Sir David Attenborough is set to open the exhibition.

Joseph Banks, A Great Endeavour: a Lincolnshire Gentleman and his Legacy is hosted in partnership with the Sir Joseph Banks Society and its Executive Director Dr Neil Chambers.

The exhibition will open officially on February 14 by the broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough during a private event.

A great endeavour: This portrait of Joseph Banks, showing the explorer surrounded by artefacts he brought back to England, is to be the focus of an exhibition at The Collection in Lincoln. Photo: LCC

A great endeavour: This portrait of Joseph Banks, showing the explorer surrounded by artefacts he brought back to England, will be the focus of an exhibition at The Collection in Lincoln. Photo: LCC

The three-month exhibition, which has been made possible thanks to nearly £140,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, will then open to the public on 15 February.

Andrea Martin from The Collection said: “The exhibition will centre on Benjamin West’s portrait of the explorer surrounded by artefacts he brought back to England after he accompanied Captain James Cook on his first Pacific Ocean voyage aboard the Endeavour between 1768 and 1771.

“Examples include a cloak from New Zealand and a headdress from Tahiti, along with images made by artists of the people, plants and animals that they saw on the journey.

“Much of the material will rarely have been seen in Lincolnshire before, and it is a great privilege for us to borrow objects and drawings from many museums across the country, including the British Library, British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

“And we’re delighted that David Attenborough has agreed to open the exhibition.”

David Attenborough added: “I am looking forward to opening the Banks Exhibition at The Collection in Lincoln on 14 February 2014.

“Young Joseph Banks’s voyage on the Endeavour in 1768 to 1771 set the scene for much in the world of botany and of natural sciences.

“The Collection and the Sir Joseph Banks Society have done well to bring together samples from round the world.

”This will be the first and only time when they will be seen in Lincolnshire, the home county of Banks.”

There will also be educational material, family activity days and lectures to accompany the exhibition, which runs until 11 May.