Ron Hedley

His 33 years of service were punctuated by one significant break when, in 1960-61, he was awarded a New Zealand National Research Fellowship at the Oceanographic Institute, Wellington. Here he became interested in the fine structure of testate amoebae, and this, on his return, led to the foundation of an electron microscope unit in the museum.

He published papers on the biology, cytology and systematics of protozoa, and their value was recognised in the award of a DSc by the University of Durham in 1968. He published three volumes on foraminifera with C. G. Adams (1974-78) and an Atlas of Testate Amoebae with C. G. Ogden (1980).

Hedley brought wide administrative experience to his directorship. He had been a manager in a large scientific department, responsible for the electron microscope and electronic data-processing units and for library services, and chairman of the staff association just before the museum’s separation from the British Museum, Bloomsbury, in 1963. He was to call on all this experience in the 1970s and 1980s as the museum entered an eventful period of innovation just as its government grant began to decline.

His predecessor, Sir Frank Claringbull, had developed far-reaching plans for extending the public galleries and introducing new exhibitions on modern biology. The first new exhibition, the Hall of Human Biology, opened in 1977 and was immediately controversial, both for its design and subject matter, despite great popularity with teachers and the public.

The controversy broadened to embrace the museum’s building plans and the use of cladistics — now a widely adopted and uncontroversial approach to the study of life’s diversity.

Space had been a problem since the museum moved to South Kensington in 1881, exemplified by the unexplained omission of a place for the storage and display of whales, so that a temporary structure had to be constructed in the garden to house these beasts. By the mid-1970s the Department of the Environment proposed solving the space problem by, among other things, demolishing single-storey galleries to the east and west of the museum’s Central and North Halls and replacing them with infill blocks several storeys high.

Planning and conservation bodies objected, leading the Government to announce a public inquiry into the proposal in 1978. Towards the end of the inquiry Hedley was called back unexpectedly to give evidence for a second time. Everyone was expecting short answers to a few supplementary questions. Instead, he took command and delivered a spontaneous, fluent and impassioned plea for the future of the museum. He was moving, deeply impressive and unstoppable, and it may well have been his finest hour.

The inspector recommended that the museum’s plans be allowed to proceed but the infill blocks were never built and the museum found other ways (still in train nearly 30 years later) to solve its space problem.

Happily, Hedley saw substantial improvements to public facilities (new lifts, better toilets, a new area for school parties and a cafeteria) before completing his term of office.

He had a deep love for Alfred Waterhouse’s building and understood that this robust masterwork could be adapted without suffering irreparable damage. But he could not accept that bodies set in the past should dictate the long-term strategy of an internationally important institution.

During his early years as director, the museum’s actions were criticised by academic biologists and geologists in sundry journals (notably Nature), magazines and newspapers, and occasional radio and TV programmes. Sideshows were provided by architectural historians, members of the Museums Association and traditionalists, who argued that the museum was a Victorian building with an Edwardian display (in fact it owed more to the 1950s) and should stay that way. Some disreputable charges were levelled: the exhibition department was said to be using the museum as a Trojan horse to introduce Marxism into the educational system or, as one headline said, was “in bed with Creationists”.

Hedley responded in characteristic ways. First, by demanding the facts from his staff; second, by thinking hard before acting; and third, by deploying his keen, often acerbic, sense of humour to withering effect when he felt that the museum’s importance and prestige were misunderstood.

A member of staff had once advised that he should “make haste slowly” in reforming the museum’s shops and publications. Rarely can Augustus’s words have fallen on more receptive ears, and they could easily have been his personal motto. Less fortunate was the policy of never publicly responding to criticism, which made the museum look weak and uncertain and served only to prolong disputes.

His directorship during these difficult years had its joyous and rewarding moments. In 1980 the museum won the National Heritage Museum of the Year Award for its first three new-style exhibitions. In 1981 it celebrated 100 years in South Kensington with a year of publications and activities.

The central event, on May 27, was a visit by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to view a new exhibition, Origin of Species.

Hedley was soon active once more behind the scenes, helping to persuade the Geological Survey, which had moved to Keyworth in Nottinghamshire, to hand the neighbouring Geological Museum to the care of the Natural History rather than the Science Museum. This happened in 1985 and, since the exhibitions of the two museums were largely complementary, opened the way for an integrated exposition of natural history in South Kensington.

Yet for all its achievements, the museum was ill-equipped to face the challenges of Thatcher’s market reforms. Tight control of spending was passively met, with work reduced, posts abolished or left unfilled, and money diverted from public facilities to basic care of collections.

Hedley responded by reforming the senior management structure, giving a voice to younger staff. The new management team, under his benign chairmanship, produced in 1986 the museum’s first corporate plan. This proposed radical action to gain greater financial independence. Hedley controversially introduced admission charges the following year. He also decided that the museum should seek sponsorship, improve its public facilities and promote the marketing of its publications and expertise.

He recruited new trustees from the business world, and a little later created the Natural History Museum Development Trust. Success came quickly, with science departments attracting sponsorship and grants from research councils and the European Union.

Hedley saw that a balance between public galleries and the other collections and research would always be difficult to strike. Maintaining collections of more than 60 million specimens and a large curatorial and research staff has limited appeal outside the museum but it is crucial, especially at a time when the environment and biodiversity had become significant concerns.

Admission charges were later abolished, but the more accommodating approach to the museum’s various publics has endured as perhaps Hedley’s greatest legacy. As he and the chairman of trustees recognised in their next report to Parliament, a new sense of purpose had begun to infiltrate all aspects of the museum’s work.

One of the first fruits of commercial sponsorship was the First Impressions exhibition, mounted in 1988 to celebrate the Australian bicentennial. Based on the museum’s incomparable holdings of prints and paintings from early British voyages of discovery, it travelled to Australia after its London showing for a year-long tour. Hedley travelled to Melbourne for the Australian opening by the Queen, one of his last official duties before retirement.

He was a qualified football referee and an enthusiastic supporter of the museum’s sports and social club, and he could always be relied on to know the latest Test match score.

Hedley’s appointments included: visiting lecturer in microbiology, University of Surrey, 1968-75; member of council, Fresh Water Biological Association, 1972-76; president of the British section, Society of Protozoology 1975-78; member of council, Marine Biological Association, 1976-80; honorary secretary of the Zoological Society of London, 1977-80; vice-president of the Zoological Society of London, 1980-85; and member of council, Royal Albert Hall, 1977-80. He was appointed as CB in 1988.

He is survived by his wife, Valmai, and their son.

Ron Hedley, CB, protozoologist and museum director, was born on November 2, 1928. He died on July 11, 2006, aged 77.