Manchester Museum is the UK’s leading university museum and a proud part of The University of Manchester. The origins of The Manchester Museum lie in the collection of the Manchester manufacturer and collector John Leigh Philips (1761-1814). After his death, a small group of wealthy men banded together to buy his 'cabinet', and in 1821 they set up the Manchester Natural History Society. The museum was the major focus of the Society, and it was housed from 1835 in grand premises on Peter Street. The collections continued to grow as members and others donated objects from around the world. In 1850 the museum absorbed the collections of the Manchester Geological Society. By the 1860s the Natural History Society had little money and the building was full. The museum was transferred in 1868 to Owens College, which later became the University of Manchester. The College asked the famous architect Alfred Waterhouse to design a museum building, which was opened to the public in 1890. Waterhouse also designed Manchester's Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London. Now known as the 'Manchester Museum', the collections were used by many people, from Owens College professors to schoolchildren. Many more objects were donated and the Museum was extended in 1912-1913 and again in 1927. These new buildings, designed by Waterhouse's son and grandson, displayed new ethnographic and Egyptology collections. They were funded largely by Jesse Haworth, a local textile merchant and keen Egyptologist. Over the twentieth century, the collection was split into archery, archaeology, botany, Egyptology, entomology, ethnography, mineralogy, palaeontology, numismatics and zoology, as well as live specimens in the aquarium and vivarium. Overall, the collection grew to six million items, and the staff expanded from four 'keepers' to over 70 museum professionals. Many of these were world-class scholars, and the Museum was the site for cutting-edge research in the natural sciences and humanities.